The New Jersey Department of Transportation lists CR 501 as a single highway with a length of 53.07 miles (85.41 km), which includes both road sections and the connection along NY 440.

[citation needed] The northern section of CR 501 begins in Hudson County, New Jersey and is known as Kennedy Boulevard.

[2] At its junction with Route 63 in North Bergen, CR 501 begins a concurrency with Route 63 into Bergen County,[2] while Kennedy Boulevard loops around the northern end of the county and heads south through Guttenberg, West New York and Weehawken, where it is known as Boulevard East.

[citation needed] Immediately northeast of Journal Square, CR 501/Kennedy Boulevard crosses over Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) railroad tracks on an open-spandrel concrete arch bridge completed in 1926.

The bridge is a pared-down version of a more ambitious elevated plaza scheme proposed by consulting engineer Abraham Burton Cohen.

[10] In November 2017 county officials launched a safety campaign for Kennedy Boulevard's five most dangerous intersections, based on accident data:[8] County officials had expressed interest in building a pedestrian bridge that crosses Kennedy Boulevard at 32nd Street, at the Union City-North Bergen border since at least.