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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

Took A Ride Down Us 46


usroadman
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My son and I took a trip across US 46 a few weeks ago. Since the route is only the width of New Jersey, we easily made it end to end on a Sunday. Pictures are available at http://www.usroadman.com/us46links.htm .

 

Overall it was an enjoyable ride. The eastern part of the route was most interesting for still being a good showcase for the cutting edge of 1930s highway design. A lot of the bridges had 1930s dates. On a Sunday morning, these 70 year old highways still work pretty well. The narrow, grade separated highways are kind of interesting to drive. The western part of the route was much more rural than I expected. It is mostly two lanes, winding its way through forests and farmland.

 

On an old 1930s section of US 46 in Clifton I noticed a black & white embossed cross-street sign on an old iron post. I'm guessing the sign is original. Unfortunately it was on a long narrow stretch of highway so I did not get my own picture, but Steve Alpert has a shot of it on his website ( http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/us_46/2.html ).

 

We stopped for lunch in Netcong at a place called Mr. C's. A guidebook I had listed the location as having car hop service (and the place was under a different name). The car-hop service was gone, but we still had a couple of good hot dogs (or as my son points out, I had a Texas Wiener, not a hot dog). Aside from the good food, I was struck by how immaculately clean the place was. Even the restroom was so clean you could have eaten in there.

 

It was a nice ride for a Sunday.

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They don't call it The Garden State for nothing!

 

That's too much corn for me!

 

But it was a fun set of photos.

 

The post for the old embossed sign was as interesting as the sign itself. And I hope there is a guard dog to protect it from thieves and vandals.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Dave

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The post for the old embossed sign was as interesting as the sign itself. And I hope there is a guard dog to protect it from thieves and vandals.

No guard dog, and there's actually a sidewalk along the road there, but it looked like you'd have to go a long way to get to the sidewalk (no place to stop on US 46 and no connections to the cross streets for many blocks), so my guess is it's rarely used.

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