TOMS RIVER, NJ — When a state contractor started setting up cones to shift traffic for the start of the Route 166 project at Route 37 in Toms River in late March 2016, officials and businesses expected the disruptions to only last for a year or so.

Now, nearly three years later, all the business owners can do is try to find their sense of humor. How do you do that? By entering the project for consideration in the Guinness Book of World Records, of course. The project has been entered as the slowest quarter-mile of road construction ever by Larry Schuster of Schuster's Car Wash, who said he's opted to try humor to cope with the disruptions.

Rachel Gluck, the PR coordinator for Guinness World Records in North America, confirmed his application had been received and that it was under review by the Records Management Team.

"We need to turn this around to something funny," Schuster said.

Schuster applied for the record last week. The quarter-mile stretch of road, from Route 37 to the Old Freehold Road split has been under construction for 995 days as of Monday, part of the larger project that extended to Highland Parkway on the south side of Route 37. There is a glimmer of hope that the end is near: work is underway on a center concrete median between the lanes on the north side of Route 37, one of the last steps before the work is finally completed. It has been a grueling process for businesses that line the route, however. Corinne Jewelers has changed its electronic message at various points along the way, highlighting the owners' frustration with the slow progress.

The most recent message takes a tongue-in-cheek approach: "INCONVENIENTLY LOCATED BUT WE PROMISE WE ARE WORTH THE TROUBLE."

The initial traffic shifts happened March 28, 2016. state Department of Transportation, which is responsible for the project, has repeatedly noted that the 2016 three-month shutdown of road projects across the state by then-Gov. Chris Christie in the battle over raising the gasoline tax to fund the Transportation Trust Fund put the roadwork significantly behind when utility work had to be delayed as a result.

But there have been unexplained delays and gaps in the work as well. A notice late in November about overnight traffic changes came after work by the contractor, New Prince Construction, had ceased for five weeks. An NJDOT spokesman was unable to provide information on what caused the lack of work; New Prince also is the contractor on a Route 71 project in Monmouth County. NJDOT officials say the Route 166 project will be completed this winter.