County Routes in New Jersey - History of The 500-series

History of The 500-series

The precursor to the 500 series was a group of three roads in Bergen County which received the numbers 200, 201, and 203 in the late 1930s. 200 ran from Oakland to Alpine; 201 ran from Ridgewood to Alpine; and 203 ran from Weehawken to Alpine. US 202 runs through Bergen County, thus the planners skipped this number.

In February 1942, a group of civil defense routes was assigned with numbers in the 500s in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. These roads were designed as through routes for civilian use in case the state highway system was needed by the military during World War II operations. These routes were numbered in relation to existing routes. For example, Civil Route 501 ran parallel to US 1 and Civil Route 532 was an extension of NY 32 into New Jersey.

The current series of roads in the 500s was established by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) in 1952. Some of the roads had spurs or alternate routes established; about one-third of these survive today even though such designations were eliminated from the primary state system in the 1953 New Jersey State Highway renumbering. (The others have become 600-series county routes as described below.)