Route 18's $86 Million Rebuild Rolls Through East Brunswick, and Metuchen's Grove Avenue Bridge Is Open Again
NJDOT's Route 18 drainage and pavement rehabilitation is a four-and-a-half-mile, $86.1 million project running through late 2027 - and its overnight full closures, with a three-street detour, are the pattern Middlesex County drivers will keep meeting.
The work on Route 18 in East Brunswick is bigger than any single overnight closure. The New Jersey Department of Transportation's Route 18 Drainage and Pavement Rehabilitation project is an $86.1 million, federally funded rebuild of approximately four and a half miles of the highway in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, according to the department's October 29 release read by this desk, and it is expected to be completed in late 2027.
The project's latest full closure ran Thursday night into Friday morning, when Route 18 southbound was closed and detoured between Tices Lane and Milltown Road from 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. for milling and paving. The posted detour is the one drivers should learn for the closures still ahead: right onto Tices Lane, left onto Harts Lane, and left onto Milltown Road, back to Route 18 southbound. NJDOT notes the precise timing of the work can change with weather or other factors, and points drivers to 511NJ for construction updates and real-time travel information.
One Middlesex County project is finishing instead of starting. NJDOT's latest releases list the Grove Avenue Bridge in Metuchen as reopened, with that project nearing completion - a reopened crossing for the borough while the Route 18 corridor a few miles south works through two more construction seasons. The department's current release list also carries overnight work on I-287 in Morris County, the I-280 ramp in Parsippany-Troy Hills, Route 322 shoulder work in Logan Township and the Lexington Avenue ramp closure in Clifton.
