By Richard Sweeten
CCC Journalism Program
Exit 7B is a real exit.
Many students who have been coming to Camden County College’s Blackwood campus have used exit 8 to get to school from the north side of Route 42. Ten students were interviewed and five students said that they did not take the exit because of unfamiliarity, two students said that they did not know that the exit was there, and the last three students have taken the exit but two of them prefer exit 8.
Exit 7B was a project started in late 2008 to create an exit off of Route 42 to make the commute to Camden County College’s Blackwood campus from the north and south easier and the exit was open on Aug. 27 of this year. It was a $9 million project by both the New Jersey Department of Transportation and Camden County.
According to Camden County’s website, it was built to avoid congestion on local roads. The site also says that the exit is expected to have 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles go through it a day.
With all this money and time spent on this project, was it worth it to help students with the commute to school, do students really take this exit?
Dan Gravinese, a student at Camden County College in Blackwood who comes form Audubon, said that he takes exit 7B because “it dumps you right on to College Drive.” He also said that he takes the exit to go to fire academy because “it is much easier to get to the academy since it is only 1 mile away rather than getting off on exit 9 and driving about 5 miles to get to the academy.”
Paul Nguyen, a student from Collingswood, said, “I know about exit 7B but I do not take it.” Nguyen is in his seventh semester at this campus and is used to the way he drives to school, so when it comes to taking new routes he said, “I am familiar with the route I am taking to go to school and I do not want to get stuck in the traffic or get into an accident because of a confusing new exit.”
And Krista Heflin, a student from Collingswood, said, “There is an exit 7B? Where?”