What's with all of the construction at Wrangleboro Road and the Black Horse Pike -- and are they actually doing anything there?

You've probably seen it -- endless rows of orange construction barrels, blinking arrows, lane closures, and backed-up traffic at Wrangleboro Road and the Black Horse Pike in Hamilton Township. But it doesn't actually look like they're doing anything to warrant all of these traffic obstructions.

They will be shortly.

Wrangleboro Road and the Black Horse Pike, Hamilton Township - Photo: Chris Coleman/Townsquare Media
Wrangleboro Road and the Black Horse Pike, Hamilton Township - Photo: Chris Coleman/Townsquare Media
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The Gravelly Run Square shopping center is being built on a recently cleared lot just off of this intersection. The almost 300,000-square-foot shopping center that will sit on almost 48 acres of land will certainly add traffic to what is an already very congested stretch of highway that frequently backs-up.

To alleviate some of the congestion, crews will soon extend Wrangleboro Road beyond the jughandle to connect with Volunteer Way, which is currently a dead end road that runs behind the Wawa and Shore Toyota on the Pike. This (eventual) road construction is the cause of what appears to be an over abundance of lane closures and traffic cones dotting the landscape now and why you sit in traffic trying to get from one side of the mall to the other.

But that raises another question -- does putting Wrangleboro Road-level traffic onto a side street (Volunteer Way), which eventually meets with McKee Avenue (home of one of the worst traffic lights in South Jersey as far as I'm concerned), make sense? If you have ever tried to make a left turn out of the side of Canal's parking lot, you know it isn't always easy. Adding what could be a significant number of cars to the McKee Avenue and Black Horse Pike intersection isn't going to solve any problems one way or another.

And here's another idea: maybe it's time to make the Black Horse Pike three lanes wide around all of these shopping centers.

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