Circles and Jughandles

Last weekend Joe and Gravity Boy became very familiar with the circles and jughandles in New Jersey. The state is so small, they make it seem bigger by increasaing the distance you must travel to make a turn. It's a short distance, but it happens so often that over time you feel as though the state is twice as big and you and your tax dollars stay twice as long.


What is a jughandle?

A jughandle, also called a New Jersey jughandle, is a type of ramp that changes the way traffic turns left (in right hand traffic). Instead of a standard left turn being made from the left lane, left-turning traffic uses a ramp on the right side of the road. In a standard jughandle, the ramp leaves before the intersection, and left-turning traffic turns left off of it rather than the through road.