page_title: Interstate 278
section_title: New Jersey
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 278 / History / New Jersey
caption_attribution_description: English: View north along Edgar Road (U.S. Route 1 and U.S. Route 9 (U.S. Route 1&amp;9)) at the west end of the Union Freeway (Interstate 278) in Linden, New Jersey
context_page_description: Interstate 278 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs 35.62 miles from U.S. Route 1/9 in Linden, New Jersey, to the Bruckner Interchange in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The majority of I-278 is in New York City, where it serves as a partial beltway and passes through all five of the city's boroughs. I-278 follows several freeways, including the Union Freeway in Union County, New Jersey; the Staten Island Expressway across Staten Island; the Gowanus Expressway in southern Brooklyn; the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway across northern Brooklyn and Queens; a small part of the Grand Central Parkway in Queens; and a part of the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx. I-278 also crosses multiple bridges, including the Goethals, Verrazzano-Narrows, Kosciuszko, and Triborough Bridges.
  I-278 was opened in pieces from the 1930s through the 1960s. Some of its completed segments predated the Interstate Highway System and are thus not up to standards, and portions of I-278 have been upgraded over the years. In New York, the various parts of I-278 were planned by Robert Moses, an urban planner in New York City.
context_section_description: The New Jersey portion of freeway was planned in 1955 as the Union Freeway and designated as I-278 in 1958. It was to connect the Goethals Bridge west to I-78 at the tripoint of Springfield, Union Township, and Millburn. The western part of this planned freeway faced strong opposition. Even though it was to run along an abandoned railroad right-of-way, it would traverse through dense development in Roselle Park, Kenilworth, and Union Township, thereby making the project further disliked. By 1967, state officials decided not to pursue the continuation of I-278, and used the funds for I-278 to build I-195 across Central New Jersey instead. The only section of I-278 in New Jersey was built between US 1/9 in Linden and the Goethals Bridge, opening to traffic in 1969 at a cost of $11.5 million.
  The Union Freeway Extension was revived in the late 1960s, and was to start at US 1/9, but end at I-287 in Hanover Township, following the Route 24 freeway between I-78 and I-287. However, the Federal Highway Administration rejected the proposal in 1970, thus ending the I-278 project.
  The original four-lane Goethals Bridge, which predated the I-278 designation, was replaced with two new 3-lane cable-stayed bridges, each carrying traffic in one direction. The new eastbound bridge opened to both directions of traffic in June 2017, and westbound traffic was shifted to the new westbound bridge in May 2018.
caption: The start of I-278 in New Jersey
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