New Jersey Route 71
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|||||||||
| Route 71 |
|||||||||
| Maintained by NJDOT | |||||||||
| Length: | 16.78 mi[1] (27.00 km) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formed: | 1953 | ||||||||
| South end: |  NJ 35 in Brielle |
||||||||
| Major junctions: |
 NJ 33 in Neptune NJ 36 in West Long Branch |
||||||||
| North end: | NJ 35 in Eatontown |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
Route 71 is a state highway in New Jersey, United States, running 16.78 miles (27.00 kilometers) near the shore in Monmouth County. It begins at Route 35 in Brielle, just north of the Manasquan River and the Ocean County line, and heads north to Route 35 in Eatontown, with a four-block concurrency with Route 35 in Belmar. Route 71 was the original north-south main road in the area, and in some areas it is the first of four alignments (Route 35, Route 79 and U.S. Route 9 are all newer).
Contents |
[edit] Route description
Route 71 begins at a rather complicated interchange with Route 35 in Brielle, built ca. 1950 to replace an at-grade split. (The at-grade split survives to the south, with the continuation of Route 71 and Higgins Avenue.) Route 71 heads through Brielle, Manasquan, Sea Girt, Spring Lake Heights and Wall Township into Belmar on a two-lane road, named H Street in Belmar. At 12th Avenue in Belmar it merges with the four-lane Route 35, which widens to six lanes along the Route 71 concurrency. This short section of Route 35, from 12th Avenue to Eighth Avenue, is part of the original ca. 1920 Route 4.
Route 71 turns east at Eighth Avenue to cross New Jersey Transit's North Jersey Coast Line, and turns north on F Street, crossing the Shark River into Avon-by-the-Sea on a drawbridge. It then heads north through Bradley Beach, Neptune Township (meeting Route 33 at its east end), Asbury Park, Loch Arbour, Allenhurst, Deal, Long Branch, West Long Branch (crossing Route 36), and Oceanport to end at Route 35 in Eatontown.
[edit] History
The road that is now Route 71 was taken over by the state ca. 1920 as part of pre-1927 Route 4, the main road from near Atlantic City to Rahway. In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, most of the old Route 4 kept its number as part of the new Route 4, from Cape May to the George Washington Bridge. But the new Route 4 took a shortcut between South Amboy and Lakewood Township. The cut-off section of old Route 4 became Route 35, but even Route 35 was legislated along a new alignment between Eatontown and Belmar.
The old Route 4 between Eatontown and Belmar thus kept its number, and was assigned Route 4N by the New Jersey State Highway Department. In 1929 the definition of Route 35 was amended to remove Manasquan, allowing for a new alignment between Belmar and Brielle. The section north of Belmar was taken over and built ca. 1928, and the part south of Belmar was built ca. 1932.
In the meantime, U.S. Route 9 had been signed in 1927. The new cutoff of Route 4 had not been built yet (it was completed ca. 1929), and so the original US 9 used Routes 35 and 4N. Ca. 1928, it was moved onto the new Route 35 north of Belmar, and ca. 1929 it was moved to the new Route 4 between South Amboy and Lakewood.
In the 1953 renumbering, all suffixes were eliminated, and Route 4N became Route 71.
