<p>Traveling from the North to So. Jersey Shore, when is the best/worst traffic congestion time of the day/weekend? We’ve traveled this before, from upstate NY, and found ourselves in a multi-hour virtual parking lot. If we hit NJ turnpike early on Sat, what would be early enough?</p>
<p>Central Jersey Shore resident here…</p>
<p>It depends a lot on the weekend and the weather. People leave the shore to go back home early if it starts raining on Sunday morning etc. Also people drive down Friday night or Saturday morning depending on weather and if it’s a holiday weekend and things like that. I don’t use the turnpike much so I don’t know too much about traffic patterns there, but good luck trying to avoid traffic… even locals who know the patterns pretty well still run into traffic jams.</p>
<p>Hard to say–traffis isn’t always predicatbe, and keep in mind that people who are going for the day leave early on Saturday, but not by way of the Turnpike necessarily. (Remember, the Garden State Parkway, not the NJ Turnpike, is the in-state link to the Shore communities). Still, nothing could be as bad, probably, as Shore-bound traffice on a Friday afternoon/evening in summer, and really early in the morning is usually a decent time to travel on a Saturday or Sunday. Also, the Parkway jams should be a little better this year because many tollboths have been eliminated. And if you have EZ Pass both the Parkway and Turnpike tolls are quicker than if you are paying cash.</p>
<p>(Cross-posted with previous psoter–agree with what she said.)</p>
<p>Garden State Parkway is where you should go if you want to get to the shore, unless there’s traffic, trust me, I know. Listen to the radio to see if there’s an accident. Also, if both the pike and the parkway are crowded, check out route 9 south.</p>
<p>jasmom,
Saturday is basically the day when week-long rentals turn over at the Jersey shore. This is for Long Beach Island and points further south that I know of. So, there are a lot of folks coming and going on Saturdays. However, I think that if you are on the Garden State Parkway reasonably early on a Saturday morming (9-10 a.m.?) you should be in decent shape. I agree with previous posters that Friday afternoon/evening can be a disaster, unless it’s very late at night.</p>
<p>Great. Thanks, all. We’ll try for the wee hours of Sat/Sun, avoid Friday pm like the plague, listen to radio traffic updates, keep route 9 in mind, use our e-z pass, and hope for a little rain. Appreciate the pointers!</p>