Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[JRice92]

I primarily worked the closing shift when I used to manage that McDonalds years ago, and I can't tell you how often people just made that illegal left to cross 537. Police used to just park right on the lawn there and pull them over once it happened. It was easy picking - on busy nights you'd sometimes have up to three different police cars nabbing people at once. It was an awesome sight to see.

 

Timeout lol. Next week will be my first time in the state if NJ I know the quirk about getting gas but what's this about left turns?

 

Also TBpony414 I messaged you.

[coasterbill]

Unlike the rest of the civilized world, you don't see many left turn lanes in New Jersey. There are some, but quite often you need to exit to the right in order to turn left. It's easy to figure out though since all of these intersections feature "No Turns" signs. This isn't an issue on small back roads but on major roads with traffic lights you should pretty much expect it, especially if it's a 2 lane divided highway. If it's a small road with 1 lane in each direction you can probably turn left.

 

Here's the example near Great Adventure. If you're on Monmouth Road and want to make a left onto Pine Drive for a delicious hoagie (Or what the rest of the world would refer to as a sandwich) you have to exit to the right and wait at the light. You can't just make a left. They're usually well marked but that doesn't make them any less annoying. That being said when you leave Wawa you can make a left to go back onto Monmouth Road since Pine Drive is a stupid back road and they don't care.

 

Driving in New Jersey is annoying as sh*t. Use the GPS for everything.

 

PS: Do you have an EZ Pass? If not get one, New Jersey makes your life suck if you don't have it with infuriatingly long lines at toll booths for people paying cash. I know the Ohio Turnpike takes it so it's possible you already have one but I figured I'd ask.

[michaellynn4]

We from New Jersey are much too busy and important to make left turns like the rest of the country. Why make a simple left-hand turn lane when one can unnecessarily take up precious real estate at every intersection? We therefore use jughandles to make left turns on most major roadways:

 

 

The most common version you'd encounter is Type C, but in order to get to the Wawa and fast food joints on the other side of 537, you'll need to navigate through Type B (well, half of Type B - only difference is you'll drive straight instead of making a left).

 

EDIT: DAMMIT, Bill beat me to it. And hey, quit beating up Pine Drive! That was one of the roads on my regular walk.

Edited October 6, 2016 by michaellynn4

[coasterbill]

I know that diagram is supposed to make it simpler but honestly all it does it make it even more confusing. Type C is asinine, and by the way you can probably make a right there if you f**ked up and missed the cut through on the right but god help you if you try to make a left.

 

Seriously though, just use a GPS. Then you don't have to worry about any of this crap.

 

Edit: When I first got my license I got lost in New Jersey at night in the snow in a sh*tty 1996 Dodge Neon with bald tires and no GPS and it took my 3 hours to figure out how to get on the Garden State Parkway north. In that time I passed no less than 10 exits for the Garden State South. I didn't understand why I couldn't make a left or a U Turn, I had awful headlights and I had no idea what a jughandle was, plus as I said I had just started driving. I was pretty much a kid and I swear I wanted to pull over and cry.

 

When I was on the Palisades and saw the "Welcome to New York" sign I wanted to kiss the f**king ground. To this day I almost never get off a highway in Eastern North or Central NJ for services because I always assume it's a pain in the ass to get back on. I'll pay insane prices for gas and food on the Turnpike. Whatever. Take my money. $4 for a bottled water? Sounds great.

[deguy123]

I know that diagram is supposed to make it simpler but honestly all it does it make it even more confusing. Type C is asinine, and by the way you can probably make a right there if you f**ked up and missed the cut through on the right but god help you if you try to make a left.

 

Seriously though, just use a GPS. Then you don't have to worry about any of this crap.

 

Edit: When I first got my license I got lost in New Jersey at night in the snow in a sh*tty 1996 Dodge Neon with bald tires and no GPS and it took my 3 hours to figure out how to get on the Garden State Parkway north. In that time I passed no less than 10 exits for the Garden State South. I didn't understand why I couldn't make a left or a U Turn, I had awful headlights and I had no idea what a jughandle was, plus as I said I had just started driving. I was pretty much a kid and I swear I wanted to pull over and cry.

 

When I was on the Palisades and saw the "Welcome to New York" sign I wanted to kiss the f**king ground. To this day I almost never get off a highway in Eastern North or Central NJ for services because I always assume it's a pain in the A$$ to get back on. I'll pay insane prices for gas and food on the Turnpike. Whatever. Take my money. $4 for a bottled water? Sounds great.

 

HAHAHAHA!! Sounds like me when I first drove to NJ. I was trying to get to a Mall and I'm screaming out loud "WHY CANT I TURN LEFT ANYWHERE, GUESS PEOPLE GO TO THE MALL ON RIGHT???".

[michaellynn4]

Exits for the Garden State Parkway absolutely suck, I don't care what anyone says. I'm relatively unfamiliar with the nuances having grown up on the western side of the state. It was only recently that I learned that there were exits for only northbound or southbound in some areas (Rte 70 is one).

 

For the record, I hate jughandles, too. I'm used to the ones in the the diagram, but that's mostly because I've trained my eyes to watch out for traffic signs. South Jersey has some pretty obnoxious ones, though. For example, if I want to make a left from Route 70 onto Route 41:

 

 

And if I want to make a left from Route 70 onto Haddonfield Road, I need to remember several blocks ahead of time:

 

[coasterbill]

 

The real question is, if you're on 70 East and want to go to CVS how the f**k do you do it? Is there a ridiculous jughandle going west but a left turn lane going East? If there's no left turn lane then I'm really confused. If I was sick and needed a prescription I might reasonably conclude that I've lived a good life and just go home to die instead.

 

EDIT: Sorry for (pun intended) steering this thread way off course.

[michaellynn4]

Actually, there's another jughandle for that! When in doubt, MORE JUGHANDLES!

[coasterbill]

Oh thank god. I was worried I'd have to make a left turn.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Don't apologize. This is great information, since I have never seen or heard of a jughandle intersection, and I'll be driving in NJ next summer.

 

On a side note, when this first came up, I read the Wikipedia article on jughandles, and I was surprised to see Missouri listed as one of the states that uses them extensively. My immediate thought was, "Where?" I know MoDOT loves weird intersections--we were the first ones to implement the diverging diamond in this country--but I've seriously never seen a jughandle anywhere in this state.

[coasterbill]

If they're in Missouri then they're probably mostly found near major cities with old road systems like St. Louis or Kansas City, not anywhere else.

 

In theory I actually understand the jughandle on old congested roads in heavily populated areas (AKA Most of New Jersey). Everything in North and Central NJ is packed on top of each-other so adding lanes is rarely an option. If you have a 2 lane road and can't expand it then making 1 of the 2 lanes a turning lane would kill traffic flow. This way both lanes can flow freely and it makes drive times much faster.

 

That being said if anyone ever builds a brand new road with a jughandle they deserve to be shot. The fact that Monmouth Road near Great Adventure has jughandles when there's plenty of room to expand the road is ridiculous. It's a good way to make the best of a bad situation but when people actually design these things into new roads it's completely ridiculous. Recently there was a proposal in New Jersey to do just that but they voted in favor of allowing new jughandles because New Jersey invented the stupid things and for some reason they're very proud of them.

Edited October 6, 2016 by coasterbill

[viking86]

This is great, I'm learning about stuff I never knew existed!

[ytterbiumanalyst]

That's crazy. I think I've realized what the wiki was referring to. All throughout the state we have these things we call J-turns. It's a different design but basically the same idea. You go past the road you want to turn on, make a U, then turn right.

 

http://www.modot.org/kansascity/major_projects/documents/JTurnsHandout.pdf

[coasterbill]

A J turn is really just another name for a jughandle, New Jersey uses them for U turns too.

 

 

For example check out this complete abomination right near Great Adventure that exists for absolutely no apparent reason. Take special note of how much room there is to build proper turning lanes and not jughandles on Monmouth Road.

[michaellynn4]

I don't understand the state legislature sometimes. There was also a recent push to finally allow self-pumping at gas stations in the state, and Senate President Steve Sweeney basically admitted he's a friggin' moron and has vowed to squash any attempt to allow it.

 

^ Getting stuck at that light sucks, too, BTW. The jughandles are so big that the light will change in the time it takes to navigate it. You'll end up stuck there waiting five minutes for the light to change so you can complete the left. It ended up being faster to just keep driving down past the park and taking back roads home instead of dealing with it.

 

To be fair, before they expanded the roadway about 15-20 years ago, Rte 537 used to be a giant clusterf**k free-for-all. It would descend into chaos anytime there was a busy day at the park. Some of the measures they've taken in the modifications seem like overkill on a normal day (giant concrete dividers and oversized jughandles come to mind), but I've witnessed how they can help clear out massive traffic issues in a hurry.

Edited October 6, 2016 by michaellynn4

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

[boldikus]

^^^ Where are all the tree-hugging hippies when New Jersey slaughters all that forest for some f*cking jughandles?

[coasterbill]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

 

Please get the f**k out of here with your common sense and completely reasonable solutions. This is New Jersey and we don't have time for your sh*t.

[michaellynn4]

^^^ Where are all the tree-hugging hippies when New Jersey slaughters all that forest for some f*cking jughandles?

 

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

 

Please get the f**k out of here with your common sense and completely reasonable solutions. This is New Jersey and we don't have time for your sh*t.

Fine, then, I'll just keep my Midwestern sensibilities to myself when I come visit and drive on your f*cked up roads.

[coasterbill]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

 

Please get the f**k out of here with your common sense and completely reasonable solutions. This is New Jersey and we don't have time for your sh*t.

Fine, then, I'll just keep my Midwestern sensibilities to myself when I come visit and drive on your f*cked up roads.

 

Hey they're not my roads. New York (aside from the city) has pretty normal roads aside from the parkway system which consists of incredibly windy and hilly roads with super narrow lanes and excessive 55 MPH speed limits. They're fun to drive on though and there are very few accidents because distracted driving is a non-issue since they demand your undivided attention.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

 

Please get the f**k out of here with your common sense and completely reasonable solutions. This is New Jersey and we don't have time for your sh*t.

Fine, then, I'll just keep my Midwestern sensibilities to myself when I come visit and drive on your f*cked up roads.

 

Hey they're not my roads. New York (aside from the city) has pretty normal roads aside from the parkway system which consists of incredibly windy and hilly roads with super narrow lanes and excessive 55 MPH speed limits. They're fun to drive on though and there are very few accidents because distracted driving is a non-issue since they demand your undivided attention.

Now that sounds familiar. The Ozarks are full of winding highways like that. If you ever come to Branson, the main road to Silver Dollar City, the Ozark Mountain Highroad, is seriously fun. There's nothing between US 65 and Mo 76 except for one exit, and the 65MPH speed limit is way too fast for some of those curves. Doesn't stop anyone from going about 80 though. I've never seen anyone pulled over either; I think Branson police are just happy traffic is moving.

[michaellynn4]

Okay, I get the concept then, but our J-turns are basically just the width of an extra lane. Those are huge. At that point you might as well build a bridge and just make it a clover leaf interchange.

 

Please get the f**k out of here with your common sense and completely reasonable solutions. This is New Jersey and we don't have time for your sh*t.

Fine, then, I'll just keep my Midwestern sensibilities to myself when I come visit and drive on your f*cked up roads.

 

The state has actually done that in some situations. Here's what they did to the old 70/73 traffic circle:

 

 

Compared to the unholy hell it used to be:

 

 

Man if you think jughandles are bad, try getting through a busy one of these. THAT one actually used to have traffic lights to have some semblance of civility. There are plenty still out there with just yield signs, better known in New Jersey as "F**k off, you yield for me" signs.

[coasterbill]

Just having a regular traffic circle would make way more sense than that sh*t. What the hell?

 

The new design is obviously much better than either though.

[michaellynn4]

Back when she first started driving. my sister had to run an errand one day that took her through the traffic circle in Wall Township. She was so thrown off and intimidated in it that she ended up driving around in the circle for about five minutes before building up the courage to merge out.