"U.S. Route 1 Business (New Jersey)" redirects here. For the former business route in Jersey City, see New Jersey Route 139.
U.S. Route1 Business (US1 Bus.) is a four-lane surface road that provides an alternate route to the Trenton Freeway (US1) northeast of Trenton in Mercer County, New Jersey. The route is 2.73 miles (4.39km) long and runs between US1 in Trenton and Lawrence Township. On the border of Trenton and Lawrence Township, US1 Bus. intersects the northbound direction of US206 at the Brunswick Circle. The route was once part of a longer U.S. Route1 Alternate (US1 Alt.), which continued southwest through downtown Trenton and into Morrisville, Pennsylvania.
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U.S. Route 1 Business
US1 Bus. in its present routing in red and unofficial, yet signed, routing in pink
The old US1 Alt. in Trenton is now signed by the New Jersey Department of Transportation as part of US1 Bus., despite not being officially recognized as such. Signage in Pennsylvania no longer exists; most of the former US1 Alt. is now part of Pennsylvania Route 32 (PA32). US1 Alt. was created in 1953 after US1 was moved to a freeway between Morrisville and the Brunswick Circle. By the 1980s, when the Trenton Freeway was extended to its current terminus, US1 Bus. was created onto its current alignment and US1 Alt. was removed through Trenton and Morrisville.
Route description
US1 Bus. begins at a split from the median of the US1 freeway in Trenton, having access to and from the south along US1. The road heads north as a four-lane divided highway before making a turn to the northwest.[1] The route becomes four-lane undivided Strawberry Street and passes through residential areas.[1][2] At the border of Lawrence Township and Trenton, the road enters the Brunswick Circle, where it junctions with northbound US206 and CR645. At the circle, the route turns northeast onto a four-lane divided highway known locally as the Brunswick Pike (originally the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike) and enters Lawrence Township.[1] The road runs through residential and commercial areas and passes Colonial Lake, with a few intersections controlled by jughandles. US1 Bus. has an intersection with CR616, which heads east to provide access to US1. Further to the northeast, the settings become more commercial before US1 Bus. merges into northbound US1 at the northeast end of the Trenton Freeway.[1][2]
Despite the official route beginning at US1 near the Brunswick Circle, signage has US1 Bus. begin at the Lower Trenton Bridge over the Delaware River, just north of the Trenton–Morrisville Toll Bridge (US1). The continuation into Pennsylvania is State Route2060 (SR2060), an unsigned quadrant route, to the PA32 intersection in Morrisville. From the bridge, US1 Bus. signage heads northeast on Bridge Street, with the road curving north onto Warren Street into downtown Trenton. At Livingston Street, the road becomes a one-way pair following Warren Street southbound and Broad Street northbound, concurrent with US206. At the south end of Route31, the one-way pair becomes Brunswick Avenue northbound and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard southbound, heading northeast. These two roads are two-way but carry only one direction of US1 Bus./US206. The one-way pair continues to the Brunswick Circle, where the official US1 Bus. continues north. Strawberry Street is signed "to US1 south" from the circle and as US1 Bus. north from US1. Southbound US1 Bus. leaves the circle with US206 southbound on the Brunswick Circle Extension, merging with Princeton Avenue (CR583). Officially, the Brunswick Circle Extension is CR645 and US206 southbound bypasses the circle via Princeton Avenue, but all signage points US206 through the circle. Northbound US1 Bus. and US206 simply enter the circle from Brunswick Avenue.[3]
History
What is now US1 Bus. north of the Brunswick Circle was chartered as part of the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike in 1803. This turnpike became a public road in 1903.[4] In 1926, the U.S. Numbered Highway System was created and US1 was designated to run through the Trenton area from the Lower Trenton Bridge north to Route13, which it followed to New Brunswick.[5][6] In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, Route13 became Route27 and the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike, which ran parallel to Route13 in Trenton, became Route26.[7][8] By the 1930s, US1 was rerouted to follow Route26 between Trenton and New Brunswick, with US206 being designated along Route27 in Trenton.[9][10]
In December 1952, the Trenton–Morrisville Toll Bridge and its approaches opened, which included the Trenton Freeway between the Delaware River and the Brunswick Circle. US1 was rerouted onto the new bridge and the Trenton Freeway.[11] In the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering that occurred a month later, the Route26 and Route27 designations were removed through Trenton.[12][13] In addition, US1 Alt. was designated onto the former US1 in Morrisville and Trenton, running from US1 on the western end of Morrisville and over the Lower Trenton Bridge into Trenton, where it continued northeast to US1 at the Brunswick Circle.[12][13][14] By the 1980s, an extension of the Trenton Freeway had been completed to Lawrence Township. US1 was rerouted to this freeway and US1 Bus. was designated onto the former US1 between the freeway's north end and the interchange at Strawberry Street. The US1 Alt. designation through Trenton and Morrisville was officially removed.[15] Most of the route in Trenton is now only officially a part of US206, despite being signed as US1 Bus.[3][15] The former US1 Alt. in Morrisville became SR2060 from the Lower Trenton Bridge to PA32 and a southern extension of PA32 south of there.[15]