Skip to Main Content

The Newark Experience

"World's Busiest Intersection"


For many years the corner of Broad and Market was considered the busiest traffic intersection in the world. Larger Image

Schedules

New Jersey Transit Train Schedules
Newark Light Rail
New Jersey Transit site: current schedules, fares, map, and connections.
New Jersey Transit Bus Schedules

Transportation Planning

Newark Master Plan: Mobility Element
Prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering. June 2012. "This Mobility Element was prepared for the 2012 revision to the Newark Master Plan...The Mobility Element describes the City's existing Transportation system, issues and needs and prepares the city for growth through 2035."
North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority: Newark
The NJTRA is the federally authorized Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the 13-county northern New Jersey region. Newark is a designated subregion. Links to transportation projects in Newark; studies and Data; and specific GIS transporation data relating to Newark.
Division of Traffic and Signals
A division of the Newark City Engineering Department, "the mission of Traffic and Signals is to provide comprehensive planning, development, construction management, replacement and operation of the City's transportation infrastructure to ensure the safety and rideability of City streets."

Getting Around: Transportation

or
Transportation to and around Newark: From the Beginning
Public Service Trolleys
Four Corners Traffic Tower
Subways
Hudson Tubes
Buses
Bridges
I 78
Route 280
New Jersey Central Railroad
Lehigh Valley Railroad
Broad Street Station
Pennsylvania Station
Newark Airport
Port Newark
Other Transport

Transportation to and around Newark

The City of Newark Archives and Records Management Center has the records of the Committee on Streets and Highways from 1836 to 1907.

"Development of Transportation Networks in New Jersey From the Colonial Era Until 1946,"
IN The New Jersey Historic Bridge Survey. Prepared by A.G. Lichtenstein & Associates, Inc. for the New Jersey Department of Transporation Bureau of Environmental Analysis, September 1994, pp. 24-52.
Transportation and the Shaping of the Physical Environment in an Urban Place: Newark, 1820-1900
James O. Drummond. Thesis (Ph.D), New York University, 1979.
Focuses on "the role of transportation in the ascendancy and decline of this major American industrial city during the nineteenth century." Available?
"The Beginnings of the Morris & Essex Railroad,"
Joseph F. Folson. Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society. New Series Vol. 1, No. 2, 1916. pp. 60-71.
"The First Commuters From Morris County,"
Thomas T. Taber. New Jersey History 85(2), Summer 1967, 86-99.
Commuting from Morristown to Newark in the first half of the 19th century. From the Morris Turnpike to the Morris and Essex Railroad Horse Car, to the Morris and Essex Railroad. Available?
Report and Map of the Improvements Proposed by the Essex Public Road Board in Essex County, New Jersey
Newark, N.J., Printed at Newark Evening Courier Office, 1869.
"The problem...that presented itself to the Board for solution was, to provide the most easy, direct and ample road-facilities between Newark and the surrounding towns, and thence to the more remote sections of the county."
Report of the Committee on Streets and Highways
Conference on Interurban Improvement of Newark and Adjacent Municipalities. Newark, N.J., City Plan Commission, 1915.
The Energy People: A History of PSE&G.
James C.G.Conniff and Richard Conniff. Newark, Public Service Electric and Gas Company, 1978.
History of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey and its founder and long-time president Thomas McCarter. At the turn of the 20th century utilities were primarily transport providers; Newark's Public Service Corporation came to be the major provider of intra and inter-city transportation services--trolley, electric rail, bus and ferry--not only in Newark but throughout New Jersey. Available?
Transportation Lines Connecting Newark and New York
Roads, train lines, tubes, tunnels, ferries, etc. in 1920. From the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Report on Traffic and Transportation in the City of Newark and Vicinity
Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade & Douglas. Newark, 1927. Available?
Street Traffic Survey and Proposed Improvements, Newark, New Jersey
Newark, N.J., Department of Public Safety, 1939. Available?
City of Newark, Appellant, v. New Jersey Turnpike Authority
U.S. Supreme Court transcript of record with supporting pleadings. Facsimile reprint of 1951 documents. Available?
Newark Area Transportation Study: A Study of Population, Land-Use, Employment and Circulation Trends as they Affect Emerging Transportation Needs in the Newark Area
Trenton, N.J., Dept. of Conservation and Economic Development, 1959. Available?
Newark Transportation Study: Basic Data on Mass Transit
Prepared for the New Jersey Highway Department in Cooperation with the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Public Roads. May, 1961.
Newark Transportation Study: Basic Traffic Data Report
Prepared for the New Jersey Highway Department in Cooperation with the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Public Roads. 1961.
Newark Transportation Study: Basic Data on Parking: Downtown Newark
Prepared for the New Jersey Highway Dept. in cooperation with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Public Roads. February 1961.
Long Range Plan for Mass Transit & Commuter Rail Lines Converging in Newark 1969
Map of existing and proposed rail lines.
Re: Newark Economic Development Land Use and Transportation Plan
June 9, 1999
Response from local and regional agencies to the Newark Economic Development Land Use and Transportation Plan developed by Parsons Brinckerhoff.
'Informed Intuition': Discussion Paper for Newark's Transit Future.
Prepared by Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center and PBF Consulting. New Brunswick, N.J., Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, February 2008.
Examines existing conditions and reports on recommendations resulting from interviews with industry experts on policies and projects that could improve Newark transit services.

Public Service Trolleys

Trolley Transportation, City of Newark, N.J.
Ernest Payson Goodrich. Newark, 1912.
Report to the City Plan Commission. Available?
"The Seventh Wonder of the Traction World,"
Al Mankoff. Electric Lines 3, July-August 1990, pp.30-35.
History of the Newark Public Service Trolley Terminal.
Public Service of New Jersey: Newark Streetcars
Bill Volkmer Collection of images.
The Union Trolley Line
John Brinckmann. Highlands, N.J., National Railway Historical Society, North Jersey Chapter, 1988. Available?

Four Corners Traffic Tower

The Four Corners Traffic Tower
Nat Bodian for Old Newark Memories. The history of the tower from which police directed traffic at "the world's busiest traffic intersection"--the corner of Broad and Market Street--from 1925 to 1939.
The Four Corners Traffic Tower Images.

Subways

Abandoned Stations: The Cedar Street Subway (Kresge's and McCrory's)
"The Cedar St subway was constructed in 1914-1916 by the Public Service Railway to bring streetcars into the lower level of the new Public Service Terminal in downtown Newark" History, diagram, and photographs.

Newark City Subway

Newark City Subway Timeline
Significant dates in the history of the Newark City Subway from the building of the Morris Canal in the 1820s to the 1990s.
Newark City Subway Lines
John Harrington Riley. Oak Ridge, N.J., 1987.
The basic book on the City Subway. Available?
The City Subway: Newark's Best Kept Secret
Joseph P. Saitta. Merrick, N.Y., Traction Slides International, 1985.
Photographic history of the Newark City Subway. Includes track maps. Available?
Air Control in a Newark City Subway Station
Robert H. Burch. Thesis (M.S.), Newark, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 1977 Available?
An Extension of the Newark City Subway System: Its Ridership, Station Location, and Effects
Douglas K. Condon. Thesis (M.S.), Newark, Newark College of Engineering, 1971. Available?
Abandoned Stations: Newark City Subway Platforms
Includes a history of construction and operations, a diagram, and photographs.
Newark, New Jersey: The City Subway
Description of the current subway followed by photographs taken between 1999 and 2001.

Light Rail Extension

Newark Light Rail Extension to Broad Street Station: Traffic and Transit Operations Interface Issues
Thomas A. Gawley and Robert C. Conte. Transportation Research Circular E-C145, July 2010, pp. 121-134
"NJT-NLR Broad Street Extension: Experiences and Lessons Learned from NJT-NLR Rehabilitation of the Penn Stations Loop Track and Main LIne Special Track Work"
Joseph A. Bonsignore and Stelian (Stan) Canjea. Transportation Research Circular E-C145, July 2010, pp.269-284.
"Floating Slab Trackbed Design to Control Groundborne Noise from Newark-Elizabeth Rail Link Light Rail Transit,"
Richard A. Carmen, Peter Smoluchowski and Harvey L. Berliner. IN Experience, Economics, and Evolution: From Starter Lines to Growing Systems. 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference, November 16-18, 2003, Portland Oregon. Washington, DC, Transportation Research Board, November 2003, pp. 407-420.
Mitigating groundnoise levels so as to not adversely affect New Jersey Performing Arts Center events.
Rail Spur Brings Downtown Newark a Taste of Its Past
Ronald Smothers.
Newark's light rail spur opens July 17, 2006.

Hudson Tubes

The Hudson Tubes
Images of the Newark Hudson Tubes Station

Buses

Bus Routes Inner Newark Area
Undated street map with labeled routes of all bus lines in Newark area. From the Newark Public Library Digital Collection.
"Newark Independents,"
Murray S. Kramer. Motor Coach Age 44(5/6), May/June 1992, 4-32.
Bus Rapid Transit: A Community Plan
Darius Sollohub and Martin Robins, Principal Investigators. Newark, N.J., New Jersey Institute of Technology and the Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, 2009.
"This report proposes a comprehensive BRT network for Newark that better connects it with its surrounding communities and integrates seamlessly with existing rail service."

Bridges

New Jersey Historic Bridge Data: Essex County.
The New Jersey Historic Bridge Survey. Prepared by A.G. Lichtenstein & Associates, Inc. for the New Jersey Department of Transportation Bureau of Environmental Analysis, September 1994.
Part of a survey designed to assess all bridges built before 1947 for their eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. For those judged to be of historical significance, includes a physical description, bibliography, and information on technological and historical significance.
Essex County Bridge Records, 1880.
Newark, Advertiser Printing House, 1880. Available?
Dock Bridge [Application for the National Register of Historic Places]
"Dock Bridge over the Passaic River in Newark, New Jersey, a through-truss lift bridge, was constructed in 1935 by Waddel & Hardesty, Consulting Engineers, after the patent of Dr. J.A.L. Waddell. It was contstructed for the Pennsylvania Railroad...."
1958 Newark Bay Bridge Wreck
Photograph
"Bridge Design: Through the Front Door. Design Innovation Key to Corbin Street Flyover"
Preston D. Vineyard and Ruchu Hsu. Roads & Bridges 51(2), March 2013, pp.50-55.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is investing more than $600 million in the expansion of the ExpressRail system, which brings ship-to-rail service to the Port Newark container terminals. As a part of the ExpressRail expansion, improvements are being made to the Corbin Street Intermodal Rail Support Facility. One improvement is a new flyover bridge that spans Corbin Street (a four-lane arterial street) and directly connects the railroad yard to the container terminal.

I 78

"In the Way of Progress": How a Federal Highway and Political Fragmentation Blighted Neighborhoods in the Weequahic Section of Newark
John Johnson, Jr. New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal Summer, 2023, pp. 91-129
"This paper chronicles the history of interstate highway construction through the Weequahic Section of Newark, New Jersey...Tracing how urban renewal led to a broader set of changes in the Newark cityscape, this paper examines how city and state officials exploited Newark’s geographic resources, not for the benefit of Weequahic residents or Newark citizens more generally, but for downtown and regional commercial interests, and suburban commuters."
Route Studies for I-78
New Jersey State Highway Department. Hearing held on July 15, 1960 at the Mosque Theatre in Newark.

Route 280

Proposed Newark Freeway System 1950
Map of existing and proposed freeways in Newark, including proposed Route 75, Route 280, and widened McCarter Highway. Newark Public Library Digital Collection.
East-West Freeway & Route 25A Extension
1952 map. "Area of Central and west Wards betwen New & Lock Street to Oraton Parkway in east Orange - plans to demolish parts of Branch Brook Park for freeway construction."

New Jersey Central Railroad

CNJ Newark Branch Timetable (Week days) June 1925

CNJ Newark Branch Timetable (Week days) April 1941

Lehigh Valley Railroad

Lehigh Valley Depot
Postcard, c.1915-1922. Meeker Street near Weequahic Park.

Broad Street Station

NJ Transit's Newark Broad Street Station: Stories of Transportation & Change
Richard Kirk Mills. Newark, NJ Transit, 2007. Available?
Broad Street Station
1981 application for National Register of Historic Places status. Includes images and floor plans.
Newark Broad Street Station Interpretive Panels
Nancy L. Zerbe. Metuchen, ARCH2, 2003. Available?
Lackawanna Station
Postcard, c. 1901-1907.

Pennsylvania Station

Commemorating the Opening of Pennsylvania Station, Newark, New Jersey, March 23, 1935
Illustrated booklet produced for the opening ceremony. Section on "Architectural Features" includes McKim, Mead, and White's diagrammatic street-level plan, as well as a cross-section. Also includes a section on the "World's Greatest Railroad Lift Bridge."
"Pennsylvania Station, Newark"
IN Christopher Brown. Still Standing: A Century of Urban Train Station Design. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005.Available?
Parking Feasibility Study: Newark Pennsylvania Station, Newark, New Jersey
New Haven, CT, Wilber Smith and Associates, 1980. Available?
Market Street Depot
Postcard, c.1907

Port Newark

Port Newark and the Origins of Container Shipping
Angus Kress Gillespie. Rutgers University Press, 2023.
Traces the birth of containerization to Port Newark, New Jersey, in 1956, and its growth into what is now the busiest seaport on the East Coast of the United States. Available?
The Unsociability of Commercial Seafaring: Language Practice and Ideology in Maritime Technology
Sonia Neela Das. American Anthropologist 121(1), February 2019, pp. 62-75
"This article explores the language practices and language ideologies of maritime technocracy and inquires into the imagined and real gaps involved in sustaining channels of sociable talk aboard cargo ships...This article draws on ethnographic research aboard cargo ships and at Christian centers to elucidate the logic of maritime technocracies in Newark and Montreal, two seaports with different governance structures highlighting the internal differences of a shipping industry facing crises due to automation, outsourcing, and neoliberal reform." Rutgers-restricted Access
Port Newark Terminal
James M. Reilly. Newark, Board of Trade, 1915.
"Men of vision see a great future in store for Newark and its immediate surroundings and it has become a firm conviction that the Newark Bay shore front will in the course of a few years become a great centre of manufactures and commerce and that the Port of Newark Terminal will become one of the great seaports on the Atlantic."
Newark's Contribution to Deeper Waterways: Port Newark Terminal
Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association, Seventeenth Annual Convention, Newark, New Jersey, September 16-19, 1924. Available?
Port Newark. General Information Map
July 15, 1960

Newark Airport

Newark Liberty Facts and Information
Information about the airport as well as statistics from 1949 to the present.
Newark International Airport Layout Plan [1973]
From the Newark Public Library Digital Collection.
Newark Metropolitan Airport Buildings
The early history of the "first great commercial airport in the United States." The original Art Deco buildings are now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Newark International : Celebrating 60 Years 1928-1988.
Geoffrey Arend. Revised edition. New York, Air Cargo News, 1989. Available?
Ticket for a $5 Airplane Ride, February 23, 1930 [Image]
From the collection of the Hoboken Historical Museum.
Murals Without Walls: Arshile Gorky's Aviation Murals Rediscovered.
Ruth Bowman, guest curator. Newark, N.J. : Newark Museum, 1978.
In 1935 Armenian-born Arshile Gorky was employed by the Federal Art Project to produce a large mural for the new Administration building at the Newark airport. Lost for decades, two of the ten panels (now in the Newark Museum) were rediscovered in the 1970s. O'Connor, Francis V. "Arshile Gorky's Newark Airport Murals: The History of Their Making," pp. 17-29; Jordan, Jim M. "The Place of the NewAark Murals in Gorky's Art," pp. 47-64. Available?
Newark Airport: Civil Aeronautics Authority and Senate Hearings, 1933-1940.
Collection at the Newark Archives and Records Management Center. "Materials relating to a struggle between Newark Airport and New York City"s North Beach Airport (now LaGuardia Airport), to receive designation from the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) as the Eastern-most terminal for the region." More...
Brief in Support of the Retention of the Newark Metropolitan Airport as the Eastern Airmail Terminal.
Meyer C. Ellenstein. Newark, Fidelity Union Trust Company, 1935.
"On June 20, 1935, at the request of Harllee Branch, First Assistant Postmaster General, Mayor Ellenstein with a Citizens Committee went to Washington to present in a formal brief the facts supporting the retention of the Metropolitan Airport at Newark, N.J., and in contradiction of claims that the Airport should be removed to Floyd Bennett Field in Long Island." Available?
The Closing of Newark Airport.
Paul Tillet. ICP Case Series no. 27, University of Alabama Press, 1955. Available?
Case History of a Test Pile Program for the Redevelopment of Newark Airport
Patrick De Michele. Thesis (M.S.), Newark, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 1967.
"A pile load test program was conducted at Newark Airport to determine the most economical piles to be utilized to support the structure in the Redevelopment of Newark Airport."
"Newark International Airport: the First 70 Years,"
Bill Hough. Airliners no. 59, September/October 1999, 32-43.
Newark Airport
Includes photographs of Newark Airport in the 1950s.
"Flying on the Pike: The New Jersey Turnpike and the History of Newark Airport,"
Joshua Schank and Elliott Sclar. New Jersey History 118(3/4), 2000, 51-59.
As a result of the easy access provided by the construction of the New Jersey Turnpike in the early 1950s, the Newark Airport became the busiest airport in the region. Available?
"Historic Terminal Takes a Ride in Newark,"
Virginia Fairweather. Civil Engineering 70(12), December 2000, 11.
"The 1935 landmark terminal building at New Jersey's Newark International Airport has been split into three pieces and mounted on dollies for a 3,700 ft (1,130m) long trip across airport property as part of a massive airport redevelopment program." Rutgers-restricted Access
Responses to Airport Delays - A System Study of Newark International Airport.
Antony David Evans. Thesis (M.S.), Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2002.
Newark Airport ATS Circulator System Studies
Catherine Cronin and J. Sam Lott. Automated People Movers and Transit Systems 2011: From People Movers to Fully Automated Urban Mass Transit. Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Automated People Movers and Transit Systems. Paris, France, American Society of Civil Engineers, May 2011.
Estimation and Tactical Allocation of Airport Capacity in the Presence of Uncertainty
Varun Ramanujam. Thesis (Ph.D.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 2012.
"This thesis designs and evaluates a [Ground Delay Program] framework that simultaneously allocates arrival and departure delays, and explicitly accounts for uncertainty in capacity forecasts...The model is estimated and validated for Newark (EWR) and LaGuardia (LGA) airports using archived data."
EWR Turns 80: A History of Newark Liberty International Airport.
An Exhibition at the Newark Public Library April 7-June 14, 2008.
National Transportation Safety Board: Newark Aviation Accidents
Factual and probable cause reports for civil aviation accidents and selected incidents in or near Newark from 1983 to the present.

Other Transport

Report of the Morris Canal Investigation Committee
New Jersey. Morris Canal Investigation Committee. New York, Isaac H. Blanchard Company, 1914?
Ambulances
Photographs of Newark City Hospital ambulances from 1886 to 1945. [Page down to "Box List."]
RUTGERS.EDU | SEARCH RUTGERS.EDU

© , Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any accessibility issues with Rutgers websites to accessibility@rutgers.edu or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier / Provide Feedback form.