Toll of Commuting: Perth Amboy residents feel trapped when Route 440 traffic reaches residential streets
“After 5 p.m., we can’t leave or come back to our house."
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Traffic on Route 440 often piles up for miles on summer nights as far back as Woodbridge and again right before the Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island. Perth Amboy residents say it’s creating highway-level traffic on their residential roads.
It’s something of a “traffic hack” when 440 northbound piles up to take the Harding Avenue exit and cut through Perth Amboy neighborhoods, reconnecting right before the bridge. But residents say these roads can't handle the volume, becoming just as congested as the highway.
“After 5 p.m., we can’t leave or come back to our house," said resident Cole Llewellyn. "It’s just not right.”
“It’s going to add another, probably 20 or 30 minutes in addition to the 5 to 10 minutes it would have normally taken," said resident Albert Dickerson IV.
The problem areas include Harding Avenue, Pfeiffer Boulevard, Krochmally Avenue and Keene Street.
“Now it’s the apps [are] saying, ‘Hey, go this way, you can save three minutes going this way or that way," said Perth Amboy Police Chief Larry Cattano. "But what does that three minutes mean, and what is its impact to others?”
Route 440 bottlenecks to two narrow lanes at the bridge. Chief Cattano says cashless tolling - implemented in 2019 by the Port Authority - hasn’t sped things up.
“What we have to do now is manage and mitigate the traffic as we can with the officers out there to push traffic through when we need to," Cattano said. "Stay on 440 so you’re not jamming up the side streets.”
Perth Amboy Mayor Helmin Caba’s office told News 12 that he is aware of the traffic concerns and has been in communication with the Port Authority. The agency did not respond to a News 12 inquiry on a 2022 study to widen the bridge lanes.
The 98-year-old Outerbridge Crossing is set for $336 million of rehabilitation in the coming years, with a new bridge said to be in the cards for the 2036-2045 capital plan.
“They’ve been talking about building a new bridge since I was 17," Llewellyn said. "I am 47.”
