Description: NJDOT has revised the New Jersey urban area based upon the 2020 U.S. Census urban area boundaries. The U.S. Census defines an Urbanized Area as any area with a population >= 5,000. Under the 2020 Urban Area definition, Urban Clusters are no longer a classification. FHWA, however, has slightly different criteria for what defines an urban area. Under FHWA, an Urban Area is >= 5,000, with Small Urban Areas 5,000-49,999 and Urbanized Areas >= 50,000. NJDOT followed the FHWA urban area definitions for this urban area update. To perform this update, NJDOT used the 2020 US Census urban areas greater than 5,000 in population. Since census urban area boundaries are based upon census block boundaries, which can be irregular, NJDOT extended outward the urban area ("smoothed") to the nearest road, stream, political boundary, or manmade feature. When a roadway is used as the adjusted boundary, the following buffers will be applied to include the right of way of the roadway: 50’ from undivided roadway centerlines (single centerline) and 80’ from divided roadway centerlines (dual centerline). Where there was no obvious boundary to smooth to, the census boundary was retained. NJDOT also expanded the urban area to include any densely developed areas not included in the 2020 census urban areas. The urban area update underwent a thorough public review and comment period. Representatives from NJDOT and the 3 metropolitan planning organizations (NJTPA, SJTPO, and DVRPC) met during various phases of the project to review the updated urban area. All comments were logged into an Urban Area Comment Tracking Form, and an official NJDOT response was provided for each comment. Further revisions were made to the urban area based upon comments from FHWA. These revisions were limited in scope and consisted of the following: 1) Smoothed the urban boundary outward at water boundaries: 1000’ from corporate boundary / shoreline for coastal areas and 500’ from corporate boundary / shoreline for bay areas. 2) Utilize Census State Boundary for the state boundary except for coastal boundaries.