Crash on Route 55 Southbound Closes Lane Near Vineland's Exit 35

A single-lane closure on Route 55 southbound at Exit 35 late March 31 snarled traffic along one of Cumberland County's busiest commuter arteries, hitting a stretch of the Veterans Memorial Highway that has seen at least three serious crashes involving fatalities in prior years.

The crash forced the closure of the left lane of two southbound lanes at the Exit 35 interchange with CR 674, known locally as Garden Road, which funnels drivers into northern Vineland. The New Jersey Department of Transportation's 511NJ traffic service tracked the closure in real time, issuing updates as the lane remained blocked. With two lanes reduced to one at a modified cloverleaf interchange, southbound traffic queued at a point where Route 55 carries both daily commuters and long-haul traffic heading toward the Jersey Shore.

The location carries consequences beyond the commute. Just south of Exit 35, Route 55 meets CR 552, an interchange that serves Inspira Medical Center Vineland and Cumberland County College. A closure at Exit 35 extends travel time to both facilities, creating friction for shift workers at the medical center and students approaching the college from points north.

The crash history at this stretch is hard to dismiss. State Police investigated a seven-vehicle collision at milepost 35 on Route 55 that killed one person and injured several others. A separate crash at the Garden Road exit killed one child and injured four others. A third incident, occurring south of Exit 35 near the same interchange, left two adults fighting for their lives with multiple children also hurt. Anthony Giordano, 35, of Blackwood, was killed in a prior three-vehicle crash on the same corridor.

Route 55 runs 40.54 miles from Port Elizabeth north through Millville and Vineland into Gloucester County, functioning as a primary commuter route to Philadelphia and, alongside Route 47, one of two main connections from the Delaware Valley to Cape May County's resort towns. Past Exit 35, the highway continues through farmland and woodland east of Rudy's Airport before reaching the denser commercial zones of Gloucester County.

The freeway's unfinished history adds weight to current design questions. Originally proposed in the 1950s as the Cape May Expressway, a toll road intended to run from the Walt Whitman Bridge to Cape May, the project was handed to the New Jersey Expressway Authority in 1962. The planned southern extension into Cape May County was abandoned in 1975, concentrating heavy traffic on a corridor built incrementally and never completed to its original scale. Whether NJDOT or the State Police will examine whether the design of the Exit 35 interchange has contributed to the pattern of crashes there remains an open question for state officials to answer.