The Pulaski Skyway is a four-lane bridge-causeway in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey, carrying an expressway designated U.S. Route 1/9 (US 1/9) for most of its length. The structure has a total length of . Its longest bridge spans . Traveling between Newark and Jersey City, the roadway crosses the Passaic and Hackensack rivers, Kearny Point, the peninsula between them, and the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Designed by Sigvald Johannesson, the General Casimir Pulaski Skyway opened in 1932 as the last part of the Route 1 Extension, one of the first controlled-access highways or "super-highways" in the United States, to provide a connection to the Holland Tunnel. One of several major projects built during the reign of Hudson County political boss Frank Hague, its construction was a source of political and labor disputes. The viaduct is listed in the state and federal registers of historic places.
Unpredictable traffic congestion and its functionally obsolete design make the Skyway one of the most unreliable roads in the United States. , the bridges handle about 74,000 crossings per day, none of which were by trucks since they had been barred from the road in 1934. The bridges have been altered little since opening. In 2007, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) began a rehabilitation program, which it estimated would cost more than $1 billion and required intermittent closures. The Skyway was closed to eastbound traffic from 2014 to 2018.
Description
Sources differ on the length and terminal points of the skyway, which was built as part of the long Route 1 Extension. The National Bridge Inventory identifies the Hudson County section as long and the Essex County section as . In a historic roadway and bridge study for NJDOT, it was described as long. NJDOT has indicated the overall length of the bridge structures to be and identified the Hudson County section as long. Other sources, along with the National Register of Historic Places, The New York Times, and The Star-Ledger, describe it as being long.
The four-lane skyway carries the US 1/9 concurrency for most its length, and a short section of Route 139 for the rest. While the skyway generally runs east–west between Newark and Jersey City, US 1 and US 9 are generally north–south routes. The west end of the skyway begins as US 1/9 roadway ascends and passes over Raymond Boulevard in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. At Tonnele Circle, US 1/9 exits to grade and follows Tonnele Avenue north towards the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge as Route 139 begins on the skyway, over the traffic circle. While the road continues to the Holland Tunnel, the skyway soon comes to its eastern end at a cut in Bergen Hill, just west of John F. Kennedy Boulevard, where Route 139 runs under the viaduct of Route 139U (the upper level). In addition to crossing the Hackensack and the Passaic, the skyway also passes over, not under, the Chaplain Washington-Harry Laderman Bridges and the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95), with which it has no interchange. Under most of the skyway in Newark is other vehicular, rail, maritime, and industrial infrastructure built on landfilled wetlands of the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Some maps, including one of Newark (1938) and one of Elizabeth (1967), labeled the US 1/9 southern approach starting north of Newark Airport as the Pulaski Skyway. An NJDOT single line diagram (2010) shows the General Pulaski Skyway starting at mile post 49.00 of U.S. 1/9, which is just north of the renamed Newark Liberty International Airport. Google Maps includes the Route 139 eastern approach.
There is limited intermediate access to the skyway: two single-lane ramps rise to the inner lanes of the elevated structure, requiring traffic to enter or exit from the left providing access at the Marion Section (southbound entrance and northbound exit only) of Jersey City and South Kearny (northbound entrance and southbound exit only).
Trucks have been prohibited for the "safety and welfare of the public" since 1934 because of the state's approval of a local ordinance that was championed by Frank Hague, mayor of Jersey City. They are detoured to use U.S. Route 1/9 Truck, along the route of the Lincoln Highway that carried traffic before the skyway's construction. Pedestrians and cyclists cannot use the road as there are no dedicated bicycle lanes or sidewalks. The speed limit on the skyway is , but is generally not enforceable as there is nowhere for police to pull over speeders because of the absence of shoulders.