Quarter mile crack on Route 440 in Woodbridge, NJ causes road closures, detours
WOODBRIDGE, New Jersey (WABC) -- A crack more than 1,000 feet long has appeared in Woodbridge, New Jersey, along Route 440, also known as Smith Street.
Video from NewsCopter 7 shows the crack running down the middle of the road. In some places, the fault is three feet deep, and slices a crocked ravine down one of the busiest roads in the area.
The repairs are likely to take months.
In the meantime, all traffic is being detoured.
Smith Street is closed westbound from Rt. 35 to the Garden State Parkway bridge and eastbound from Highland Ave. to Route 35.
Additionally, the detour consists of a closure at Florida Grove Road and Smith Street.
Traffic will be detoured onto Florida Grove Road from Perth Amboy to New Brunswick Avenue to Crows Mill Road extension back to Riverside Drive/Smith Street.
Local residents can access their homes via Highland Ave.
A towing company that sits right along Smith Street prides itself on serving customers quickly, but now the crevice will make getting back to the business a slog.
"It slows us down a little bit. We can get out, but it's hard for us to get back in," said Tom Rhodes of Raczs Tow Company. "So, it kind of slows us down a little bit, but we'll make due."
There is plenty of speculation about the cause of the fissure, including work being done to build a new plant nearby.
City leaders are waiting for engineers to determine what caused the road to rupture.
"No one has really begun to dig into the cause because they have to fix the problem first, and the problem is serious, it's a road that is very busy, especially for commerce for trucks, it connects Staten Island and Perth Amboy through Woodbridge, to Edison and New Brunswick," said Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac.
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