Jersey Barrier

1a. Jersey Barrier – a concrete barrier used to separate lanes of traffic (often opposing lanes of traffic) with a goal of minimizing vehicle crossover in the case of accidents. It is also used as defense against car bombs.

It was originally developed at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ (under the direction of the New Jersey State Highway Department) to divide multiple lanes on a highway. The first concrete median barrier used in New Jersey was installed in 1955, and it was only 18 inches tall. It looked like a low vertical wall with a curb on each side. Operational problems were observed, the shape was changed, and the height was increased to 24 inches, and to 32 inches in 1959. The commonly seen shape came into being then. Basically, going upward, the first 2 inches from the pavement rises vertically, the next 10 inches rises at a 55-degree angle, and the remainder at an 84-degree angle (as measured from horizontal).

New Jersey did not use crash-testing to develop the barrier. The state highway department observed the accident results of its barrier installations, and evolved the shape of the barrier. Both New Jersey and California continued experimenting in the early 1960s, and the New Jersey barrier was widely adopted by California.

The basic reason for the New Jersey profile is to redirect a vehicle that hits it. The vehicle's wheels and sheet metal on the impacting side ride upward to prevent vehicle rollover. The Jersey Barrier is very heavy, something like 600 lbs. per linear foot of barrier. Often, it is cast-in-place or slip-formed onto a concrete footer with steel dowel anchors. A tractor-trailer impacting at a 15-degree angle at 60mph will be successfully redirected.

In the state of New Jersey, ironically, the term "Jersey barrier" is rarely used. Residents, government agencies, and road traffic and media reports on radio and television usually use the term "traffic divider".

Jersey barriers have been used extensively in the American occupation of Iraq to fortify road-blocks and public infrastructure, along with much taller variants.

[Sources: Wikipedia; Scott Kozel]


1s. Jersey Barrier - a concrete barrier originally developed during the February 1848 Revolution in France.

The revolutionaries were searching for ways to barricade the streets of Paris. As in any great enterprise of discovery, various things were tried at random (seemingly; but is it ever really completely random?) to ascertain their worth at repelling troops and their bullets. We are told, for example, that they used overturned wagons, carts, carriages, and even omnibuses. (But what is more commonplace in a revolutionary setting than an overturned omnibus?) The problem with these sorts of things is that, first, they could be penetrated by bullets; second, they could be rammed and moved; and third, they could be set afire.

There was one man who had the intelligence and foresight to look beyond these failings to seek something which would work. His name was Jacques Gersais and he was a road builder. In the early 1840’s we find that he was helping build streets (when such things were paved at all) out of bricks and cobblestones in Paris and its environs.

But then Gersais heard about something called Portland Cement, a concrete first manufactured in England in 1842. Gersais went over there and brought back the materials, knowledge, and wherewithal to Paris for purposes of road construction.

In February 1848 when fighting broke out and revolutionaries were casting about for suitable barricades, Gersais hit upon the design for a barrier which could not be penetrated, moved, or burned. It would be utterly stable (i.e. it could not be overturned), as it would be thick at the bottom and gradually tapered to the top. It would be tall enough (about 1.5 meters, or 5 feet) to protect the insurrectionists. And it would be forbiddingly heavy, since it would be fashioned of Portland Cement (concrete.)

The result came to be called 'Le Barrière Gersais', and Jacques feverishly cast scores of them to be used as barricades. When at length the insurrection was put down, Gersais fled to the isle of Jersey off the French coast, where he found work building concrete sidewalks (a relatively pedestrian occupation), and an occasional barrier (mostly for sentimental reasons, as there was little market for it.) It is not known whether he called the latter after himself or in homage to his adopted home.

The regime of Louis Napoleon destroyed most of Les Barrières Gersais. (After all, what government would want such invitations to further insurrection hanging around?) But a few survived, sitting alone and all but forgotten in back corners of Paris. (Indeed, there would be no other need for them in any era before the automobile.) These found use nearly a century later when in August 1944 Parisians rose up against their German captors and once again erected barricades.

During the liberation of Paris later that month, a young American soldier (his name is lost to history) saw those barriers. Ten years later, as a traffic engineer in New Jersey, he remembered their distinctive shape and began casting shorter versions for use on roads in the United States.

Contrary to popular myth, however, the origins of the name for the so-called Jersey Barrier have absolutely nothing to do with the State of New Jersey. Rather, the engineer named his creation for his wife Joyce, who apparently had a similar shape. His name of endearment for her was ‘Joycey’, hence the corruption to ‘Joisey’ and finally ‘Jersey’.

It is not known whether or not he knew the original (French) name for his re-creation.

- Theo May