New Jersey Route 19 - History

History

What is now Route 19 was once planned as the Paterson spur of the Garden State Parkway, which was to run through Paterson and Haledon to County Route 504 in Wayne. The planned Paterson spur would become an extension of Route 20 in 1959. This road, which was to be a six-lane, $58 million freeway called the Paterson Peripheral, was to run from Clifton north to the existing Route 20 in downtown Paterson. This road was completed between the Garden State Parkway and Valley Road by 1969 and north to Interstate 80 in 1971. Upon completion, this road received the Route 20 designation. The extension to Route 20 through Paterson was stopped in 1978 because of the designation of the Great Falls Historic District, a historical district recognizing Paterson’s heritage as an industrial center, and the number of homes and businesses that would be displaced by the route whether or not it ran through the historic district. In 1988, this portion of Route 20 was redesignated Route 19 as it did not connect with the mainline of the route. In 1992, a project to complete the interchange with I-80 and extend the route to Main Street in downtown Paterson to ease congestion was finished at a cost of $27 million. This interchange received the Prize Bridge Award in the category of Grade Separation from Modern Steel Construction magazine in 1996.