The elevated highway that connects the New Jersey Turnpike to the Lincoln Tunnel already is the most traffic-choked stretch of pavement east of Chicago. Now, after decades of patching it up at night and on weekends, the state says the time has come to strip it down and rebuild it.

Or as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo might warn the hordes of commuters who rely on the tunnel to reach Manhattan: Get ready for more than two years of diabolical torture, starting this summer.

Last year, Mr. Cuomo famously forecast a “summer of hell” for train riders while Amtrak conducted emergency repairs at Pennsylvania Station. Still, despite having to cope with the rerouting of many trains, commuters generally found the eight-week-long disruption to be tolerable.

But the rebuilding of Route 495 promises to be a much longer slog. The New Jersey Department of Transportation, which controls the highway, warns that “the existing traffic delays and congestion that occur today are expected to become much worse beginning in the summer of 2018.”