EATONTOWN — The $12.4 million construction project at the intersection of Routes 35 and 36 is moving according to schedule and is expected to reach completion by the end of 2012, according to a spokesperson from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT).

According to Tim Greeley, a spokesman for the DOT, while the overall project remains on the original schedule, due to some minor delays with utility work, there have been adjustments to the construction schedule and the staging originally planned.

“There have been some issues with utility relocation which is done independently by the utility companies,” Greeley said in an interview Dec. 28.

“However, we have been able to move certain parts of the project that had been scheduled for later on to get done while we wait for certain utilities to be moved.

“So, certain aspects of the projects like underground drainage or work on sidewalks and curbing, we have been able to move forward so that construction is ongoing at all times.”

The three-phase project involves realigning and widening the existing Route 35/36 intersection by adding left-turn lanes, eliminating jughandles and adding pedestrian and traffic signal improvements.

“This is quite a significant reconfiguration that the department expects to greatly improve the flow of traffic while also increasing safety,” Greeley said.

The project, which began in 2010, started as a result of concerns expressed by Eatontown and Monmouth County officials, Greeley said.

“It was a combination of the [DOT] internally realizing that some type of improvement was necessary and the local officials directly expressing similar concerns to us helped advance this project to construction,” he said.

Greeley said that since both highways are under state jurisdiction, the DOT was aware that the intersection configuration was outdated and presenting a sizeable amount of congestion during peak-period hours and during the summer with the added shore traffic.

“The roadway as it existed had not been built to handle the traffic flow that both of these highways now carry,” he said. “On top of that, Eatontown and Monmouth County officials had come to us expressing their own concerns about the safety and the traffic flow at the intersection.”

According to Mayor Gerald Tarantolo, when he took office he identified the traffic problems Eatontown was experiencing at the time and came up with a list of 13 items, one of which was the intersection of Routes 35 and 36.

“I had a meeting with the DOT, we discussed it openly at the table and the DOT was very receptive to my concerns,” he said.

Tarantolo said he then distributed his list of priorities with the intersection as the first.

The DOT agreed and put it on their list of projects, he said.

“We were notified in 2008. The money had been found, some of it federally generated, so we started the process of engineering the interchange and finding what had to be done,” Tarantolo said. “This was followed by several public hearings. Finally the project began.”

According to the DOT’s December status brief, many milestones have been completed, including the reconfiguration of the intersection so that Wall Street is at the southeast quadrant; and extension of the existing left-most (third) lane on Route 36 eastbound through the traffic signal at the Motor Vehicle Commission building.

This lane previously ended approximately 800 feet beyond the intersection causing an unsafe merge and bottleneck condition for traffic, the brief said.

The Route 35 southbound jug-handle ramp to Route 36 eastbound has been permanently closed. Two new dedicated left turn lanes at the intersection now provide Route 35 southbound motorists with direct access to Route 36 eastbound.

“Under the pre-existing configuration, [motorists] traveled [Route 35] southbound, across Route 36 to use the jughandle to access Route 36 eastbound,” Greeley said. “We reconfigured it now so that we widened [Route] 35 southbound to feature two dedicated left-turn lanes and we got rid of the jughandle.”

The new ramp connecting Route 35 northbound to Route 36 eastbound has also been opened to traffic. This ramp features a new deceleration lane on Route 35 northbound and a new acceleration lane leading onto Route 36 eastbound, providing motorists with safer merge movements, according to the brief.

On Dec. 9, the DOT announced that the Route 35 southbound travel lanes shifted onto a new permanent alignment through the intersection with Route 36. A new connector ramp from Route 36 eastbound to realigned Route 35 southbound was opened and the existing ramp was closed and will be removed.

This is the latest major milestone to be completed at the intersection, he said.

In the coming weeks, the contractor will install a new traffic signal at the new intersection, Greeley said.

“We have had to modify and will modify the existing signal to feature a left-turn arrow which had not existed before,” Greeley said.

The existing Route 35 southbound lanes at the intersection will then be excavated and construction of new median, sidewalks and associated drainage work will take the contract to the expected winter shutdown.

According to the DOT brief, Route 35 northbound will remain in the existing alignment until the third stage of construction begins in early spring.

During the third stage, the contractor will shift Route 35 northbound to the new alignment; make improvements to the Route 36 westbound ramp to Route 35 northbound; construct a new loop ramp to connect Route 36 eastbound traffic to Route 35 northbound; and complete final median, sidewalk and surface pavement work throughout the project limits.