monitor

As has rt1flea, I have traveled this route hundreds of times over the years having done much business at Oxford Valley and having relatives living right off Oxford Valley Road in Yardley. He and I both know that on Sunday evening in the summer this is a famous "suicide route" and one does not dare attempt the Turnpike below the 8A split.

And he has gotten it exactly correct. His is the best way to go while keeping an ear to NJ101.5 and the various NY AM stations listed above for any irregularities which will determine the last leg (the crossings).

And had the OP consulted me about this before running off and scheduling the Waldorf on Sunday night, I certainly would have advised him to fall in along the way from Sesame Place that evening instead of driving into the City. Instead, he just sent me a spread sheet with his itinerary after he had firmed all of his plans fait accompli and shame on me, it did not register that he was attempting to come up on Sunday evening. I even started to give him directions to get in to the City and told him that I had stopped because I did not know where he was coming from in NJ.

I do recall more than once requesting detailed directions from him when we needed to get around in El Paso.

Dugernaut

Anyone else disappointed that this thread doesn't have Live blogging from the OP?

A friend just made the trip from the Jersey Shore to JFK in record time this afternoon.

Good luck JFE! The sour weather should be in your favor.

dchristiva

I second this recommendation! Let's not let everyone in on it, please.

monitor

I've been commuting on that hiway for thirty years having had offices in Princeton and New Brunswick and I have yet to see an increase in the percentage of slow drivers in the truck lanes. It does not matter if you publicize it since the people that you don't want in there with you will not come in anyhow because they are afraid of driving with the big trucks.

Anybody who appears to really be trying to roll out in the middle is really just an amateur who hits that road once a year, especially the Japanese sporty cars, the Mercs, and even an occasional Porsche. My observation is that guys who really want to move in the truck lanes are frequently driving Saabs or BMW 3s & 5s or, strange as it seems, Nissan Altimas.

As an aside, I wonder how the OP did last night.

dchristiva

Yes, I was just kidding. I suspect those who don't mind the trucks will venture into those lanes, and those that don't, well, they can continue to muddle along in the car lanes.

Landing Gear

I wonder what going south would be like on a Sunday. I may have to do that in a few weeks.

monitor

The toughest part will be getting out of the City. The tunnels are jammed after about 3PM.

Once in NJ, it should not be bad, altho the Tpke is always a wild card at the end of the split. I do not think that the GSP would be much trouble but going south, I would avoid Rte 1 From 18 at New Brunswick to Quakerbridge. For some reason, the backups are alway worse in that direction.

Landing Gear

I've got a family thing to do in August. It's on a Sunday for religious reasons but it's only as far south as Exit 9 on the Turnpike.

For me the route will be VZ Bridge to S.I. Expressway to either Goethals or Outerbridge to the Turnpike.

How nightmarish can this get? How about the way home?

monitor

Landing Gear should have no trouble getting to New Brunswick on a summer Sunday morning. It is going home that will give him the heartburn.

At the normally busy times, such as Sunday afternoon, the SI Xway eastbound is generally a road to avoid. If you are going to Bklyn, Queens, or even LI, it is frequently better to go thru the City, Holland Tunnel to Battery Tunnel, however counter-instinctive that might seem. If the Narrows Bridge is a must, it also can sometimes be better to go right from the Outerbridge thru SI on the streets, using Hylan Blvd for most of the trip.

Listening to the traffic reports is important so that if there is the usual jam up in SI, you can decide if the Holland is worth the trip and whether to take the Tpke all the way in or go over to the Skyway for the last leg. There are times when one is crowded and the other is not too bad.

For the info of the gang on this thread, the OP saw all the rain on Sunday and decided to extend the hospitality of his brother-in-law in South Jersey instead of going to Sesame Place. He remarked that when he headed to New York that evening, he had very little trouble and the roads were nowhere near as crowded as he had been led to expect.

Little did he know that he had backed into the rainy summer Sunday strategy of not approaching the City until late in the day when all of the beach and shore people had finished their early rainy-day return trips and the shoobies had never left town after looking out the window in the morning.

jfe

Well, I have to say that it wasn't as bad as everybody suggested it would be.

I was going to drive from Sesame Street, but we ended up not going, so I took off from Turnersville around 4:00 p.m.

I was in Manhattan by 6 p.m. , and the Lincoln tunnel was no more than 15 minutes

I guess I got lucky