If you get onto Route 18 north from Milltown Road, your commute is about to change.
The New Jersey Department of Transportation has scheduled that ramp to close on Aug. 31 and stay closed for the length of a bridge replacement project that, by the state’s own timeline, runs into 2029.
The ramp — NJDOT calls it Ramp ME — carries Milltown Road westbound traffic onto Route 18 northbound. This is not an overnight closure. NJDOT’s project materials say it “will remain closed throughout construction.”
There is also a deadline attached to this that hasn’t been widely publicized: the public comment period on the project closes Sept. 10.
One caveat worth stating plainly: NJDOT describes the Aug. 31 date as tentative, and as of this week the department had not issued a separate closure advisory for the bridge project. NJDOT typically announces closures only a few days in advance.
What’s being built
This is a replacement, not a repair.
NJDOT is tearing out the Route 18 northbound bridge that crosses Conrail’s Sayreville Industrial Track — a rail line most drivers never notice, because it runs underneath the highway.
The bridge went up in 1931. The state describes it as being in poor condition, nearing the end of its service life and needing more and more maintenance to stay open. Its clearance over the tracks is also too low by current standards.
The new bridge will be a single span, and the roadway will be raised to give trains more room underneath. The rebuilt stretch adds an auxiliary lane and a six-foot sidewalk, and the center median is being replaced with concrete barrier and islands.
The work area covers roughly 1,750 feet — from the Route 18 and Milltown Road interchange north to about Icker Avenue, according to NJDOT’s project documents.
Where you’ll be sent instead
NJDOT’s detour keeps Milltown Road westbound drivers inside the existing interchange to get onto Route 18 north. The entrance to the highway will be stop-controlled, which the department says is meant to prevent confusion inside an active work zone.
The state’s own analysis calls the added travel time “minimal,” and notes that drivers who know the area may simply skip the detour and use Old Bridge Turnpike.
Pedestrians and cyclists get a separate route, along Cranbury Road, Old Bridge Turnpike and Icker Avenue, with high-visibility signs.
Your travel lanes aren’t affected yet
Here is the part that matters most for anyone who sat through the last few years of Route 18 construction.
NJDOT’s presentation materials state: “The NJDOT has made a commitment to East Brunswick that no lanes will be closed prior to January 1st, 2027 due to this project.”
So while construction and the ramp closure begin this year, the thing residents dread most — Route 18 losing travel lanes again — is not scheduled to start until 2027.
When lane reductions do begin, the project runs in two stages, and NJDOT says at least two lanes in each direction stay open the whole time:
- Stage 1 — two lanes each way. Expected to finish December 2027, after which all three southbound lanes return.
- Stage 2 — three lanes southbound, two northbound. Expected to finish October 2028, after which all three northbound lanes return.
- Final closeout — expected May 2029.
Construction is expected to happen during normal daytime hours, Monday through Friday.
What the mayor told the council
Mayor Brad Cohen briefed the Township Council on the bridge project at its Aug. 24 meeting, about a week and a half after NJDOT held a public information session at the Community Arts Center on Cranbury Road.
He told the council it was “a separate project that’s being started after the new year,” called it “a two-year project,” and said it was “limited to a 1,800 foot area that goes between Milltown Road and” Icker Avenue.
His description of the footprint is close — NJDOT puts it at about 1,750 feet.
On timing, there are two different dates in play, and they’re easy to run together. The project itself, and the ramp closure, begin in 2026. NJDOT’s commitment not to close Route 18 travel lanes because of this project runs to Jan. 1, 2027. The mayor’s “after the new year” matches the lane commitment. The construction start and the ramp closure come sooner, and NJDOT’s schedule carries the work through spring 2029 rather than two years.
The ramp closure and the Sept. 10 comment deadline did not come up at the meeting.
On the larger point, the mayor has been consistent and correct. “I know everybody likes to think it’s the town, because it goes through East Brunswick,” he told the council, “but it is a state highway. It is run and completely operated by the Department of Transportation.” He said the same thing at a council meeting last October. The township does not set this schedule, and residents with complaints have to take them to Trenton.
Cohen also noted that the August session drew a thin crowd. “There were more DOT people there than residents,” he said. Councilman Kevin McEvoy, who went, said the presentation was thorough and that residents could talk one-on-one with state staff afterward.
Township Administrator Joseph Criscuolo told the council that NJDOT left materials behind and that a display of the project area, photos and handouts is set up at the East Brunswick Public Library.
The other Route 18 project isn’t finished either
The bridge job is separate from the construction East Brunswick has been living with since 2023.
That project — drainage and pavement rehabilitation — is an $86.1 million federally funded rebuild covering about four and a half miles of Route 18. And according to NJDOT’s own announcement on Aug. 4, it still has a way to go.
Overnight lane closures between Rues Lane and the New Jersey Turnpike are running 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., Monday through Friday, through December 2026, for milling, paving and final striping. At least one lane stays open. NJDOT warns the overnight work will also close ramps and limit access to side streets and businesses, with posted detours.
The full project is expected to be completed in late 2027.
That squares with what the mayor told the council — that remaining paving would be “done at night so it doesn’t interfere with any commuter traffic,” and that daytime lanes were coming back. It is worth knowing, though, that the state’s own paperwork has the larger job running well past this summer.
How to comment — before Sept. 10
NJDOT’s 30-day public comment period on the bridge project runs through Thursday, Sept. 10.
- Email: info@rt18nbbridgeoverconrail.com
- Project website: rt18nbbridgeoverconrail.com — the full presentation, the traffic management plan and the construction plan are all posted there
After Sept. 10, questions go to Patience Sengbey, NJDOT Regional Coordinator, at 609-963-1982 or patience.sengbey@dot.nj.gov.
For day-to-day closures and real-time conditions, NJDOT points motorists to 511nj.org.
Why we’re telling you this now
A year ago, when Ryders Lane was closed around the clock for Conrail track work while Route 18 was down to two lanes, residents told this publication the same thing over and over. It wasn’t the work they objected to. It was finding out too late.
“It’s not that people don’t want the work done,” one resident said at the time. “It’s that everything is happening all at once, with no thought to how it affects the rest of us.”
The comment window on this one is still open. It closes Sept. 10.
Sources: New Jersey Department of Transportation — Route 18 Northbound Bridge over Conrail Replacement Project, Public Information Center presentation materials, Aug. 13, 2026; NJDOT news release, Aug. 4, 2026. East Brunswick Township Council meeting, Aug. 24, 2026 (EBTV).
