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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
Transportation and Communication
AS ONE of the great natural terminals of the country, New Jersey has
developed with considerable profit to itself a transportation system
in line with the shipping and travel needs of the Nation. Its historic role
as a highway between New York and Philadelphia has made it the transport broker of the Middle Atlantic States.
Eight trunk railroads cross the State to converge on the west bank of
the Hudson River, where an elaborate transfer service for passengers and
freight to New York has been created. Transoceanic shipping is handled
largely by the ports of Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Perth Amboy
on the east, and on the west by Camden. The State has constructed an inland waterway along the Atlantic Coast and has dredged its navigable
streams to develop inland ports. Newark has the most important transcontinental airport in the country.
Highway traffic within New Jersey has generally assumed a cross-State
diagonal course, with the north central part dominated by US 1 from
Jersey City to Trenton, and the south depending chiefly on the Camden-Atlantic City roads. The excellence of the highway system has made possible a general use of busses, which are steadily eliminating the once important trolleys.
Colonial transportation in New Jersey began with the Dutch settlers'
cautious use of the footpaths already worn through the forests on the west
bank of the Hudson River by the Lenni Lenape Indians. The colonists
gradually widened these narrow trails, first by walking double file for
added safety, then by driving their cattle and carts over them. When
wagons and stagecoaches came into use, the trails began to assume the
appearance of roads. Many eventually developed into the broad high-speed
thoroughfares of the present highway system.
The need for communication with their countrymen across the Hudson
led the early Dutch to operate the first ferries between what are now New
York and Hoboken. These were rough-hewn rowboats or flat-bottomed
rafts, which passengers were called to man whenever a squall came up. At
the same time, the colonists ventured with small skiffs on the northern
lakes and down the streams.
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