Interstate 280 (I-280) is a Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It provides a spur from I-80 in Parsippany–Troy Hills, Morris County, east to Newark and I-95 (New Jersey Turnpike) in Kearny, Hudson County. In Kearny, access is provided toward the Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel to New York City. The western part of the route runs through suburban areas of Morris and Essex counties, crossing the Watchung Mountains. Upon reaching The Oranges, the setting becomes more urbanized and I-280 runs along a depressed alignment before ascending again in Newark. I-280 includes a vertical-lift bridge, the William A. Stickel Memorial Bridge, over the Passaic River between Newark and East Newark/Harrison. The highway is sometimes called the Essex Freeway. I-280 intersects several roads, including the Garden State Parkway in East Orange and Route 21 in Newark.
A part of present-day I-280 in Newark west of the Stickel Bridge was legislated as Route 25A in 1939, a spur of Route 25 (US Route 1/9 [US 1/9]) that was to run from Jersey City west to Newark. This portion of road would become Route 58 in 1953 (the Route 58 designation was removed in the 1990s). When the Interstate Highway System was being planned, the Route 3 freeway was planned to become an Interstate. The New Jersey State Highway Department favored the Essex Freeway instead between Interstate 80 in Parsippany–Troy Hills to Interstate 95 in Kearny. The latter would become the Interstate and be designated I-280. This road was built in the 1960s and completed west from Newark in 1973. The portion east of Newark to the New Jersey Turnpike opened in 1980. I-280 was once planned to continue east to Interstate 78 near the Holland Tunnel but never was extended east of the New Jersey Turnpike. In the 2000s, the Stickel Bridge was reconstructed after the original structure was determined to be structurally deficient.
Route description
thumb|left|I-280 westbound past CR 527 in Roseland
I-280 begins at the interchange with I-80 and US 46 in Parsippany–Troy Hills, Morris County, and heads southeast into wooded surroundings as a four-lane freeway. The road comes to its first interchange with New Road before crossing the Whippany River into East Hanover Township. After this, I-280 passes under Clifton Avenue, which it has access to, and Nesbitt Street. It rises again to pass over Martin Luther King Boulevard, which is also has access to, Broad Street, and Route 21. The William A. Stickel Memorial Bridge opened in 1949, with approaches stretching east to Harrison Avenue (now CR 508) in Harrison (crossing Cleveland Avenue and Hamilton Street at-grade) and west beyond Route 21 to Broad Street. Route 25A was redesignated as Route 58 in the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering, and, the next year, an extension opened west beyond Clifton Avenue to Orange Street east of Duryea Street.
thumb|300px|1955 map, showing the planned Interstate Highway along [[New Jersey Route 3|Route 3|alt=A map of the New York City area showing county borders in addition to proposed interstates, which are in thick black]]
Around the time the Stickel Bridge opened, the Essex Freeway was planned to connect US 46 in Morris County east to the New Jersey Turnpike in Hudson County, with the intention of alleviating traffic along Route 10. During planning for the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, the Bureau of Public Roads proposed an Interstate Highway along Route 3, to the north of Newark. The New Jersey State Highway Department countered with the proposed Essex Freeway, which would run from Interstate 80 to the New Jersey Turnpike (Interstate 95) via the existing Route 58, saying that the Route 3 corridor "does not meet Interstate standards, and cannot be economically converted to such standards." The Essex Freeway was selected as the Interstate corridor, which was called FAI Corridor 105 before being designated I-280 in 1958.
Construction progressed slowly, starting in 1960 near Orange. There were many obstacles that had to be overcome when constructing I-280. The first was whether to build the highway on an elevated or depressed alignment through urbanized areas of East Orange and Newark. Following opposition to the elevated option, it was decided to build I-280 on a depressed alignment through the area. In addition, there was an issue of building the road across First Watchung Mountain in West Orange. A tunnel had initially been considered, although the expense of such a project caused this alternative to be rejected. Instead, a rock cut along a longer route was built through the mountain. Much of the material that was excavated from this section of I-280 and east was removed via a temporary rail line that was built in the center of the right-of-way west to Interstate 80.
The construction of I-280 destroyed a large part of the historic urban cores of Orange, East Orange, and Newark, while providing a path for shoppers to head to shopping malls in surrounding suburban communities rather than shop in aging downtowns that had been disrupted by the highway construction. Many commercial buildings and historic Victorian homes in Orange and East Orange were demolished in the process. I-280 fully opened west from Newark to Interstate 80 in Parsippany–Troy Hills in 1973. The portion of I-280 east of Newark was planned on an alignment that would disrupt the fewest homes and would utilize existing railroad and utility right-of-way. The section east from Newark to the New Jersey Turnpike was built in 1979–1980.
By 1997, the redundant Route 58 designation had been removed from the portion through Newark.
I-280, like many other highways in New Jersey, once had solar powered emergency call boxes every , however, with the advent of cell phones, the usage of these call boxes became extremely limited. To save on maintenance costs, NJDOT removed these call boxes in 2005.
In September 2006, construction began on improvements to exit 12. This project, which replaced the ramps with longer and wider ones, was completed in November 2007 at the price of $11 million, and was completed three years ahead of schedule.
In 2001, the state determined the Stickel Bridge over the Passaic River and its approaches were structurally deficient and was going to need to be replaced after sections of it were falling apart. Instead of replacing the bridge, in 2007, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) decided to rehabilitate it at a lower cost.
A major reconstruction occurred at exit 15 in Newark from 2015 to 2018.
Replacement of partial access in central Harrison with service roads, a new interchange, and an overpass (to improve access to Harrison Avenue, the PATH station, and Sports Illustrated Stadium, and to give north–south passage to local street traffic) is in the planning stages.