The Passaic River is the major river of the northern third of New Jersey. The Passaic watershed covers about a quarter of the state. Its headwaters are only about 25 miles from its mouth in Newark Bay. The river's path to "the sea", however, is about as far from a straight line as you can get. There are these mountains that keep getting in the way, you see. To get past the last two mountains the river goes pretty far north, and then makes a sharp bend around the north side of the city of Paterson.

This bend in the Passaic is where we find the confluence of roads that is the subject of this travelogue. The routes I focus on are routes 20, 504, and 507, though a few lower-tier county routes get a bit involved. Signage here is complicated by the presence of three municipalities and two counties. North of the riverbend, going east to west, are Fair Lawn, in Bergen County, and Hawthorne, in Passaic County. South of the riverbend is Paterson, in Passaic County. Passaic County in particular has always been bad at signing their highways; the surprising appearance of a bunch of new signs over the summer of 2014 was the inspiration for this travelogue.

The Passaic/Bergen county line changes direction at the Lincoln Avenue Bridge over the Passaic River. East of the bridge, the county line is the river itself, between Paterson to the south and Fair Lawn to the north (and to the east of the river after it turns southward just downstream). The county line leaves the river at the bridge and turns northward, running smack down the middle of Lincoln Avenue between the two yellow lines in the center of the road. This section of Lincoln is a lower-tier county highway for both counties, but as the two counties have different numbering systems, each side of the road has a different number!

The only section of the county line I'm uncertain about is right AT the bridge. The naive view is to say that the county line makes only one turn, where the bridge crosses the middle of the river. However, Passaic County maintains the entire bridge. So either the northeast quarter of the bridge is in Bergen County but maintained by Passaic County -- entirely plausible -- or the county line jogs to avoid slicing up the bridge. I'm not sure what the official scoop is. If I had a good map of the area maybe I'd have a better idea... but just as Al Sleet (George Carlin's "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman" character) says about his national weather map, "...you'll see that we don't have one." In my case, I will say we don't have one yet.

As the non-existent map would also show you, Routes 20 and 504 basically end at each other on the very north end of Paterson. This is complicated by the fact that the roads in question here form a quadrilateral of one-way streets. First Avenue goes one way westbound; at its west end, River Street goes one way southbound for all of one block. At the south end of that block, Second Avenue goes one way eastbound (with River becoming a 2-way street going southwest). At Second's east end, one can go right or left onto McLean Boulevard, but if you turn left you'll find that McLean is one-way going north for the northernmost block of its existence.

Now according to the SLDs, route 20 northbound is that last block of McLean and all of First, and route 20 southbound is all of Second. Route 504 connects the two termini of route 20 using that single on-way block of River, and then ends. Since that block of River is one-way, it can only be EASTbound 504. Therefore, if you believe the SLDs, northbound 20 ends where westbound 504 begins, and eastbound 504 ends where southbound 20 begins.

The *signs*, of course, do not agree.

If you're coming north on McLean Boulevard from the Home Depot, you pass Second Avenue, and now you're on a one-way road. One block later the road forks. Taking the right fork puts you on the Maple Avenue Bridge, and you cross into Fair Lawn, where going straight or right would put you on Route 507 (northbound and southbound respectively). Taking the left fork puts you on First Avenue, one way westbound. There's a directional sign at the fork for northbound 20, pointing you to the left; that may well be the last sign for northbound 20 at all. At the far end of First is the foot of the Lincoln Av. Bridge, where First, Lincoln, and River Street all end at each other.

On to the pictures! Most of the current set was taken on 26 October 2014, which was a gray, dank day. I took the pix on a Vivitar 45 "digital instamatic", and as expected they were really dark. So I used GIMP to bump up the brightness by 80 per cent, and upped the contrast by 20 per cent, to get what you see on this page.


This pic was taken on 25 October 2014, which unlike the 26th was bright and sunny, so this picture you get unretouched! I am on northbound River Road in Fair Lawn, which is also Route 507. This River Road (not to be confused with nearby River Street in Paterson) turns into westbound Wagaraw Road if you continue straight through the upcoming intersection. The cross street is Maple Avenue. To the left is the Maple Avenue Bridge over the Passaic into Paterson; to the right Maple is Route 507. Behind me is a directional sign telling you about 507 turning right but I didn't have a chance to take the picture. I'll have to go back and get one later.

Route 507 only grazes the northeast corner of my area of study so I'm not paying a ton of attention to it, save for this corner. Now I'm going to proceed onto Wagaraw Road, which may be Bergen County route 5 or route 69, but is completely unsigned. Our next point of interest is at the next traffic light, the north end of the Lincoln Avenue Bridge.


The above and the next several pictures are shots of the corner of Wagaraw Rd. and Lincoln Av. from various directions. This picture is taken from westbound Wagaraw approaching Lincoln. It is plain to see that to go east on Route 504, you'd want to turn left at the light. But what about westbound 504?


Eureka! A short distance further on -- and cleverly hidden behind stuff in the previous picture -- here is the directional sign for westbound 504! Why didn't they put the two directional signs together? Yes, I know that just getting these signs at all is a major miracle, but STILL... These two signs say Passaic County, since they maintain route 504 and the bridge, but the signs themselves are actually in Fair Lawn and Bergen County; the county line is in the middle of the intersection.


Going counterclockwise around the intersetion, here is the view from southbound Lincoln Av. They managed to put the signs together here. The far end of the bridge in the background is in Paterson, about which more later; I'm standing in Hawthorne but the other side of Lincoln is in Fair Lawn.


Turning right onto Wagaraw, facing westbound away from the intersection, this is the first westbound 504 reassurance shield on Wagaraw Rd.


Turning around so that I'm facing eastbound on Wagaraw, toward the intersection again. Directional sign for eastbound 504 which turns onto the bridge.


Standing on the Lincoln Av. Bridge over the Passaic River. Facing the intersection, northbound on Lincoln. Of the signs in the middle of the shot, the left and right ands are high contrast, which means that the sign between them -- a lower-contrast directionsal sign for westbound 504 -- is really difficult to make out. That's the last picture involving the Lincoln/Wagaraw intersection. Now I turn around and look into Paterson.


Looking southbound on the bridge, there's a good chance that this shield on the bridge is the last EB 504 reassurance shield before the highway's eastern terminus. Possibly, even, the last EB 504 shield of any sort, even though having directional signs in Paterson would be really nice.


Facing north on CR 649, Madison Avenue in Paterson, at its northern terminus where it tees into First Avenue. The directional sign here says that First is westbound 504!! (And there is no sign anywhere nearby that so much as mentions northbound 20.)


Turning left onto First, this weatbound 504 reassurance sign is almost immediately visible. I suspect it should be a directional sign: add an up-and-right diagonal arrow sigh underneath. Why? Because 504 is about to take the right fork that is just visible on the left adge of the picture.


Looking at the fork in the road that was just visible in the previous shot, this is the west end of First Av, the south end of Lincoln Av, and the north end of River St. Supposedly, this is the end of northbound 20. But why is the only sign for southbound 20? At best the sign should say "TO South 20" if the SLDa are to be believed. But what NJDOT appears to have signed is for 20 to end in a big loop, with southbound 20 beginning here where northbound 20 ends. (Also, where are the mileage signs as befits a NJ state highway? There don't appear to be any on First, Second, or even on most -- if not all -- of McLean.)

And what about route 504? According to the signs we were already on westbound 504. But there are NO signs here for 504 at all. There should be at least one. If this be the true eastern terminus of 504, there whould be a "West 504" sign with a right arrow above the right-hand side of the "Hawthorne" sign. Otherwise there should either be a "504" with double-headed arrow, or separate signs for "East 504" and "West 504" with appropriately directed arrows. But nope, we got nothing about 504. Guess Passaic County ran out of money for signage (or perhaps ran out of interest in making things more clear).

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