Overview

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) launched several initiatives to bring a renewed focus to the important job of improving the appearance of our roadways. Clean highways send a message to residents and visitors, including business owners thinking about relocating to New Jersey, that we are serious about maintaining a high quality of life and are serious about competing for jobs.

In August 2010, NJDOT began its Clean Up NJ! campaign. This campaign continues to add new components to help attain the objective of cleaner, neater highways. The components include:

Deployment of NJDOT crews
The campaign started with a new approach in how NJDOT deploys its work crews. Throughout the year, NJDOT's maintenance workers combine forces to attack all the maintenance needs of specific corridors. All the needed resources are brought to a single location, including mowing, litter, brush-clearing, pothole, guiderail and graffiti crews, where they attend to all maintenance needs and make a visual impact on the location. Crews had not been deployed in such a fashion in the past. Under the normal scheduling of work, specific maintenance needs were attended to sequentially, meaning that areas always looked as if they were in need of some sort of maintenance.

New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) inmates
In Spring 2011, NJDOT enlisted the help of the NJDOC which provided ten crews of ten inmates each to pick up litter and perform close-cutting with weed wackers near sign posts and guiderails. NJDOT and NJDOC worked together through the spring and summer to utilize inmate labor in helping clean up roads. In Spring 2012, an agreement that duplicates 2011's successful inter-agency cooperative effort was attained with the Department of Corrections.

Adopt-A-Highway
In Spring 2012, NJDOT announced the revival of Adopt-A-Highway, providing civic groups and businesses the opportunity to volunteer their time and effort to keep stretches of highways free of litter.

Sponsor A Highway
NJDOT works with two private companies that provide sponsorship opportunities for groups that would like to promote cleanliness by paying to have professional companies pick up litter along sections of highways.

Urban Youth Corps
In Spring 2012, NJDOT initiated a summer Youth Corps Urban Gateway Enhancement Program that will award more than $300,000 in federal funding to ten community organizations or cities to carry out urban gateway beautification projects.

In 2011, NJDOT's nearly 500 maintenance workers and others working with them picked up approximately 7 million pounds of litter and debris from our roadways at an enormous cost in hours that could have been spent on other important maintenance responsibilities such as mowing, painting over graffiti and clearing debris from storm-water drains.

Residents and motorists can help the campaign succeed by putting litter in its proper place. To report a roadway maintenance issue, motorists can call 1.800.POTHOLE or use the online Pothole/Highway Maintanence Reporting form.

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