Ending the 4th of July in a 23-mile Traffic Jam on NJ’s Garden State Parkway

A Perfect Holiday Weekend at the Jersey Shore

Holy cow, what a 4th of July weekend we had at the Jersey Shore.

I think it's safe to say that everything we could have possibly hoped for actually came true over the past several days. We had a major holiday fall on a Friday, which gave just about everyone a long holiday weekend. The weather was absolutely spectacular, the ocean was clean, and everyone was ready to have a great time.

Hopefully, if you're a business owner down here, you're rolling in money after the past few days. We needed a good financial shot in the arm. Certainly, the parking lot owners in the Wildwoods got their share as people were paying $50 to $70 to park (I'm in no way bashing them -- that's just simple supply and demand dictating the market price).

4th of July Traffic in NJ

Leading up to the holiday, AAA said at least 2 million New Jerseyans would be driving 50 miles or more. Apparently, all 2 million people headed down here. Or at least it seemed that way.

We kicked things off on Thursday as folks got a quick jump on the weekend with a heavy amount of traffic, which spilled into Friday. Truth be told, we've seen worse.

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Ocean City Fireworks Draw Massive Crowds

And then there was Friday evening.

Normally, I visit Ocean City to catch their 4th of July fireworks show, but before I went this year, I watched a live camera on the boardwalk by the Music Pier just to see how many people were in the city. I honestly don't recall ever seeing that many people up on the boardwalk. I mean, you could hardly see the boards that people were walking on.

Traffic Piled Up for Miles

Saturday afternoon, I had to drive from our station in Northfield down into lower Cape May County and I saw 7 miles of traffic trying to use Parkway Exit 25 to get into Ocean City.

Thank goodness there was a really expensive sign to tell me what I already knew...

That was met with another multi-mile backup at Exit 17 for Sea Isle City, then another at Exit 13 for Avalon.

Sunday's Big Backups on the Garden State Parkway

And then on Sunday, I got to experience just about everyone leaving the shore at the same time by way of sitting in 23 miles of backed-up traffic from around Exit 6 in the Wildwoods all the way up to Exit 29 for Somers Point.

As a local, I know not to use the Parkway (or Route 9 or Route 47 or Route 347 or Route 50 or Route 55 on a weekend), but this time I didn't have much choice, so I spent the better part of 90 minutes trying to escape Cape May County at a blistering 3 MPH.

And, luckily, there was another really expensive sign to state the obvious...

It was nothing but cars for as far as I could see. This was in the Ocean City area...

And traffic was all crawling over the Great Egg Harbor Bridge...

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...which made me wonder several times exactly why they widened the entire length of the Garden State Parkway except in Cape May County. I mean, if you want to go north out of Cape May County, this is your only major road and it's two stinkin' lanes. C'mon!

Regardless of the traffic, this was one of the most incredible 4th of Julys we've had in as long as I can remember. I haven't seen anyone complaining about unruly teenagers causing problems or fights breaking out or anything. Really, the biggest complaints that I've seen on Facebook are about people putting up giant canopies and tents on the beaches and the trash that got left behind.

If that's the worst we had to deal with for the 4th of July, then I think we all did pretty darn well.

Unless the person in front of you put up a 3-story-tall tent in front of your spot on the beach...