Safety team endorses Route 1 overhaul, The Princeton Packet, May 23, 2003
Limited road safety plan, Editorial, The Star Ledger, March 7, 2003
Interchange set for May debut, The Star Ledger, February 10, 2003
Keep an eye on the trucks, The Trenton Times, January 5, 2003
University does not plan to reroute Washington Road, Daily Princetonian, November 25, 2002
Rutgers policy institute proposes new solutions to Rt. 1 traffic flow problem Daily Princetonian, November 25, 2002
Safety: Crossing With the Light The New York Times, November 12, 2002
Rt. 29 called barrier to river access The Trenton Times, November 3, 2002
Traffic Survey: Thank Heavens For Overpasses, US 1, September 25, 2002
Between the Lines, US 1, September 25, 2002
Study: Spring Street complex will add little to traffic, The Trenton Times, September 4, 2002
Traffic planner to ease the way, The Star Ledger, July 4, 2002
McGreevey Won't Commit to Route 92 Position, Mobilizing the Region, July 1, 2002
Playing Mind Games With Traffic, The Washington Post, June 29, 2002
Just Around the Next Curve Lurks a $2.6 Billion Question, The New York Times, June 23, 2002
Another Word About the Fox Guarding the Roundhouse, The New York Times, June 23, 2002
Census Data Tells Story of Narrowing Choices, Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), June 12, 2002
Close the I-95 gap, The Trenton Times, June 6, 2002
NJ Legislators Question DOT Priorities, Mobilizing the Region, May 27, 2002
Survey says . . . commuters to be polled, The Trenton Times, May 24, 2002
Environmental study of Route 92 delayed until September, Princeton Packet, May 21, 2002
Intersections rated among worst, The Trenton Times, May 20, 2002
Safety Conscious Planning, Federal Highway Administration, May 2002
West Windsor cracks down on speeding, The Trenton Times, May 15, 2002
Princeton student's thesis proposes express-lane system, The Trenton Times, May 9, 2002
No free ride, The Trenton Times, May 7, 2002
Senior thesis: Solving traffic snarls, Princeton Weekly Bulletin, May 6, 2002
Princeton freshmen may be forced to do without wheels, The Trenton Times, May 3, 2002
Harrison Street residents want measures to cut speeds, traffic, Princeton Packet, April 30, 2002
Lone Drivers? Some Can Come Into Manhattan, The New York Times, April 19, 2002
Plan nixes expansion of roads, The Trenton Times, April 15, 2002
Bridge plan is criticized, The Trenton Times, April 10, 2002
Proposal for Princeton jitney service hits rough road, The Trenton Times, April 4, 2002
Alexander Road bridge to be rebuilt in place, The Trenton Times, April 4 2002
Residents still push bridge proposal, The Trenton Times, April 2, 2002
Bridge saga's final chapter not yet written, Princeton Packet, April 2, 2002
State won't pay to realign Alexander Road bridge, Princeton Packet, April 2, 2002
Much of Middlesex Firm Against Route 92, Mobilizing the Region, April 1, 2002
Decision nearing on building Route 92, The Trenton Times, March 29, 2002
Traveling in reverse, The Trenton Times, Editorial, February 22, 2002
TRN Meets, Debates Level of Service, Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), January 24, 2002
Officials get their digs in on tunnel, The Trenton Times, January 15, 2002
Traffic clogs up local artery, The Trenton Times, January 8, 2002
Safety team endorses Route 1 overhaul
By: Gwen Runkle , Staff Writer 05/23/2003
Transportation commissioner promises quick action to cut accident rate.EWING - With accident rates double or triple the state average in some spots, there's no question Route 1 is a dangerous highway.
But now, with expert advice from a team of state and federal transportation officials, Jack Lettiere, state Department of Transportation commissioner, says it won't be long before Route 1's track record is turned around.
"Too often, all we hear about are plans or studies, but what residents really want are results," the commissioner said Thursday at the DOT's headquarters in Ewing, as he unveiled preliminary findings by a new Safety Impact Team. "We're here today to demonstrate our commitment to identifying problems, getting them fixed and getting them fixed soon."
This week, the Safety Impact Team, made up of representatives from the DOT, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Motor Carrier Administration, along with local law enforcement officials, analyzed a 10-mile stretch of Route 1 from Franklin Corner Road in Lawrence to Ridge Road in South Brunswick.
The group looked at accident data, conducted an on-site inspection and put together a concept report identifying safety improvements to be put into practice right away.
These include improving signal timing for cars and pedestrians, reviewing all directional signage on the highway, accelerating a schedule for pavement resurfacing projects, establishing a driver safety partnership with the business community and collaborating with NJ Transit to examine bus stop safety.
A full report of recommendations is expected by June 7 at the earliest.
"But we're not going to wait until the final report comes out to act," Commissioner Lettiere added. "We're going to start immediately and probably by the end of July even identify other safe corridors in the state for the team to start picking off one at a time."
So far, the DOT has identified 13 highways, including Routes 1, 206 and 130, as "safe corridors," based on the roadways' higher-than-average accident or fatality rates during 2001.
In 2001, there were 7,329 crashes on the entire length of Route 1 with 20 fatalities, and 2,209 crashes with seven fatalities on Route 130. On Route 206, there were 2,726 auto accidents with 15 fatalities, according to DOT statistics.
Being identified as a "safe corridor" not only puts a roadway in line for a team study, but also means that if new highway safety legislation is passed, traffic fines could be doubled in those areas.
The legislation is part of Gov. James E. McGreevey's "Safety First" initiative, which combines $20 million in highway improvements over the next five years with stricter police enforcement and enhanced driver education for all motorists.
The "Safety First" legislation would allow the DOT to double fines in the most dangerous sections of roads labeled as "safe corridors."
The state Assembly was expected to vote on the legislation, A-3527, Thursday. The state Senate is currently reviewing companion legislation, S-2495.
The Safety Impact Team concept is expected to be used as a nationwide model as well, the commissioner said.
"New Jersey used to be a leader in transportation efforts," Commissioner Lettiere said. "Today, we're reinventing New Jersey as a leader and I don't think there's a better place to start than safety."
©PACKETONLINE News
Friday, March 07, 2003
The flashiest part of Gov. James E. McGreevey's plan to improve road safety is the scheme to double fines for speeding and other traffic violations on 500 miles of "priority safety zones." That is also the part least likely to accomplish anything, at least not without a major police crackdown on bad driving.
McGreevey assigned a task force of police, transportation engineers and others to come up with safety improvements after a horrendous day in November in which three tractor-trailer accidents on different highways killed three people and created massive traffic tie-ups.
There are some old and new elements in the plan. The old includes putting more pavement reflectors and reflective road striping in dangerous spots. Median barriers will be erected in places where trucks and cars have shown a tendency to cross into oncoming traffic. The Department of Transportation's emergency motorist aid patrols will be increased.
On the new side, out-of-state trucks that fail spot inspections or are overweight will face bigger fines, ending a ridiculous system in which we fined New Jersey-based trucks more than those from other places.
The most promising measure is a commitment to bring the DOT's experts together with their counterparts from the Federal Highway Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They will examine the most dangerous highway stretches -- the priority zones -- to customize the best combination of improvements to prevent accidents and save lives.
Those are the places where the fines will double. But there is a major question whether that will change driver behavior. The DOT has an Arizona study to show it will. Other studies show it probably won't. The experience here, where we doubled fines in 65-mph zones when the speed limit rose in 1998, is not promising. People drove the same speed whether the sign said 55 or 65. Higher fines were a nonissue.
The only proven remedy for leadfoot disease, and for tailgating, lane-weaving and other careless driving, is lots of cops issuing lots of tickets and doing it consistently. Neither the State Police nor local departments have the officers or the budgets to do that.
McGreevey's safety program is worth doing. But don't let your guard down on Route 1.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Long-awaited upgrade to Rts. 1 and 130 is cruising toward completion
Sunday, February 09, 2003
BY SUE EPSTEIN
Star-Ledger StaffImagine driving along Route 1 and coming to the intersection at Route 130 in North Brunswick without having to stop.
It's a dream for the more than 130,000 commuters who brave New Jersey's worst intersection every day, but it will soon be a reality.
The interchange's reconstruction project will be finished in May, and the new road will be open by Memorial Day -- right on target.
The intersection is at a critical juncture for New Jersey's north-south travelers -- where a circle that was supposed to control the feed of traffic from the two highways and Georges Road did little more than cause tie-ups and accidents. Officials were pushing for its reconstruction more than a decade ago.
The $83 million project began in December 2001 and included removal of the circle the state Department of Transportation named the state's most dangerous intersection last year.
"It will be finished on schedule," said Anna Farneski, a spokeswoman for the DOT. "This is one of the busiest intersections in the state, and it was also one of the biggest problem spots."
In May, the state came out with its list of the 100 worst intersections in the state, and 21 were in Middlesex County, with the Routes 1 and 130 confluence at the top of the list. Officials said the list was compiled using a formula involving the number and severity of crashes in 1998 and 1999.
In 2000, there were 122 accidents at the intersection of Routes 1 and 130, resulting in 33 deaths and numerous injuries, according to the DOT.
It was the state's concerns about traffic problems at the intersection that led transportation officials to open one of the new ramps that leads from Route 130 north to Route 1 north last fall, ahead of schedule.
"It helped keep traffic moving," Farneski said of the ramp opening.
After construction began on the project, traffic delays of three to five miles on Route 1 and one to three miles on Route 130 were not uncommon, despite the efforts by the state's contractor, George Harms Construction of Howell, to do most of the major work at night. Traffic was reduced to one or two lanes in each direction along Route 1 for several months while crews constructed the bridges that are central to the redesign.
In addition to removing the circle, the project will also eliminate the traffic signal at Routes 1 and 130 and replace it with a "flyover" ramp that directly connects Route 1 south to Route 130 south and the ramp connecting the two highways northbound. In all, construction crews built four bridges, and constructed a sound barrier wall to reduce the traffic noises for the nearby apartment complex.
Sue Epstein covers Middlesex County. She can be reached at sepstein@starledger.com or (732) 634-6482.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Sunday, January 05, 2003
BY EDITORIAL
The New Year's Day toll increase raised the cost of using the Turnpike by 13 percent for cash-paying truckers and 8 percent for those who use E-ZPass. It will intensify the ever-present temptation for drivers to avoid paying tolls altogether by steering their 18-wheelers onto state highways, including narrow two-lane roads like Route 31, Route 206 and Route 29 that were never intended for vehicles of their size, weight and inertia. New Jersey law prohibits the largest of these, if they are based outside the state and merely passing through, from using the smaller roads, and it's important that the State Police protect ordinary motorists by vigilantly enforcing those laws.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
University does not plan to reroute Washington Road
Monday, November 25, 2002
Contrary to what was reported in Thursday's The Daily Princetonian, the University has no plans to reroute Washington Road, nor is it cooperating with the Borough on a plan to reroute Washington Road traffic from Route 1. I apologize for any misunderstandings that led your reporter to these conclusions.
The origin of the article was an annual safety walk that allows students and administrators to consider possible safety improvements on campus. We did talk about increasing safety for students crossing Washington Road, but there certainly are no plans to reroute the road. We also talked about the discussions that are taking place with the State and in several neighboring communities about traffic on Route 1. Most of those discussions are aimed at preserving the current distribution of traffic into Princeton via Washington, Harrison Street and Alexander Road.
They do not seek to move traffic off of one of those roads and on to another.
We are interested in improving safety along Washington Road as well as at other locations around campus, and we welcome any additional ideas from students and others.
Janet Dickerson
Vice President for Campus Life
Rutgers policy institute proposes new solutions to Rt. 1 traffic flow problem
Monday, November 25, 2002
By LINDSEY WHITE
Princetonian Senior WriterTraffic congestion may be a fact of life, but local and state officials are hoping to improve the situation in the nearby Penns Neck area by constructing alternate roadways.
Earlier this fall, the circulation subcommittee of the Princeton Regional Planning Board debated solutions to the growing problem of traffic congestion in the downtown and Penns Neck areas of Princeton.
A projected increase in business commuters along Route 1 highlights the urgency of the problem. As of 2001, roughly 46,257 jobs were based in the areas of Plainsboro and West Windsor along the Route 1 corridor, The Princeton Packet reported. Projections show this number nearly doubling to 84,445 by 2028.
Though subcommittee members and Princeton residents generally agree that alternate travel paths must be built, no agreement has been reached on how to achieve that goal.
In an attempt to find a workable solution, the N.J. Department of Transportation commissioned the Rutgers Transportation Policy Institute to conduct research.
The Rutgers team has come up with 18 different proposals. The subcommittee is reviewing the designs, and the Rutgers team has also solicited input from Princeton residents.
Among the proposals is a plan similar to the former Millstone Bypass proposal and also a no-build alternative that will serve as a baseline comparison for the other proposals.
Of the Rutgers designs, the subcommittee expressed most support for Alternative D. This design includes two key components favored by the subcommittee: an eastside road connecting Route 571 near N.J. Transit's Northeast Corridor line to Route 1, and a westside road connecting Route 1 to Harrison Street near the Delaware-Raritan Canal.
Like many of the other options, Alternative D also calls for running Route 1 under Washington Road, a measure that the subcommittee believes would be key to controlling traffic flow in the Princeton area.
Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, who sits on the subcommittee, estimated that this part of the project would cost between $25 million and $30 million.
The subcommittee is analyzing the environmental impact of the different proposals. The Princeton Environmental Commission and other conservation groups argue that the new proposals are being rushed through review without considering environmental implications.
The DOT's first proposal, the Millstone Bypass, was rejected by former Gov. Christie Whitman in 2000 because of concerns that it would increase east-west traffic problems and would have adverse effects on the environment.
But Reed said the situation "looks more promising than it did two years ago."
He added that the proposals of the Rutgers team reinforce the findings of Sam Schwartz Associates, independent consultants hired by the Township and Borough to evaluate the environmental impact of the proposed designs.
"If the right alternative is chosen, it will keep traffic in downtown Princeton from getting a lot worse," Reed said.
The University does not currently support any specific proposal and does not plan to make any such endorsement until all environmental reviews and design inquiries are completed, said Pam Hersh, director of community and state affairs.
Hersh said that in University considerations of the problem, "the main goal is equal distribution of traffic into Princeton."
The DOT plans to select one of the 18 alternates in April.
(Information from The Princeton Packet was used in this report.)
Safety: Crossing With the Light
By JOHN O'NEILCrosswalks that are not paired with traffic lights or stop signs appear to make intersections more dangerous instead of safer, at least for older pedestrians, a new study says.
The study, published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at 282 intersections in Washington State and California where pedestrians over 65 had been hit and compared them with 564 other nearby intersections.
After taking into account factors like the width of the crosswalk and the volume of car and pedestrian traffic, the researchers concluded that the risk of being hit was more than 3.5 times as great in intersections with crosswalk markings but no other traffic controls.
The article's lead author, Dr. Thomas Koepsell of the University of Washington, said that while the study focused on older pedestrians, who are known to be most vulnerable, the results of other studies suggested that the dangers would probably apply to other age groups, as well.
Crosswalks, he said, may be more visible to pedestrians than to drivers.
"Nearly all of the higher risk associated with crosswalk markings appeared to be at intersections where there was no traffic signal or stop sign," he said.
Dr. Koepsell said traffic engineers were sometimes under pressure from the public to put in marked crosswalks when they might have some questions about whether the crosswalks were worthwhile. "We hope that results from this study may help traffic engineers to make informed judgments," he said.
"At intersections where vehicles aren't required to stop," he added, "a marked crosswalk may send the wrong message."
Copyright 2002 New York Times Company
Rt. 29 called barrier to river access
Sunday, November 03, 2002
By ALBERT RABOTEAU
TRENTON - The Delaware River and the city's downtown have had little to do with each other since being separated decades ago by a jumble of state parking lots, the multiple lanes of Route 29 and its on and off ramps - a series of projects from the 1950s and 1960s now derided by many.
Like many cities, Trenton was cut off from its potentially valuable riverfront. And like an increasing number of those cities, it is looking to reclaim some of the land it lost.
A plan is being pitched that would turn a stretch of Route 29 between the Calhoun Street and Trenton Makes bridges from a highway to a boulevard, with traffic lights and a center median that would allow people to cross the busy road and reach the river.
Market and Livingston streets would terminate at traffic lighted-intersections with Route 29.
Along with improving access to the river, proponents of the plan say it would aid efforts by the city to develop high-end housing on the vast surface parking lots between Route 29 and state office buildings.
"It would speed development along the river - in a good way," said Dennis Gonzalez, city director of housing and urban development.
Altering Route 29 would free up about 29 acres either along the river or along the eastern side of the redone road, proponents of the change said. The land could be used for biking, walking or other uses, they said.
The idea has been around since at least 1988 but has been revived this year.
Among its supporters are Mayor Douglas H. Palmer, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Capital City Redevelopment Corp. (CCRC), a special state agency charged with reviving the neighborhood around the State House.
However, many details, including how the project would be funded, would have to be established before it could be realized.-- -- -- The CCRC in May received new drawings for the project, and meetings between that agency, the city and the DOT are continuing, said Ingrid Reed, who heads the CCRC board.
She estimated altering Route 29 would cost $25 million and extending city streets to Route 29 would be an additional expense. Reed cautioned that her estimates were preliminary and the numbers could change.
"The DOT feels it's a wonderful idea - something we want very much to work with the CCRC and city itself on," said Micah Rasmussen, a DOT spokesman. "We support it and are anxious to work with everyone involved. We need to have an honest discussion of what the cost will be and make sure everyone is honest about what their needs will be and how we will get there."
Palmer said the Route 29 change would dramatically benefit the city.
"It makes it more pedestrian friendly when people would be able to really walk from their home or office to the river and enjoy the river."
Walking to the river from downtown is basically impossible now, Reed said.
It was not always that way. A half-century ago, there was no highway between the river and the State House.
As in many cities, a highway was run along the river to make it easier to get into the city by car. Such projects were common in the mid-20th century but are now viewed as misguided by many urban planners.
"We made a big mistake in the U.S." said C. Douglas Coolman of the Edward D. Stone Jr. Associates firm from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which is working to make that city's waterfront more pedestrian friendly. "We had all this money and built for the automobile first."
It took years for people to realize that waterfronts were a major asset and roads should be placed elsewhere, Coolman said.
He said there is an international movement among urban planners to reclaim waterfronts. He is a member of the board of advisers of the Waterfront Center, an advocacy group for that cause. Other board members hail from Canada, Japan, Australia, and states from California to Massachusetts.
-- -- -- Portland, Ore., is considered a trailblazer in reclaiming its waterfront. In the 1970s it removed Harbor Drive from alongside the Willamette River to install Tom McCall Waterfront Park, named for the governor who is said to have suggested the project.
"To say it's popular is an understatement," said David Yamashita, senior planner for Portland's parks and recreation department. "It's become the site for many of our citywide large events. . . . We refer to it as the front yard for the city."
In Milwaukee, a project to remove the Park East Freeway spur and free 26 acres for development are under way, according to that city's Web site.
In San Francisco, the elevated Embarcadero Freeway, heavily damaged in a 1989 earthquake, was never replaced. A boulevard was installed along that city's piers.
Richard J. Hughes, namesake of the justice complex, was New Jersey's governor when the portion of Route 29 under discussion was built. His son, Brian Hughes, a Mercer County freeholder, says it was a mistake.
"He had some bad ideas," Brian Hughes said of his father. "It was all about progress and jobs back then. Now people realize they can have smart growth. They can have an appreciation for nature and jobs, that's what rebuilding the city is all about."
Brian Hughes added, "I think if you take a look at all of the cities along the East Coast that have really been able to come back from some of their post-industrial decline, like Baltimore, like Wilmington to a degree, they all have been able to reconnect with the river."
Palmer said, "Back in the '60s, one of the things was building roads to take people out of cities, and that was the focus. Hindsight is 20-20, but it was a mistake."
Scaling back Route 29 would differ dramatically from the approach the DOT took not long ago when it spent $105 million to extend that very highway through South Trenton. That project ended in March.
Critics said it, once again, cut off a portion of the city from the river.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Traffic Survey: Thank Heavens For Overpasses
No matter how we improve traffic flow, the number of cars on the road will inexorably increase. Taking just the area from the Forrestal Center to the Carnegie Center, employment is supposed to nearly double, going from 46,000 to 86,500 by 2028.
Yet more traffic does not necessarily mean more congestion, as U.S. 1 Newspaper's Route 1 traffic surveys have shown, because driving times decrease when major improvements are made. For instance, when drivers were allowed to use the shoulder lane during the morning and afternoon rush hours, driving times dropped.
But of all the congestion-reducing measures that have been tried, the overpasses are clear winners, largely because they eliminate red lights on Route 1. This year U.S. 1's drivers saw a demonstrable decrease due to the new Meadow Road overpass (see chart, page 43).
Not every improvement to Route 1 helps the overall traffic situation. Two years ago the DOT made the green lights longer on Route 1, and this initially precipitated a huge logjam on the crossroads, especially at Washington Road and Harrison Street. (Adjustments were soon made and these eased the back-ups at the intersections.) Crossroads without an overpass, as the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) points out, are tough to improve. These old, old roads are being asked to do big league service.
As a result many Route 1 drivers are lobbying for the proposed overpass for Harrison Street and Washington Road that the Millstone Bypass would bring (see page 12). One useful idea from the Partners Roundtable is to have Vaughn Drive continue through the train station across the Dinky tracks and, expanded to a "real" road, go all the way to the proposed bypass.
Other proposed improvements for commuters are longer term and far more expensive. One is Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), now being taken seriously by planners and traffic experts. It is being studied by the Central Jersey Transportation Forum -- a group created by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to work with New Jersey Transit to reduce traffic congestion. In June when the Sarnoff Corporation was granted approval for a 3 million square-foot office complex, the West Windsor planning board required that BRT be an integral part of its plan.
BRT makes use of sleek high-tech vehicles resembling a hybrid bus/train that can travel on specially-designed "guideways" as well as regular roads. A BRT vehicle would be able to carry passengers over a dedicated right-of-way, such as an old railroad line, and then wheel through city centers and neighborhoods picking up riders. As BRT is envisioned, intersections would be realigned with dedicated bus lanes, and a BRT driver could signal the traffic light from a short distance away and trigger a green light to let the commuters through ahead of the cars.
BRT systems are already operating successfully worldwide and in 14 cities in the United States including Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Hartford, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles.
As proposed, this BRT line would have a guideway on a strip between Route 1 and the Amtrak mainline from Lawrence to South Brunswick townships. Stops include Quakerbridge Mall, a complex built on the Wyeth (formerly American Cyanamid) property, Carnegie Center, the Princeton Junction train station, Sarnoff's office complex, the Merrill Lynch and Squibb complexes on Scudders Mill Road, Forrestal Center, and Ridge Road. The plan also includes a line that runs into downtown Princeton utilizing the existing Dinky Railroad or a bus that would run along the same route. The advantage of the bus over the train would be that in the 20 minutes the train sits idly at the station, the bus could be moving through town, picking up passengers.
The service would be supplemented by "feeder routes" -- bus lines throughout Mercer and lower Middlesex counties that tie into the main BRT line. This would make the Princeton Junction train station a major transportation hub -- with cars, trains, and buses all coming together in one place.
A New Jersey Transit study, showing that the proposed BRT line would be economically feasible, estimates that it would carry 760 peak-hour riders, well in excess of the 600 riders set at the beginning of the study as the minimum for the proposal to merit additional research. The line has the potential for 21,000 daily trips on the service, with feeder lines generating some 6,000 daily trips.
BRT can be constructed incrementally, and the first phase could be implemented as early as 2007. The next step is for NJ Transit and the TMA to conduct a detailed in-depth study, including environmental impacts, and detailed engineering.
Could BRT be the ultimate answer to the Millstone Bypass controversy, an innovative system that would eliminate the need for such a bypass? No way, most of the experts agree. It would be at least five years before the first phase of a BRT could be installed, and at maximum usage BRT would reduce actual traffic by only 5 to 8 percent. The Penns Neck Area EIS concluded that even under the most favorable circumstances a BRT system "would not significantly improve traffic congestion in the Penns Neck area."
"All of the projections for traffic on Route 1 show that it's not going to get better," says Sandra Brillhart of the Greater Mercer TMA, "And there's no one silver bullet answer."
This article was prepared for the September 25, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
http://www.princetoninfo.com/200209/20925c03.html
Once a year we write about traffic, but this subject is on our minds more often than that. Few days go by without someone commenting on a fender bender they passed on the way to work, a horrendous accident in the newspaper, a ditsy driver who was talking on a cell phone, or the latest in a series of aggravating detours. Traffic on Route 1 has indeed improved (overall the average commuting time of 17 minutes and 15 seconds is the third fastest time we have recorded since 1985), but we are still a long way from Roadway Nirvana.
Cell phones are an easy blame for accidents, but another major cause for traffic confusion, as we see it, is deficient signage. Some of the drivers who see a sign too late to change lanes safely are going to try to change lanes anyway.
Signage and lane confusion may have caused the most recent horrendous accident on the New Jersey Turnpike, when a driver encountered a temporary construction island just before he needed to turn off at Exit 8. He ended up on the left of the construction island but -- desperate to get to the turnoff -- crossed to the right and was hit by a truck that killed him, his wife, and his child.
On a smaller scale this kind of confusion plagues Route 1. Nassau Park and Washington Road, for instance, are among the top 20 most dangerous intersections in the state, measured by volume of accidents reported. It's easy to explain fender benders at the Washington Road circle, where drivers jockey for places as if they are rounding a curve at Monte Carlo. And at Nassau Park, known for its frustrating traffic patterns, drivers try to push yellow lights to get out on Route 1, and they get into trouble.
But another problem at the Nassau Park light is that southbound Route 1 drivers are frantically switching lines to choose the right fork (supposedly to the malls) or the left fork (to I-295/195). We've seen drivers of huge trucks, alarmed at the prospect of losing their chance to get to I-295, brashly veering to the left lanes. They don't realize that all lanes will end up merged together in just a few hundred feet and that, once on the left, they will have trouble getting back to the right to make their turn.
This kind of confusion haunts the well-established traffic pattern at Nassau Park. So you can imagine that a temporary pattern causes even more confusion. Did you notice the egregious lack of signage for northbound drivers on Route 1 at the new exits for Meadow Road and Carnegie Center Boulevard? For the first six months, only those familiar with the construction process would have known to take the service road that would lead them safely into the Carnegie Center. Everyone else had to make a right turn at Carnegie Boulevard (a turn that is now illegal) or be shunted up to the Alexander Road exit.
As they have been doing for more than 15 years, U.S. 1's intrepid drivers again braved Route 1 for the survey. For some runs the traffic was so improved that they could travel at the speed limit -- a real challenge when you are using one hand to drive and the other to write down the time at which you pass through an intersection. Thanks go to Mary Ann Davison, Robert Eveleigh, Jack Florek, Barbara Fox, Henry MacAdam, Lynn Miller, Nicole Plett, Marie Rendine, and Robert Yuell. See the results, page 43.
This article was prepared for the September 25, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
http://www.princetoninfo.com/200209/20925c04.html
Study: Spring Street complex will add little to traffic
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON BOROUGH - The proposed Spring Street complex isn't expected to make driving downtown a breeze, but it shouldn't significantly compound existing traffic problems either, a traffic consultant on the project said last night.
"It's really not a significant, significant increase" in the number of additional car trips the proposed development would generate once it is built, traffic consultant Scott Parker said.
"The impact at any one location (downtown) is minimal," said Parker, an associate vice president for traffic consultants Edwards and Kelcey of Morristown.
Parker's firm was tapped by the borough's likely development team on the Spring Street project - Nassau HKT Associates - to compile a traffic impact study of the project.
The proposed development includes a 6 1/2-level parking garage, a pair of five-story apartment and retail buildings and a new public plaza and walkways on two borough-owned parking lots on Spring Street between Witherspoon and Tulane streets.
Parker reviewed the results of the traffic study with borough officials and the public during last night's borough council meeting.
He said the project's estimated $9.5 million centerpiece - the publicly financed 500-space garage - itself shouldn't generate any additional traffic downtown.
"Building a parking garage does not in itself create traffic," Parker said after his presentation. "It accommodates traffic that's already there."
But the related residential and retail development that would be privately financed and built would add some traffic, he said.
However, its impact would be minimized because driving will be scattered throughout the day and dispersed in multiple directions from the complex, Parker said.
Councilman Roger Martindell said the traffic analysis lacked objectivity and noted that it is based on numerous intersection improvements and a new traffic light at Wiggins Street and Vandeventer Avenue that the borough might have to pay for.
"What we have tonight is a study by the developer . . . which is one point of view in support of development authorization," Martindell said.
Critics of the project such as Vandeventer Avenue resident Tina Clement also were hesitant to accept the notion that the proposed development won't significantly increase vehicular traffic downtown.
Clement suggested that any comprehensive traffic study of downtown Princeton must examine both peak flow during morning and evening rush hours - as this one did - but also traffic around noontime, when the lunch crowd packs into Princeton.
Parker disagreed with the need for a noontime analysis, saying that even with the lunch crowd, that time has less "background traffic" than during the morning and evening rush hours.
Mayor Marvin Reed noted, and Parker agreed, that the study probably offers more dire traffic projections than what will actually occur in Princeton.
That's because it applies widely accepted national traffic data to project future traffic in Princeton, where many residents bike or walk instead of driving, Reed said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Traffic planner to ease the way
Thursday, July 04, 2002
BY ALEXANDER LANE
Star-Ledger StaffIn a signal of just how profoundly congested roads are disrupting life in Central Jersey, Plainsboro Township is hiring a full-time traffic guru, an apparent first among towns its size.
With tens of thousands of new commuters making their way to newly built suburban homes and new office complexes, municipal roads have become as congested as many major highways. The traffic planner's job will be to unclog local roads.
"Our local roads are being used as highways," Plainsboro Community Development Director Michael La Place said. "These are roads that go through the center of town. They've got schools on them; they've got homes on them. This requires attention."
Plenty of towns hire traffic consultants on occasion to predict how a new development will affect traffic. But for a midsize town such as Plainsboro -- population 20,215 -- to add a full-time traffic planner is exceedingly rare, if not unheard of, experts said.
Just a few large cities such as Atlantic City, Camden and Paterson have transportation planners, according to New Jersey League of Municipalities' staff attorney Deborah Kole.
It makes sense that Plainsboro would be one of the first suburban towns to hire one, said James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in New Brunswick.
"Plainsboro stands as one of the epicenters of New Jersey's transportation problems," Hughes said. "Its traffic problems are equal to anybody's."
The 11.5-square-mile town is smack in the center of New Jersey. Though its population has shot up 261 percent since 1980 -- as new houses continued to march across former farmland -- much of the traffic comes from out of town.
Cutting through the western section of town is Route 1, lined with expansive corporate offices at Princeton Forrestal Center, a 2,200-acre office park. Just off the eastern edge of town is the New Jersey Turnpike.
Unless and until the state builds Route 92, a longed-planned highway that would cut through South Brunswick to connect the Turnpike and Route 1, the best way to get from one to the other is to go through Plainsboro.
Plainsboro residents Barbara Bordanaro and Merriann Berman -- a pair of neighbors in the tidy, decade-old Villages at Princeton Crossing subdivision -- are all too aware of the result. A mere mention of the word "traffic" brought scowls to their faces as they chatted in Bordanaro's driveway Monday.
Short drives regularly turn into time-eaters, with long waits at clogged traffic lights, stop signs and left-turn lanes, the homeowners said.
"You think, 'I'm almost home,' then you look at your watch and another 20 minutes has passed," Bordanaro said. "I get home and my puppy has to go so bad he's cross-pawed."
Berman said she is happy to help foot the bill for the new hire, who will be paid $40,000 to $60,000, according to business administrator Patrick Guilfoyle. At the same time, she blamed town officials for allowing the traffic crunch to occur.
"It seems like housing goes in first, then they wait for roads to get bad, then they try to fix them," Berman said.
Maybe she's right -- but Plainsboro is not alone, La Place said.
"The whole problem we have in New Jersey is there hasn't been enough transportation planning and land-use planning happening at the same time," La Place said. "Development goes in, and you have to go back and put in transportation to serve it. Well, by then, the cat's out of the bag."
The average commute for Plainsboro residents shot up 28 percent from 29 minutes in 1990 to 37 minutes in 2000, well above the state average of 28 minutes, 40 seconds.
In the past six years, building permits have been issued for 692 single-family homes in Plainsboro, according to the New Jersey Department of Labor, Labor Planning & Analysis.
Invariably, developers presenting a plan for a few dozen new houses or a new strip mall trot in a traffic expert who testifies that the project will cause nothing more than a minuscule increase in traffic, La Place said. Yet somehow, gridlock intensifies year after year.
The in-house traffic expert will be able to counter that rosy view with a slightly more objective take on how new construction will affect traffic, La Place said.
To be sure, the new staff position, which should be filled by October, is not just a matter of need, it's also a matter of money. With the Forrestal Center's office parks paying a lion's share of the township's taxes, Plainsboro is in fine financial shape. Though school taxes have risen steadily, the municipal tax rate hasn't increased in four years.
That, perhaps more than anything else, buys officials an awful lot of flexibility to create a new staff position.
Alexander Lane covers Plainsboro. He can be reached at alane@starledger.com or at (732) 634-1236.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger.
McGreevey Won't Commit to Route 92 Position
Mobilizing the Region #356 Mobilizing the Region
Tri-State Transportation CampaignNo. 372, July 1, 2002
In response to a letter from a group of central New Jersey mayors, Governor James McGreevey has said he will not take a position on construction of Route 92 until the draft environmental impact statement is completed. According to the South Brunswick Post, the mayors had asked the Governor to publicly oppose and halt the proposed 6.7-mile toll highway that would link Route 1 to Turnpike Exit 8A, and slice through the largest remaining parcel of open space in that part of Middlesex County.
The draft environmental impact statement for Route 92 which was mandated by the U.S. EPA after pressure from citizen groups, municipal leaders and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign is due out in September, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Central New Jersey officials hope that new leadership at the Turnpike Authority and pressure from Governor McGreevey, who has voiced strong anti-sprawl sentiments, will lead the state to abandon the project.
The NJ Turnpike Authority has encountered opposition to Route 92 since it announced plans to construct the new highway through Middlesex County, on a section of land designated under the State Plan as part of New Jersey's "Environmentally Sensitive Planning Area." The affected area is the second largest of Middlesex County's land designated as environmentally sensitive (MTR #170).
Route 92 is an example of the kind of expensive, sprawl-inducing highway project that continue to drain transportation coffers while worsening congestion problems. The $350 million slated for Route 92 is a major financial burden that affects not only the Turnpike Authority, but drivers who may be required to pay higher tolls and other transportation projects, which receive funding from the Turnpike's contribution to the Transportation Trust Fund.
In addition to destroying open space and farmland, Route 92 would have a domino effect in central New Jersey, inviting more congestion, trucks and sprawl to the area. Middlesex officials are particularly concerned about the influx of traffic that Route 92 would bring to local roads.
"Route 92 will clog Route 1 to the south of Ridge Road and flood two lane roads to the west with car and truck traffic, worsening traffic flow," Rocky Hill Mayor Brian Nolan told press in April, when a group of Central New Jersey officials organized to oppose Route 92 (MTR #359).
The mayors of Hopewell, Franklin, Montgomery, Manville Townships and Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula also voiced opposition to Route 92.
http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/20020701/mtr37205.htm
Playing Mind Games With Traffic
letter to The Washington Post, June 29, 2002
The Post published two stories on traffic congestion on June 21 [front
page and Metr]. Neither hit on the best solution, based on a special
application of Yogi Berra's theory of relativity:
If highways were really too crowded, nobody would drive on them.
The obvious solution?
Only more traffic can reduce traffic congestion.
FRED WILLIAMS
Washington© The Washiington Post 2002
Just Around the Next Curve Lurks a $2.6 Billion Question
By John Sullivan
NY Times New Jersey Section 14, June 23. 2002. p. 1Trenton: Every rush hour, morning and evening, traffic backs up for miles through Morristown as commuters jockey and cram their way through the long-outdated interchange linking Interstate 287 and Route 24.
"It is a series of lanes all merging together," said Mayor John DeLaney of Morristown. "It is like trying to put all of the traffic through a straw."
State highway planners have felt the pain, and say they would like to do something about it: namely, build a new interchange between the two highways. A similar plan did away with a logjam just a few miles north, at the intersection of Interstates 287 and 80.
The problem is the state Department of Transportation does not have the money to do the job. And as the State Legislature lurches into the final stages of passing this year's austerity budget, the people in charge of fixing the state's bridges and highways are quietly spreading the word that next year will be even worse.
"We need to come up with addition. funding by the end of next year to do the work that is needed in this state," said James P. Fox, the Transportation commissioner. "Everyone acknowledges that. The question is how much and how do we pay for it."
In fact, Mr. Fox has a pretty good idea how much money the repairs will require. Over the next five years, the state will have to raise an additional $2.6 billion to maintain its roads and to keep commuter trains and buses rolling.
As if that were not daunting enough for fiscally challenged administration, more challenges are coming down the track. Last week, officials at the federal Transportation Department said they were going to recommend that states assume part of the cost of running Amtrak, the financially troubled national railroad system. That could become a particularly burden for New Jersey as Amtrak now pays for the maintenance of the section of the Northeast Corridor rail line that runs between New York and Philadelphia, which carries tens of thousands of New Jersey commuters each day.
While officials of New Jersey Transit said they would keep the line running no matter what the federal plan called for, they declined to say how much money their agency could lose if Amtrak's service was scaled back in the region.
"We have not had a chance to look at this so I can't comment beyond that," said Ken Miller, a New Jersey Transit spokesman.
Martin E. Robins, director of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, said that New Jersey Transit had already paid about $50 million a year to Amtrak for use of the Northeast Corridor track, and acknowledged that there was now a possibility that New Jersey might be asked to come up with more.
"There is a very distinct possibility of the federal government assuming that the state of New Jersey should pay more," Mr. Robins said. "This could be a major bill for an agency that is already very stressed."
Taken together, experts agree that the state's transportation system will find itself at a crucial juncture next year. Despite some creative financing to squeeze dollars for major projects-like persuading the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to finance the $250 million purchase of double-decker rail cars for New Jersey Transit-the state no longer has enough money to repave cracking roads and refurbish aging trains.
The stark choice, as Mr. Fox sees it, is between finding new sources of money or putting off sorely needed maintenance. As transportation experts see it, delaying these projects will only lead to long-term-and more severe-problems.
"We return to the bad old days of the 1970's when we deferred maintenance and disappoint everyone and hurt the economic vitality of the state," said Mr. Robins. "It was very stressful and very harmful to the state."
Transportation is no small matter in a state that sits at the center of the bustling Northeast corridor. Many of New Jersey's businesses rely directly on the state's network of highways, and tens of thousands of residents depend on mass transit to get to and from work each day.
Indeed, Assemblyman Alex DeCroce a Republican from Morris Plains who is a member of the Assembly transportation committee, said it was difficult to overestimate the importance of the state's roads and rail system.
"Transportation is the cornerstone of the economic viability of the state," Mr. DeCroce said.
In all likelihood, the source of funds will be the state's Transportation Trust Fund, giant pot of money that is primarily filled with the receipts from the gasoline tax. Although Mr. Fox declined to say whether he would recommend that the Legislature consider increasing the gas tax to pay for repairs, many observers here say that it is the probable source of any new money-if for no other reason than it may be the only possible source.
And while the $2.6 billion represents a sizable shortfall for a department with an annual budget of about $3 billion, the money problems have been accumulating for several years.
The problem, transportation experts say, is that there is little money left in the trust fund to pay for maintenance even though it takes in more than $500 million a year, almost all of which is committed to pay off bonds that earlier administrations issued to finance their transportation projects.
"They were spending more money, but the gasoline tax did not increase," Mr. Robins said. "It was all shifted into bonding, and there were these huge bond sales every year."
Mr. Robins likened the strategy to buying a new house year after year: You might be able to afford the down payments, but after a while the growing mortgage payments eat up all the money.
The Transportation Trust Fund was created by the State Legislature in 1984 as a solution to the chronic maintenance problems that plagued the state's highways in the 1970's. Tom Kean, who was governor at the time, wanted the fund to provide a stable source of revenue to repair roads, and for more than 10 years the state spent little more than the fund took in to pay for projects. But in 1995, Mr. Robins said, Gov. Christie Whitman decided to use revenue dedicated to the fund to issue highway: bonds, rather than to make payments on ongoing projects.
The bonds allowed the state to drastically increase the amount of money for transportation projects, and more importantly, it allowed state officials to do so without increasing taxes: Consequently, spending from the fund increased to about $900 million.
"The dark side is that the funding never changed, and the money became obligated to paying the debt," Mr. Robins said. "The debt service is now somewhere on the order of $450 to $500 million a year."
That may lead to a decision that New Jersey politicians fear more than almost anything else-and indeed something Governor McGreevey had pledged not to do: raise taxes. New Jersey's gasoline tax,- at 10.5 cents per gallon, is the fourth lowest in the United States and was last raised in 1988. The state estimates that each penny increase in the tax would bring in about $45 million in revenue.
The question is whether Governor McGreevey, who is desperately trying to avoid increasing taxes, would raise the gas tax next year.
"It would be an easier sell than either a sales or an income tax hike," said David P. Rebovich, managing director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics.
On one hand, Mr. Rebovich said that polls have shown that New Jersey residents feel that transportation is an area of state government that could be trimmed to cut state expenses. But on the other, he said, transportation spending is an area that is typically supported by business groups, which recognize its importance to the state's economy.
"If he can make the argument that the key to the state's economy is that New Jersey is a transportation hub and without maintenance and upgrades the economy could suffer," Mr. Rebovich said, then an increase in the gas tax might be more palatable.
But Paul S. Aronsohn, a spokesman for the governor, said that Mr. McGreevey had not decided what to do about next year's transportation funds.
"Our focus right now," Mr. Aronsohn said, "is on balancing the budget."
© The New York Times Company 2002
Another Word About the Fox Guarding the Roundhouse
By Ronald Smothers
NY Times New Jersey Section, June 23, 2002, p. 2
Newark: They aren't exactly joined at the hip, but Governor McGreevey and his transportation commissioner, James E. Fox, have been a visible tandem in recent weeks, breaking ground for new train stations, trumpeting the purchase of rail cars, expanding parking for commuters and trying to bring rail connections to the Meadowlands.
In the early part of his administration-as Mr. McGreevey confronts a budget gap and economic news that ranges between not good and just bad-it is not surprising that a new governor would put himself in the way of some applause for shiny new and promising projects. But there are many who see a broader significance to the flurry of activity and the central presence of Mr. Fox, a savvy political strategist with strong Washington experience in public policy.
"Jamie Fox might not know how to read an E.I.S.," said one Democratic politician, referring to the often voluminous and archly technical environmental impact statements that come with most transportation projects "but he knows how to get the McGreevey administration down the road, politically."
Janine Bauer, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a mass transit advocacy group, said that all of the appearances by the governor and his commissioner amounted to political posturing by an administration desperate to burnish its smart-growth credentials. Nonetheless, she, for one welcomed it, and said that it was a good thing for the governor to put his best strategist on the job.
"We are still concerned that they are using it as a piggy bank for politic al favors," Ms. Bauer said. "But enough things are happening that are showing them to be very different from and better than the Whitman administration."
For David Rebovich, a political scientist at Rider University, this is the key to the McGreevey-Fox tandem. Transportation-whether roads, rails, E-Z Pass or motor vehicle inspections-has in many ways been the soft underbelly of Republican support in the northern and central suburbs. It is also an issue that allows a governor-who Mr. Rebovich said styles himself as the champion of working people and families -to build a bridge.
It cuts across class lines and the fact that Fox is so experienced and such an adept political advocate means that transportation is that important an issue for McGreevey," said Mr. Rebovich.
Mr. Fox, who did not return calls seeking comment, spent more than 20 years working as a chief aide to such powerful Democrats as Senator Robert Torricelli, former Senator Frank Lautenberg and former Gov. James Florio. He was also executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, playing a major role in the Democrats' march to retake the majority and building contacts among unions, business leaders and policymakers.
He was a late addition to the McGreevey cabinet, but since signing on in March he has played a large role in revamping the leadership at New Jersey Transit and resolving disputes over parking for those who take express buses to New York from Willowbrook Mall, all with a keen eye to maximizing the political benefit with the ever-important commuting constituency.
He was with Governor McGreevey at last month's unveiling of new railcars in Newark, and would have been with him at the groundbreaking of a new Montclair State University train station if he had not been dispatched to quell a political brush fire elsewhere. When the governor sought to convey to Bergen County lawmakers that he was serious about a plan to redevelop the Continental Airlines Arena site with rail access to the Meadowlands, he assigned Mr. Fox-a move that helped convince wary officials and business leaders to at least listen.
Yet some familiar with state government dispute the significance of all of this. One former senior state transportation official accused the McGreevey administration of "picking the low-hanging fruit" by announcing with fanfare projects that had already been advanced by the previous administration.
And a lobbyist for leading business interests as well as a lobbyist for an environmental group saw it all as having no more political significance than parading projects that will bolster support for the administration among the Democratic Party's labor base while signaling to economic development and business interests that despite the budget gaps there is still a lot going on.
Still, both of those sources conceded that it was a "savvy approach" by the governor and his transportation commissioner, who was "a consummate policy guy as well as political operative.
Leonard Resto, president of the Association of Rail Passengers in the state, said it was a bit early to judge what Mr. Fox and Governor McGreevey are up to, but they have been "proactive in attacking the crowding issues on the trains and generally paying more attention to public transit than other administrations did."
The political benefits are clear.
"They are appearing in public and looking to address transportation as a key issue and they know that this is an important issue to New Jerseyans," said Mr. Resto. "Jamie Fox seems very well connected with both Washington and state politicians and he knows his way around."
Ms. Bauer was more emphatic.
"I think Jamie Fox has a role in this administration that goes well beyond transportation commissioner," she said. "He just happens to be the transportation commissioner."
© The New York Times Company 2002
Census Data Tells Story of Narrowing Choices
More Americans living, working in places with few travel optionsS U R F A C E T R A N S P O R T A T I O N P O L I C Y P R O J E C T
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1100 Seventeenth Street, N.W. 10th floor,
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 202.466.2636; Fax: 202.466.2247
E-Mail: stpp@transact.orgFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information, contact: Barbara McCann, STPP (202) 466-2636
The national Census figures released today show that Americans are enduring longer commutes, and fewer of them are able to use transit, walking, or other means to avoid the drive. The average trip to work is up more than three minutes since 1990 to 25.5 minutes, and a higher portion of commuters are driving alone to work.
"These figures confirm that travel choices are narrowing for many Americans when it comes to the work trip," said David Burwell, President of the Surface Transportation Policy Project. "More people are living and working in places where they have little choice but to spend a significant part of their day driving in traffic."
Census population figures released earlier this year show that most population growth has occurred in metro areas, but outside central cities. These mostly suburban areas generally have spread-out development patterns where buses and trains are less likely to be available and carpooling is inconvenient. The number of people living in these areas grew by 18 percent. The number of people living in the central cities, where transit, bicycling, and walking infrastructure tend to be more prevalent, grew by just 8 percent. Central cities are defined by the Census Bureau as the most populous cities within a metropolitan area.
"Limited investments to create walkable, transit-friendly communities have not been able to offset the prevalence of unplanned, sprawling development that requires a car for every trip," according to Burwell.
New national figures show that commute times are longest for Americans who live in metropolitan areas, but outside the central city. Workers in these suburban areas spend an average of 26.9 minutes traveling to work, compared with 24.9 minutes by residents in central cities. Transit use is more than twice the national average within central cities: 10.5 percent of commuters in central cities use transit. The Census Bureau defines central cities as the most populous cities within a metropolitan area.
Investment in transportation choices has grown significantly over the decade, but still lags far behind federal investment in the road network: during the 1990s, the federal government put $156 billion in federal funds into highways, while spending a total of $45 billion on transit, bicycling, and walking facilities combined. Many Americans have limited or no access to transit. A Bureau of Transportation Statistics survey taken in April 2002 found that 47 percent of drivers said transit could not take them where they needed to go.
The new Census figures show a smaller portion of commuters used transit to get to work in 2000, down to 4.7 percent from 5.3 percent in 1990, with absolute numbers remaining essentially flat. Yet over the last six years, total transit use has shot up 23 percent, outpacing the growth in driving. (see 'Transit Growing Faster Than Driving,' at www.transact.org). This disparity is the result of the limits of Census dataset. The Census Journey-to-Work numbers represent only a portion of all trips via transit: less than half of all transit trips are for work. More importantly, transit's resurgence began in 1996 following years of decline. Declining ridership early in the decade meant that the total ridership growth from 1990 to 2000 came to 6.4 percent, despite strong growth at the end of the decade and in 2001.
The Surface Transportation Policy Project has compiled the newly released transportation figures from the US Census in easy-to-use, downloadable Excel documents showing metropolitan area, county, and place-level data for each state. STPP has also posted maps and a brief trend analysis. You can find the information available on our home page, at www.transact.org.
The Surface Transportation Policy Project is a nationwide network of hundreds of organizations, including planners, community development organizations, and advocacy groups, devoted to improving the nation's transportation system.
Please call Barbara McCann at (202) 466-2636 for more information, or visit www.transact.org
Thursday, June 06, 2002
BY EDITORIAL
It's hard to believe two major Northeast highways would actually pass each other without connecting.
It's also hard to believe a U.S. highway stretching from Florida to Maine wouldn't include an unbroken high-speed, limited-access stretch in the middle of New Jersey.
Yet both these odd things are true.
Interstate 95 passes over the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bucks County without a connection.
Just beyond, a northbound traveler finds I-95 coming to an end in Mercer County and morphing into Interstate 295 southbound.
Why?
Some 30 years ago, Mercer and Somerset countians joined forces to oppose plans to extend I-95 from a point just west of Route 31 through the Hopewell Valley and Somerset communities to Interstate 287.
A proposal to connect the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 in Bucks County will remedy both the anomalies mentioned above, however.
Under the plan, I-95 will be diverted onto the eastbound Turnpike via the new interchange, will cross the Turnpike bridge to New Jersey and will turn north again on the New Jersey Turnpike at Exit 6.
I-95 will become the continuous superhighway it was meant to be.
-- -- --
Those who helped block I-95's extension in New Jersey in the 1970s steadfastly maintain it was the right thing to do. They cite studies that show Mercer and Somerset counties would have seen massive commercial and residential development had I-95 been extended.
They're probably right. Look at what happened to northern Hunterdon and Somerset counties after I-78 opened.
Still, the missing link on I-95, combined with the missing Pennsylvania Turnpike-I-95 interchange, left many motorists with little choice but to use Route 31 and Route 206. The result has been headache-inducing congestion and heavy - at times deadly - truck traffic on roads in no way suitable for trucks.
The new $553 million interchange in Pennsylvania will solve that. It will provide a logical route for Northeast Corridor truckers and other motorists, thereby removing them from the winding, two-lane local highways.
The catch: We have to wait nearly 10 years.
The project involves relocating a toll plaza, widening the Pennsylvania Turnpike from four to six lanes between Exit 28 and the Delaware River, widening I-95 and building a second Turnpike bridge across the Delaware.
Engineering is scheduled to be finished by 2004. The interchange and toll plaza would be completed in 2010, with the entire project built by 2015.
That's too leisurely a pace. Trucks are a continuing menace on local highways and cause extensive wear and tear on roadbeds that weren't designed to handle them. Selective truck bans, weight restrictions and increased police monitoring have helped, but these aren't real solutions.
The Pennsylvania and New Jersey congressional and state legislative delegations should get behind this project. They should find the money to pay for it. They should see that approvals are expedited and construction put on a fast track.
Linking the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95, at long last, makes tremendous sense. Too much sense to have to wait a decade for.
Copyright 2002 The Times
NJ Legislators Question DOT Priorities
Mobilizing the Region, TriState Transportation Campaign
Issue 367 May 27, 2002
New Jersey transportation commissioner James Fox told state legislators last week that "Every bridge that is ready to be repaired is being repaired next year." The somewhat circular statement neglected to mention that that number is just three bridges statewide that will be repaired with state transportation Trust Fund monies. All other bridges being fixed are largely or totally funded with federal bridge or "earmark" funds, which can be spent nowhere else.
Fox spoke in response to questions from budget committee legislators about the NJ Dept. of Transportation's lack of progress and commitment to the 2000 Trust Fund renewal law's fix-it-first mandate.
State Senator Bernard Kenny asked for the administration's position on an budget amendment to reallocate $20 million to bridge and roadway preservation from "statewide line items," which now comprise 76% of state highway spending in this year's DOT budget proposal. Fox said "I couldn't spend it because no other bridges are ready for construction."
This sad state of affairs is what prompted the Tri-State Campaign to seek a budget amendment to reallocate priorities within the Trust Fund capital program for 2003, to ensure that more bridge and pavement repair projects move into the construction pipeline next year. Year after year, DOT claims it does not have fix-it projects ready to build but starves these areas of the funds needed to get projects ready.
Of the $580 million that DOT will receive from the Trust Fund in 2003, only $21.3 million will be spent to repair bridges and $78.7 million to repair roads.An alarming 76% of the department's program, or $440 million, is dedicated to "statewide line items" projects that are not identified and give complete spending discretion to NJ DOT.
Senator Joseph Kyrillos Jr. queried NJ Transit director George Warrington closely about the McGreevey plan to reduce operating support for Transit by the same amount as the agency will raise this year from its recent fare increase (MTR #366).Kyrillos said the agency would have a hard time justifying further increases if the money simply disappears into the general fund.
Questions about DOT's inadequate maintenance effort were accompanied by questions about weak spending on rail freight and pedestrian projects, and NJTransit's seeming inability to overcome crowding. The questions came from a bi-partisan group of legislators, including Bonnie Watson-Coleman, Francis Blee and Thomas H. Kean Jr. in the Assembly and Wayne Bryant, Bernard Kenny, Barbara Buono, Leonard Lance, Walter Kavanuagh, Martha Bark and Barbara Buono in the Senate.
http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/20020527/mtr36701.htm
Environmental study of Route 92 delayed until September
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 05/21/2002
Opponent of turnpike-Route 1 link sees delay as 'positive sign.'
The New York District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday the release of its long-awaited environmental study of Route 92, a proposed link between Route 1 and Exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike, will be delayed until September.
"We're moving on it, but slowly," said Jodi McDonald, project manager for the corps' environmental impact statement on the proposed 6.7-mile limited-access toll highway.
The document, which has been in preparation since the Army Corps announced more than two years ago the project would cause significant environmental impacts and called for a thorough review, was expected to be released this month or in June, the Army Corps had said.
Frederick Kaimann of Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy group that opposes the roadway, said, "We take the delay as a positive sign that the Army Corps will give careful study to a road that would pile much more traffic into already congested central New Jersey."
In February 2000, the Army Corps' New York District office concluded that significant environmental damage could result from the proposed roadway.
In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, an environmental impact statement was required to be prepared before the Army Corps could reconsider granting a permit to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which proposed the project.
The Army Corps cited several factors supporting its findings, including wetlands impacts, traffic impacts and possible damage to historic properties. It also cited the availability of less environmentally damaging alternate alignments to the proposed route. The proposed roadway alignment that prompted the review would have the roadway cut through the northern tip of Plainsboro Township and east-to-west through much of South Brunswick along Friendship Road.
Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu, an outspoken supporter of the road, said Monday, "Obviously we'd prefer this process be completed.
"This roadway is needed in the region," Mayor Cantu said. "There's not much we can do about it. We'd prefer to see it (the document) completed sooner rather than later. We anxiously await its release in September."
Hopewell Township Mayor Jon Edwards, a staunch opponent of Route 92 and member of a coalition of area mayors similarly opposed, said he is wary of "unintended consequences" from the proposed roadway.
"There are often unintended consequences to what may at first appear to be well-meaning projects," Mayor Edwards said. "This is likely to result in a significant increase in east-west traffic that will devastate our township."
Mayor Edwards said he is working with area corporations to find alternatives, such as "flextime" in working shifts to lessen the rush-hour traffic load on area roads.
In March, the mayors' coalition, which includes elected officials from six central New Jersey municipalities, issued a public statement reiterating its opposition to Route 92.
In a May 15 letter to Gov. James E. McGreevey, the group called on the governor to cancel the project, saying "the omission of this proposed project would save the taxpayers well over $350 million dollars."
Montgomery Township Mayor Louise Wilson, Mayor Edwards and the mayors of Manville Borough, Rocky Hill Borough, South Brunswick Township and Franklin Township said studies showed the roadway will "dramatically" increase traffic on Route 1 and negatively impact the quality of life and natural resources in their municipalities.
"Route 92 will channel additional traffic into our area and will destroy wetlands and contiguous forests within Montgomery Township. We don't take kindly to that," Mayor Wilson said in the statement.
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand and West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh did not sign the letter. Mayor Reed has said Princeton Borough has generally expressed support for the proposed roadway.
©Packet Online 2002
Survey says . . . commuters to be polled
Friday, May 24, 2002
By LISA CORYELL
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP - Howard Stern or NPR? Choice of radio stations might be the only question not asked on a detailed survey local commuters will soon be asked to take.
To better manage traffic in the Hopewell Valley, township officials are overseeing a comprehensive study of local commuting habits.
Thousands of workers at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Merrill Lynch - the township's biggest employers - will be asked to reveal information about their daily commutes, including what roads they travel, how long it takes and whether they car pool.
"This information will give us a better understanding of the traffic conditions as they exist today and help us better manage traffic in the future," said Paul Porgorzelski, township engineer. "We don't want to widen every road in the township. We want to be able to plan better traffic patterns."
The township has been meeting weekly with representatives from local corporations to discuss traffic issues. Also in attendance are representatives from Hopewell Borough, Pennington, Mercer County and the Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association.
The Transportation Management Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes ride sharing, said the township meetings are the first of their kind.
"I don't think we've ever seen businesses and governments voluntarily coming to the table to work toward the same goals," said Sandra Brillhart, executive director of TMA. "I'm hoping the process will be used as a model for other towns and businesses."
One of the group's biggest undertakings is an online survey that corporate employees will begin taking next month. Employees will click on a map to identify each road and bridge they travel to and from work.
"We're trying to get as much information as we can," Porgorzelski said. "A lot of traffic surveys just ask people their zip codes and then (the surveyors) make educated assumptions about how they get to work. But that doesn't give you a true reflection of traffic patterns because people take all kinds of short cuts and alternative routes. We want to know exactly how people are getting to work."
The survey is part of a comprehensive study of traffic being undertaken by the township. As local corporate entities plan for future growth, traffic management becomes even more important, Porgorzelski said.
"We want to know what roads have become the major routes for commuters and we have to decide whether we want them to be major routes," he said. "If we don't want them as major routes we have to figure out a way to reroute traffic to the roads we want it on."
Donna Lewis, county director of planning, said getting the township's largest employers together will make it easier for the township to improve traffic flow.
"Sometimes just getting one company to adjust its departure time by 15 minutes can make a huge difference in congestion," she said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Intersections rated among worst
Sunday, May 19, 2002
By TOM HESTER Jr.
Arthur Mattei has been driving Route 1 for 30 years.
He's seen it grow from a busy East Coast corridor route to a congested mess, jammed daily with commuters and shoppers heading to the many business complexes and malls that dot the highway.
Mattei waited with great expectation for the new Meadow Road overpass to open, hoping it would end what he estimated has been the equivalent of countless days of his life sitting on the congested highway.
He was wrong.
"The enormous southbound traffic jam during the evening rush hour is as bad as ever," Mattei said, his exasperation and frustration evident.
Mattei said he knows why traffic remains congested on the highway - the traffic light at Nassau Park Boulevard.
Robin Albany knows that light.
On April 1, the 42-year-old Trenton woman and her 69-year-old mother, Emma Albany, were driving to Wal-Mart shortly before 9 p.m. As they crossed Route 1 to enter Nassau Park Boulevard, her sport utility vehicle was smashed by a car that witnesses said ran the red light.
"It happened so fast, I really don't even know what happened," Robin Albany said.
She didn't want to talk further about the accident, adding only, "Route 1 is horrific."
Mattei said that's been obvious for years.
"This dangerous situation has been perpetrated on everyone," he said.
In fact, three of the Route 1 intersections have been rated among the 100 most accident-prone in the state by a recent state Department of Transportation survey (DOT), with the Route 1 and Nassau Park Boulevard intersection ranked the most dangerous in Mercer County and the 13th most dangerous in the state.
The Route 1 and Washington Road intersection is ranked 20th in the state, while the Route 1 and Meadow Road intersection is ranked 25th.
The DOT is rebuilding the Meadow Road intersection, has no plans to redo the Washington Road intersection and is moving toward rebuilding the intersection at Nassau Park Boulevard - but not for about four more years.
"If possible, we are going to try to accelerate this schedule, but for now 2006 is the date," state DOT spokesman John Dourgarian said.
-- -- --
Mattei wants the light at Nassau Park Boulevard removed now.
"What safety improvement can be more important than getting the light out of there?" he asked. "It's absurd. It smacks of why and how government got a bad rap, and it deserves it."
The state's intersection report analyzed the severity of accidents in 1998 and 1999. It used a complex formula that measures severity by taking into account the number of accidents and whether they involved, among other things, fatalities, serious injuries and property damage. That means an intersection with more accidents than another can be deemed less dangerous because of the type of accidents.
Dourgarian said the report helps the state decide where to look for improvements.
"We will study various intersections or sections of the highway to first identify what the problem is," Dourgarian said. "After that, we will look to advance a solution. We use information like accidents, traffic volumes, area growth and geometric design to undertake improvements."
Most of the remaining area intersections in the top 100 are in Burlington County.
The majority of the most dangerous intersections are in North Jersey, with the most severe being the Route 1 and 130 intersection in North Brunswick.
DOT statistics show none of the area's most accident-prone intersections had fatal accidents from Jan. 1, 1998, through Dec. 31, 2000. The most common crash involved only property damage.
At Route 1 and Nassau Park Boulevard, the state reported 55 accidents in 1998 and 1999, including 40 with only property damage, eight with moderate injuries and seven with complaints of pain.
-- -- --
The DOT report stated the main problem at Route 1 and Nassau Park Boulevard is rush-hour congestion exacerbated by last-minute lane changes by southbound motorists deciding whether to enter the Quakerbridge Road overpass that leads to the Mercer Mall area.
The DOT is considering a $2 million plan to rebuild the interchange.
The project would involve removing the traffic signal at Nassau Park Boulevard, a new road at the Route 1 and Quakerbridge Road interchange, converting the Route 1 shoulder to an auxiliary lane from Grovers Mill Road to the Quaker Bridge Mall exit ramp and reconstructing the Nassau Park Boulevard, Province Line Road and Quakerbridge Road intersections.
Arthur Silber, DOT project management division director, in a recent letter to Mattei, who has written to several public officials, including those in West Windsor and Lawrence, about his concerns, said removing the signal at Nassau Park Boulevard would cause a heavy shift in traffic to Quakerbridge Road.
"As a result, if we remove the signal now, vehicles will back up from Quakerbridge Road into the active lanes of Route 1 and vice versa," Silber said. "We feel this would not be prudent and have decided that safety improvements are needed to avoid causing this situation before we pull the light."
Silber wrote the work may begin in 2005, or earlier, if money is available.
-- -- --
Meanwhile, the state is putting the finishing touches on its $13 million reconstruction of the Meadow Road and Route 1 intersection.
The project is designed to ease traffic congestion at the intersection and accommodate increased traffic in the area.
It involves eliminating a traffic light, building an overpass to carry Meadow Road over Route 1, widening Route 1 between Carnegie Center Boulevard and Alexander Road, realigning Route 1 to connect to the rebuilt Meadow Road and other road work related to relocating Meadow Road.
The DOT said most of the work has been completed, with work progressing on building an auxiliary lane and water basin along southbound Route 1. That work is expected to take several more weeks, meaning the detour for motorists going from Route 1 to Meadow Road south will continue, it said.
The DOT has estimated the work will be completed in June.
"The impetus for the project was our continued efforts to improve traffic flow and ease congestion on Route 1 by removing traffic signals," Dourgarian said. "The impetus for the project was not necessarily safety-related, but a benefit of easing congestion for signal removal is that safety can be improved - less backups, therefore less rear-enders."
Dourgarian said traffic congestion has always been the biggest problem at the Meadow Road intersection.
"But with the added capacity of the new interchange, smoother traffic flow, better ingress and egress, we may see less accidents, certainly less congestion, at this location," he said.
-- -- --
The DOT reported 45 accidents at Route 1 and Meadow Road, but none with serious injuries. It reported 36 accidents that involved only property damage.
The situation is similar at Route 1 and Washington Road, where 51 accidents were reported with no serious injuries but 42 involving only property damage.
"As the location typically experiences many different types of nuisance accidents with the majority of collisions resulting in property damage only, it is not expected that there would be any worthwhile countermeasures to offer at this time," the report stated.
Of the other area intersections ranked in the top 100:
-- Pemberton-Browns Mills Road and the Route 530 bypass in Pemberton Township ranked 26th, with 37 accidents.
-- Salem Road and Sunset Road in Burlington Township ranked in a tie for 30th, with 37 accidents.
-- Route 130 and Dean-Rhodes Hall Road in South Brunswick also ranked in a tie for 30th. The DOT said recent resignalization of the intersection should improve safety. It reported 37 accidents there.
-- Mount Holly Road and Cadillac Road in Burlington Township was tied for 32nd. The DOT said plans to improve the intersection are in the works. It reported 36 accidents at the intersection.
-- Route 130 and Washington Avenue to the Burlington-Bristol Bridge in Burlington City was also tied for 32nd. The DOT said it plans to analyze the four closely spaced signalized intersections in this area to study what improvements are needed.
An initial study revealed a need to make traffic signals more obvious to drivers. It reported 37 accidents at the intersection.
-- Ranking 40th was the Route 130 and Federal Street-Jacksonville Road intersection in Burlington City. Accident analysis is pending, the DOT said. The DOT reported 28 accidents at the intersection.
Three of Burlington County's dangerous intersections involve Route 130, and Dourgarian said the DOT is beginning a study of the highway from Cinnaminson to Burlington City. The study, he said, will look at the intersections and analyze what causes problems.
"That's an ongoing study," Dourgarian said.
NOTE: To find the DOT's report on the top 100 accident intersections, go to www.state.nj.us/dot/ops/data/accidents/top100.htm.
Copyright 2002 The Times
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway AdministrationFor the first time, state and local departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are required to consider safety as a planning factor.
What is Safety Conscious Planning (SCP)?
SCP implies a proactive approach to the prevention of accidents and unsafe transportation conditions by establishing inherently safe transportation networks. SCP achieves road safety improvements through small quantum changes, targeted at the whole network.
The short-term objective is to integrate safety considerations into the transportation planning processes at all levels, specifically the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plans (STIP) and the Transportation Improvement Plans (TIP) developed by the State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) respectively. This step should be followed by consideration of safety objectives in the longer range, 20 year plans that the state DOTs and MPOs are required to prepare and update periodically.
Why Safety Conscious Planning?
It might be a good idea to start here with the benefits associated with SCP, i.e. saving lives, reducing injuries and crashes. For example, European research indicates that to achieve further large reductions in crash levels, it will be necessary to change the focus from driver behavior initiatives to ones that will make it more difficult for the driver to have a crash. SCP is one way to accomplish that goal, i.e. one of the next generation of road safety strategies. TEA-21 requires "Each statewide and metropolitan planning process shall provide for consideration of projects and strategies that will increase the safety and security of the transportation system for motorized and non-motorized users."
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/scp/index.htm
West Windsor cracks down on speeding
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Police stopped 170 vehicles and issued 75 tickets during three months of surveillance on a stretch of Alexander Road in Berrien City that spans less than half a mile, according to Police Chief Joe Pica.
The boost in traffic enforcement came at the request of local residents, who say commuters with their eye on the Princeton Junction Train Station zoom through the residential area at high rates of speed with little regard for pedestrians.
Now, those residents want the township council to lower the speed limit and improve pedestrian crossings in what is largely considered West Windsor's most "walkable" neighborhood to ensure safety for children and those walkers on their way to the station.
"People walk around to get to the train station, to schools, shopping, municipal services and the library," said Susan Conlon, a Berrien City resident. "We have the most pedestrian traffic."
Conlon and other members of the Berrien City Neighborhood Association presented a pedestrian safety plan to the township council on Monday that calls for reducing the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph along Alexander Road in the neighborhood.
Berrien City residents a few months ago strongly advocated moving the Alexander Road bridge farther south, but the planning board opted to rebuild the bridge at its current location, which means traffic won't be diverted from the Berrien City neighborhood as many residents had hoped.
"Keeping the bridge where it is makes our need to do something about it more urgent or more critical," Conlon said. "However, we've been working on a pedestrian plan for a few years."
Pica said the number of cars stopped between January and the beginning of April - a total of 170 - was high for one specific neighborhood in the township.
"We're trying to slow the speed down and we're trying to make it known we will be in that area," Pica said. "That particular area of the town gets a lot of traffic. As long as we have the time and the manpower available, we'll try to keep getting over there as much as possible."
The group also wants the town to build a safe pedestrian crossing area near the new senior citizen housing facility called The Gables near the corner of Alexander Road and Route 571.
"Seniors are moving in and they've got to be able to get across the road," said Susan Abbey, who helped present the neighborhood's case to the township council.
The speed limit reduction and the new pedestrian crossing are only the first phase in what the neighborhood association envisions as a larger plan to improve pedestrian safety in the community.
Plans later on call for building sidewalks in some sections of the neighborhood and putting medians to divide the road at intersections. Members of the group are in the process of deriving an estimated cost for the improvements.
The township council will review a resolution drafted by neighborhood representatives at a meeting on Monday to implement the first phase of the project.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Princeton student's thesis proposes express-lane system
Thursday, May 09, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON BOROUGH - Meghan Fehlig would willingly pay to zip by snarled rush-hour traffic on Route 1 in a permit-designated express lane.
So would many other motorists who use the Route 1 corridor in the Princeton area and other busy non-toll highways around the state, says Fehlig, a Princeton University engineering student.
Her senior thesis - on Route 1 congestion in the region - proposes designating permit-accessible express lanes as a viable way to ease traffic flow without imposing tolls or adding new lanes or roads that, she contends, only attract more traffic.
Under Fehlig's proposed solution, the state would allocate motorists free permits that carry a set amount of express-lane credits each week for specific highways.
Motorists would then be allowed to trade, buy and sell permits on the open market through the Internet or a special network system, Fehlig said.
For example, motorists who don't plan to use their Route 1 credits on a particular day might sell them or swap them for credits that allow access to express lanes on a highway elsewhere in the state.
"All you're trading for is the right to drive in the express lane," said Fehlig, who grew up amid traffic congestion in suburban Atlanta.
A similar system of tradable permits has been used to limit air pollution from commercial power plants and served as a basis for Fehlig's thesis.
Alain Kornhauser, a Princeton professor of operations research and financial engineering who studies transportation systems and worked with Fehlig on the Route 1 issue, says her proposal offers a unique solution to traffic congestion that merits further study.
"It is extremely farsighted in its approach," Kornhauser said, noting that, unlike traditional tolls, Fehlig's proposal eliminates the risk of discriminating against motorists with lower incomes by giving them a chance to make money for unused permits.
The traffic-control system Fehlig envisions would ensure steady traffic movement in the express lanes because the state would cap the number of permits issued by highway and time of day, she said.
Neither the state Department of Transportation nor the Central Jersey Transportation Forum of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Authority has had a chance to review Fehlig's thesis.
But officials for both the DOT and the Central Jersey Transportation Forum said they would be willing to do so.
"If she's interested in having her ideas vetted, she should send us her research, and who knows? You never know where the next great idea lies," said Jim Berzok, a spokesman for the DOT.
Kornhauser, for his part, predicts Fehlig's proposal will "stir up a lot of discussion" within the transportation community.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
BY EDITORIAL
Few things are more essential to the quality of life in New Jersey than a modern, efficient transportation system. Without it, the economy sputters. Without it, ordinary New Jerseyans' daily experience of getting from point A to point B to work, shop and socialize can be a time-wasting, pollution-generating ordeal. For this state to continue to be a good place to live, it needs highways and bridges that are safe and adequate for the traffic loads imposed upon them, along with trains and buses that are accessible, comfortable, reliable and run on convenient schedules.
New Jersey doesn't have such a system now. The reason is as simple as it gets: lack of money. There's no shortage of know-how among our transportation planners. What they don't have are the resources.
For too many years, our politicians at the State House have settled for doing transportation on the cheap. Administrations borrowed for roads and mass transit rather than opt for pay-as-you go, a policy that has left the Transportation Trust Fund faced with the necessity of retiring old debt rather than financing new projects. When former Gov. Whitman - Christie Anti-Tax Whitman herself - asked for a modest increase in one of the nation's lowest state gasoline taxes, the Legislature refused even to consider it. Recovering her senses, Gov. Whitman then signed off on a cockamamie scheme to bring the E-ZPass traffic-expediting program to New Jersey free of charge, with the bill to be taken care of by fines imposed on a hypothetical army of tollbooth violators. It bombed. Last year, the Republican candidate for governor vowed that within nine months he would end the tolls that pay for maintenance and construction on the Garden State Parkway - with no more idea how he would pay for it than that happily stewed father of the bride in the loan-company commercials knows how he's going to finance the wedding reception. The candidate actually frightened his opponent into promising that he, too, would free the Parkway, albeit over a longer period of time. (You don't hear much from the opponent, the present Gov. James E. McGreevey, about that promise nowadays.)
New Jersey is at the point where it needs to acknowledge that a good transportation system costs money and that the dollars go much farther if the state pays for the bills as it goes along. NJ Transit did face reality to a small extent when it raised fares 10 percent last April 1, the first fare hike in a decade. The commuter agency may well have to increase fares again. And it goes without saying that New Jersey's congressional delegation should use all the political clout it can muster to maximize the state's helping of transportation aid from the federal government. As the nation's most urban state, New Jersey has a just claim on U.S. highway and mass transit assistance.
But it's absolutely essential that New Jersey also replenish its Transportation Trust Fund with a hike in the gasoline tax, which at 10.5 cents a gallon is lower than that of 47 other states. Increasingly, legislators of both parties are saying the same thing. Gov. McGreevey, true to tradition, has shied away from such talk; however, his transportation commissioner, James Fox, has told lawmakers that "we must come up with a plan that finds a way to fund these projects, and I think that everything should be reviewed." New Jersey Policy Perspective, a Trenton nonprofit research group, has called for an increase in the gas tax to 20.5 cents, which would produce $450 million a year and still leave a gallon of gas cheaper here than in Pennsylvania, New York or Connecticut. Its proposal, backed up by a detailed study, is on the table, and would offer an excellent starting point for that review.
Copyright 2002 The Times
Senior thesis: Solving traffic snarls
Princeton Weekly Bulletin, May 6, 2002, Vol. 91, No. 26
Steven Schultz
Princeton NJ -- Meghan Fehlig looked for a senior thesis project that would combine three
interests: engineering, the environment and community service.She found what she wanted in the snarled traffic of Route 1.
Fehlig's thesis examines the local road's surprisingly long history of congestion and develops an innovative solution that her adviser hopes will prompt a further look from traffic engineers around the country.
Her interest in Route 1 began last summer when, working with the University's Community-Based Learning Initiative, she interned with the Stonybrook Millstone Watershed Association, a local environmental advocacy group. She was asked to research the history of the road "so we could get a picture of how we got to where we are today."
Going back to its origins as a toll road, the Trenton-New Brunswick Turnpike, in the1800s, she found that the road was a source of aggravation to travelers as early as the War of 1812. "People would bypass the road even if it took them two days," she said.
Working with Alain Kornhauser, a professor of operations research and financial engineering who studies transportation systems, Fehlig decided to look for solutions that could break this persistent pattern.
The standard approach is to widen the road, she said, noting that research has shown that this "supply-side" tactic often exacerbates the problem by encouraging more drivers. Fehlig decided to look at the demand side: How to motivate people to cut back on their road use.
She studied a recently proposed idea by which motorists can enter an express lane for a toll that changes according to the traffic volume at the moment. If the road begins to clog, tolls rise until traffic abates. The idea, called dynamic variable tolling, is being tested on one road in California, Fehlig said.
Using data about the current volume of Route 1 traffic, Fehlig worked out a pricing scheme that would guarantee a free flow at all times. But the solution was not satisfying because it might discriminate against people with lower incomes.
So, borrowing from an innovative concept in environmental regulation, Fehlig proposed a novel idea: issuing motorists permits that allow a certain amount of road time each week, then allowing people to buy and sell their permits on the open market. The idea mimics the successful use of tradable permits in controlling air pollution from commercial power plants.
Fehlig again considered how many permits would be needed to guarantee a free-flowing express lane for a congested road. "So all you're trading for is the right to drive in the express lane," she said. People who do not need their permits could actually make money.
"She has begun to address this issue of social equity," said Kornhauser. "I think that's a enormous accomplishment."
"If you were an unemployed person, you would have just as much right to drive on the road as an employed person," he said. "I think that is what is really nice about her thesis, what makes it really stand out."
Kornhauser emphasized that there are many logistical issues that would need to be worked out, such as whether permits would go just to people in New Jersey or to a broader number of drivers. But, he said, she has shown that the idea warrants further consideration.
"I think she will be able to get some of this published," he said. "And I think she can start a national, even an international discussion."
For her part, Fehlig is happy to have tackled a real-world problem that was a constant part of
her life growing up in suburban Atlanta. "The situation in Atlanta is proof that you can't just keep building roads," she said.After graduation, Fehlig will begin work at Parsons Brinckerhoff, an international
transportation engineering and consulting firm. Her thesis, she said, gave her a lot of
confidence in making her choice. "It's great to be going off into the real world with a sense that
I have a strong theoretical background in these issues."Copyright Princeton Weekly Bulletin
Princeton freshmen may be forced to do without wheels
Friday, May 03, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON BOROUGH - Freshmen at Princeton University would lose the privilege of bringing their cars to campus if borough Mayor Marvin Reed has his way.
Reed floated the idea to university officials during informal discussions about a month ago on easing traffic and parking congestion in the borough.
"Our overall goal is to reduce the dependence of everybody in Princeton on autos," Reed said yesterday.
Citing a move in the last couple of years by Rider University's Westminster Choir College to ban its freshmen from bringing cars to Westminster's campus in the northeast part of the borough, Reed said it might be time for Princeton University to follow suit.
University officials say it's improbable that Reed's proposal will drive them to change their student-parking policies.
The university, which this year issued about 150 parking permits to freshmen, contends Reed wrongly asserts that many students with campus parking permits regularly drive their vehicles across town, ratcheting up the competition for off-campus street parking downtown.
The university concentrates its student parking in a surface lot off Faculty Road near the southern end of the campus in Princeton Township.
"I am concerned that students use their cars to go from one side of the campus to the other side . . . and they end up parking on residential streets," which, he said, was never the intent behind student parking.
But Pam Hersh, the university's director of community and state affairs, suggested that Reed's concern is misplaced.
"It was our perception that the undergraduates do not take their cars into town," Hersh said.
For the most part, she said, students with campus parking decals don't use their cars to go into the center of Princeton.
"Their trips are out of town," Hersh said, adding that the university has enough spaces on campus to accommodate its students.
She said her office has received numerous e-mails from undergraduates recently urging the university not to impose tighter restrictions on student parking.
While the university is not likely to forbid freshmen from bringing their vehicles to campus or create other new limits on student parking any time soon, Hersh said she continues to be engaged in discussions aimed at setting up a shuttle-bus service for its students.
"We . . . are extremely concerned about and aware of the traffic issues in downtown Princeton," Hersh said.
"However, we don't see, right now, banning freshman cars as a way of (easing) downtown congestion," she said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Harrison Street residents want measures to cut speeds, trafficBy: Jennifer Potash, Staff Writer April 30, 2002
Many living along the busy roadway say they would like traffic-calming measures, such as speed humps and raised crosswalks.
Harrison Street residents are seeking relief from both speeding cars and heavy traffic volume.
Members of the Harrison Street Neighborhood Association met Thursday at the Whole Earth Center on Nassau Street to map out strategies.
The residents said they would like traffic-calming measures, such as speed humps and raised crosswalks, installed on the busy thoroughfare.
The street, along with Washington Road and Alexander Street, is a major artery from Route 1 into the Princetons.
Noting that jurisdiction for Harrison Street falls under three authorities - the borough, the township and West Windsor - the Harrison Street residents agreed to develop a plan targeting each portion of the road.
The residents are concerned with the section of Harrison running from Nassau Street to Route 1.
Many residents said they would like traffic lights installed at intersections such as Patton Avenue in the borough and Southern Way and Sycamore Road in the township.
A questionnaire sent to Harrison Street residents by the association indicated support for raised crosswalks, similar to the ones on Hodge Road, at the intersection of Lilac Lane.
Many of the painted crosswalks across Harrison Street are barely visible, said Alan Goodheart of Harrison Street.
Bobbie Parmet, a township Harrison Street resident, said the street appears to have picked up more traffic from Washington Road, which had pedestrian traffic lights installed two years ago. The additional traffic lights are thought to induce motorists to seek a faster way into and out of Princeton by using Harrison Street.
More immediate steps the municipalities could take, according to residents, include removing confusing street signs and creating a uniform 25 mile per hour speed limit for Harrison Street.
The association intends to meet with the traffic and transportation committees of the borough and the township to seek support for the traffic-calming measures.
©Packet Online 2002
Lone Drivers? Some Can Come Into Manhattan
April 19, 2002
By RANDY KENNEDY
The Bloomberg administration said yesterday that it would lift the morning ban on single-occupant vehicles on the Queensboro Bridge, in the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and in the Lincoln Tunnel beginning Monday morning, averting a potential legal battle with parking-garage owners and other opponents of the restrictions.
The ban has been in place on those crossings and on five others in Lower Manhattan since late September; it was imposed to ease traffic after several days of crippling gridlock that followed the attack on the World Trade Center. Iris Weinshall, the city's transportation commissioner, said the city would leave the ban in place "for the foreseeable future" in the Brooklyn Battery and Holland Tunnels, and on the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, because disruptions from rebuilding in Lower Manhattan would probably continue for years.
In all, 600 blocks need serious repairs south of Canal Street, Ms. Weinshall said; as many as 90 have water mains, utilities and entire roadbeds that will have be unearthed and replaced. Also, construction on transit lines and new terminals will keep many areas in a state of near-paralysis for as long as five years.
Several mass transit and environmental groups yesterday sharply criticized scaling back the ban, which prohibits lone drivers from crossing between 6 and 10 a.m. on weekdays. "The city has taken a real step backwards in the fight against traffic congestion," said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
Parking-garage owners and others who say they have been hurt by the ban, including retailers and restaurant owners, applauded the decision. Those groups had been exploring whether to take legal action to force the city to drop the ban.
Copyright The New York TImes 2002
Monday, April 15, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Several two-lane roads that for the past 22 years have been slated for expansion to four lanes pending boosts in traffic won't be widened under the master plan that will be completed by the end of this month.
Town leaders say residents' extensive concerns voiced during months of review of the master plan draft spurred planning board members to direct consultants to rework the final plan to exclude the possibility of expanding those roads.
But political leaders and township employees alike acknowledge that the decision goes against the advice of traffic engineers and could yield congestion on multiple roadways.
``The public did not want four-lane roads so I guess they're going to deal with major traffic jams in the morning and the evening,'' said Sam Surtees, township zoning officer. ``This new master plan is a major departure from what was consistent in the master plan for the last 22 years.''
Since 1979, the town's master plan has not specifically laid out plans to expand several ``collector'' roads that run through the town, but it did allow for that possibility pending increases in traffic.
Those streets include sections of Washington, Alexander and Clarksville roads as well as all of South Mill, New Edinburg, New Village, Village West, Edinburg and Bear Brook roads.
But the planning board decided to eliminate that possibility during its lengthy review of the traffic circulation plan in the master plan draft, which was only completed last week when the planning board decided to keep the Alexander Road bridge at its current location.
``The whole philosophy in the draft master plan had been that traffic would drive the size of the roads,'' said Jackie Alberts, the township council's liaison to the planning board. ``This is a change in philosophy. We heard loud and clear from the residents that no one wants a four-lane road near their house.''
The new plan will explicitly call for some roads - primarily those that run on the perimeter of the town - to be four lanes and other roads that are closer to residential areas to be two lanes.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, who sits on the planning board, said the town needs to focus on alternative means of transportation to deal with the traffic.
``If you try to accommodate for all the estimated capacities, the capacity is going to keep growing,'' Hsueh said. ``It's important that West Windsor starts to send a message: We are not going to be able to accommodate all of the capacity.
Hsueh said plans in the works to implement a bus rapid transit system as well as bike paths and other transportation methods need to be carefully considered.
``You can't just keep expanding roadways,'' Hsueh said. ``We need to start looking about how to minimize the use of roadways. Social behavior is one of the things I'm hoping we can move in a direction that will be better for a sustainable community.''
Surtees said the master plan draft will be entirely complete by the end of the month. At that point, it will be presented to the planning board and a public hearing will be scheduled.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Opponents of the planning board's recent decision to rebuild the Alexander Road bridge at its current location say town officials failed to adequately review traffic reports and potential safety risks before taking a vote.
Some residents, including planning board member Jackie Alberts, say the board also didn't weigh opinions from those in different neighborhoods and made a quick decision after hearing the state would only fund reconstruction at the current spot.
``It's been a very disappointing process,'' Alberts said. ``We've pitted neighborhood against neighborhood in a horrific fashion but in the end no neighborhood was listened to. The only voice was the (Department of Transportation).''
Joseph O'Shea, a trustee for the Windsor Haven development, said he's concerned emergency vehicles won't be able to access the west side of the railroad tracks because replacing the bridge at its current location won't improve the congested roadways surrounding the bridge.
The development's lawyer is now reviewing the planning board's ruling.
``There are legal options that are out there,'' O'Shea said. ``There has been no decision.''
The planning board committed to improving the intersection at the bridge when members took the vote last week, but Susan Abbey of Berrien City said there isn't enough room for necessary improvements to be built without taking property.
Those who live in Berrien City are sharply opposed to keeping the bridge where it is because they believe it will push too much traffic onto local streets and pose a safety hazard to pedestrians.
Abbey and representatives from six other neighborhoods, who are divided over the bridge decision, spent nearly a year working on the Princeton Junction Task Force. The group focused its time on developing a plan to turn the area into a town or village center, but it didn't focus on the bridge, Abbey said.
``When it comes to traffic and circulation, it was a total waste,'' Abbey said.
Residents of Berrien City, including Abbey, say the planning board either didn't consider traffic studies or didn't explain results to residents in a public meeting.
``Somebody needs to look into the process,'' Abbey said. ``They didn't do the work.''
But Ed Steele, planning board chairman, said members reviewed traffic figures from the DOT and the town's traffic consultant before making the decision.
``We just don't need any more information than we have,'' Steele said. ``Just because we voted to keep it where it is doesn't mean the DOT was necessarily the reason we did that. The DOT certainly gave us good information and good insight, but we listened to what everybody had to say.''
Alberts plans to ask the board to put a plan for a second bridge in the master plan draft tonight at a planning board meeting.
``I have a hunch the board won't agree with that mostly for money and wetlands issues,'' Steele said.
Alberts is also calling for an audit to determine how much the town spent on reviewing four bridge proposals under consideration.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Proposal for Princeton jitney service hits rough road
Thursday, April 04, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON BOROUGH - A jitney service to move people along the Witherspoon Street corridor and around the John-Witherspoon neighborhood might be too costly to be practical.
However, setting up a private funding source to encourage more local residents to buy overcrowded or squalid rental properties from absentee landlords in the John-Witherspoon neighborhood could be one sensible option for that part of town.
Those were among the ideas urban planner Robert Brown discussed with borough officials during Tuesday night's borough council meeting, which sought to address conceptual improvements to the Witherspoon Street corridor.
Brown has been working for the nonprofit citizens' group Princeton Future, which aims to help steer downtown and neighborhood development here based on the community's desires and needs.
Brown's presentation to the council Tuesday night was largely based on recent discussions between Princeton Future and dozens of residents and business owners along the Witherspoon Street corridor.
No concrete plan was expected to arise immediately from the meeting.
But Brown and borough officials highlighted some of the planning issues unique to the Witherspoon Street area.
For example, longtime residents of the historically black John-Witherspoon neighborhood - the borough's most densely populated area - don't want to see the character of their corner of town change, Brown said.
But they have expressed a desire as recently as last month for further steps to be taken against landlords who disregard the borough's overcrowding and quality-of-life ordinances, he said.
At the same time, some residents have told Princeton Future that focusing on the blighted, overcrowded properties in the neighborhood casts an unfair negative image on all its residents.
Borough officials are under constant pressure from developers who want local zoning laws changed so new housing, storefronts and office space could be packed into smaller and smaller spaces along the Witherspoon Street corridor, Mayor Marvin Reed said.
``We're facing enormous pressure . . . to increase the FAR (floor-to-area-ratio) and the number of units for multifamily housing and the number of commercial businesses that would be allowed,'' Reed said.
It's not uncommon to see three-unit residential properties in the Witherspoon area listed for sale for $950,000, he said.
``It means that whatever is sold or built will be resold or rented at a much higher price than what has been the prevailing (rate) in the neighborhood,'' Reed said.
And that's another thing John-Witherspoon residents don't want to see - continued gentrification of their neighborhood, Council President Mildred Trotman said.
But Councilman David Goldfarb cautioned against casting any outside development interest in that neighborhood in a negative light.
``I'm afraid we're using the word gentrification a little too broadly,'' he said. ``I don't think we should be encouraging the neighborhood to aspire to shabbiness'' to stave off wealthy outside investors from buying property there.
Brown said someone recently raised the prospect that a jitney service might be useful for the crowded Witherspoon Street corridor.
But its cost - about $1 million per year - might put it out of reach right now, he and borough officials said.
For now, street and sidewalk improvements for Witherspoon Street - a major road construction project the borough plans to start in the next couple of years - remain the likeliest major changes that the Witherspoon Street corridor will see.
But Princeton Future officials said they will continue fine-tuning their ideas so they might evolve into more concrete plans.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Alexander Road bridge to be rebuilt in place
Thursday, April 04, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - The Alexander Road bridge is staying put.
Planning board members last night voted 8-1 to rebuild the bridge at its current spot following news that state officials will only fund the cost of keeping the bridge where it is.
Jackie Alberts, township council liaison to the planning board, voted against the measure.
Many planning board members said they are unwilling to spend the extra money - estimated to be several million dollars - to move the bridge farther south to either North Post Road or Everett Drive.
Others said they were concerned about minimizing inconvenience and potential property loss to residents who live in Princeton Junction, an area that has been sharply divided over plans to rebuild the bridge.
``The concept should be how to best design that bridge at that location,'' said Pat Greber, a planning board member.
``We can help (the state) design it, but let them leave it where it is - let them not take anyone's houses - let them not take our heritage,'' she said.
While many people who attended last night's meeting burst into applause after the vote was taken, residents from Berrien City were not happy with the decision.
``I'm concerned they are not considering pedestrian safety in this township,'' said Susan Conlon, a resident of Berrien City for nearly 10 years. ``They had no quantitative data.''
State and town leaders last week eliminated a plan Berrien City residents also objected to that would have moved the bridge farther north to align directly with Alexander Road. That plan could have required condemnation of Nobel prize winner John Nash's house.
Residents from Clarksville Road, Benford Estates, Old Bear Brook Road, Wellington Estates and Sunrise banded together over the past few months to push the board to keep the bridge where it is. They believe the current location best divides the traffic among neighborhoods.
``An 8-1 vote is pretty complete,'' Bob Redmond of Benford Estates said after the meeting. ``It's great.''
State officials told town leaders last week they will only fund the cost of rebuilding the bridge at its current location - a figure they estimated to be about $3.5 million.
If the town chose to move the bridge elsewhere, the state would only provide that amount and the town would be forced to pick up the rest of the tab and fund any improvements to surrounding roadways.
The state technically owns the bridge and is responsible for funding improvements to it, but it's the town's decision where to rebuild it.
The state plans to start building the new bridge at its current location in 2005 or 2006, but it would likely have taken much longer if the board had chosen a different location, because of necessary environmental studies, said Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh.
``They couldn't predict a time line,'' Hsueh said. ``They have to deal with too many agencies.''
Planning board member Larry Hollander said he was concerned the current dilapidated bridge would collapse before it could be rebuilt at another location.
``I don't think we'll have an Alexander Road bridge if we go with any other location,'' he said.
Hollander also disputed claims from Windsor Haven residents that a new bridge at the current spot wouldn't be able to handle emergency vehicles.
``The biggest problems with emergency vehicles is that they can't jump over cars,'' Hollander said. ``I just don't see the emergency vehicles being a problem on a well-designed bridge.''
The new two-lane bridge will likely be about 50 feet wide and will contain bike paths and sidewalks.
Many members of the planning board said they want to make sure the streets around the bridge are properly designed to reduce the congestion now found at the ``T'' intersection on the east side of the railroad tracks.
``If we're not resolving the T, we're not fixing the problem,'' Alberts said. ``This is not a minor concern. I see that backup just about every day because of the T.''
Bill Benfer, a planning board member who attended last week's meeting with DOT officials, said the new upgraded bridge will improve traffic flow.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Residents still push bridge proposal
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Nearly 200 residents from Clarksville Road and nearby neighborhoods gathered at Maurice Hawk Elementary School last weekend to urge town officials to rebuild the Alexander Road bridge at its current location.
The residents came to an hour-long event on Saturday to show support for the plan known as Option 3, which calls for renovating and expanding the bridge where it is now. Two other plans call for moving the bridge farther south to North Post Road or Everett Drive.
Robert Cavaliere, who organized the event and has been a spokesman for the area, said residents felt the need to advocate for Option 3 despite news late last week that the state is pushing the town to keep the bridge where it is and will only fund the cost of rebuilding it at the current spot.
``We have a message to deliver and we should continue delivering it until the decision is done,'' Cavaliere said. ``I don't think it's over until it's actually over.''
The state will provide most of the funding to move the bridge, but it's the town's decision on where it should go.
State and town officials on Thursday also opted to eliminate an option that would move the bridge farther north to align directly with Alexander Road and potentially require condemnation of Nobel Prize-winner John Nash's home.
Cavaliere said many residents are looking for closure on the issue that has pitted neighborhood against neighborhood since Princeton Junction residents first started to review plans to move the bridge last year.
Berrien City and Windsor Haven residents oppose Option 3 because they believe it will push too much traffic through their streets and make it difficult for emergency vehicles to get to locations on the west side of the train tracks.
``We are still waiting to see the traffic statistics,'' Susan Abbey, a Berrien City resident, said yesterday. ``That's information they should be gathering before making a decision.''
Abbey and Windsor Haven representatives have lobbied the town to move the bridge to North Post Road while some people from Penns Neck have pushed for the bridge to be rebuilt at Everett Drive.
Residents from Wellington Estates, Sunrise, Colonial Park, Benford Estates and Clarksville Road who attended Saturday's event are all pushing the town to keep the bridge where it is because they believe moving it to North Post Road or Everett Drive will force too much traffic onto Clarksville Road and will eventually necessitate widening the street to four lanes.
Those residents believe it's dangerous to push more traffic onto Clarksville Road because students walk to both Maurice Hawk Elementary School and High School South in that area.
``Four lanes of pavement in front of an elementary school and a high school is just asking for trouble,'' Cavaliere said.
The planning board is scheduled to review the bridge proposals at 8 p.m. tomorrow during a meeting at the municipal building.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Back to top
Bridge saga's final chapter not yet written
By: Packet Editorial April 02, 2002
PACKET EDITORIAL, April 2
Like a good mystery that keeps you gripped with its twists and turns, the suspenseful saga of the Alexander Road bridge goes on and on. Just when you thought the state Department of Transportation and West Windsor officials might solve the puzzle of what to do about this dilapidated old structure - a span whose function is to link traffic on two sides of the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks but whose future seems only to separate West Windsor neighborhoods into warring camps - the plot thickens.
The DOT has now ruled out Option 1 - realigning the bridge so that Alexander Road would run straight across the railroad tracks and right smack through the middle of West Windsor's Berrien City neighborhood. This is wonderful news, of course, to Berrien City residents, who had mounted an impressive letter-writing campaign laying out a million and one reasons why Option 1 should be removed from consideration.
But wait - there's more. The DOT also told West Windsor officials that the state will provide funding only for Option 3 - rebuilding the Alexander Road bridge at its present location. Berrien City residents oppose Option 3 almost as ardently as they oppose Option 1, for another million and one reasons - though, truth be told, all two million and two reasons really come down to the same thing: Berrien City residents want the traffic that traverses the Alexander Road bridge to go through somebody else's neighborhood. They are joined in this view by residents of Windsor Haven on the west side of the tracks.
Not surprisingly, virtually all of the other affected neighborhoods on the east side of the tracks have been fighting against Options 2 and 4 - realigning the Alexander Road bridge with North Post Road (Option 2) or Everett Drive (Option 4) - precisely because these options would reroute traffic from Berrien City into places like Benford Estates, Wellington and Sunrise. These folks are thrilled that the DOT will fund only Option 3; keeping the bridge where it is represents the "compromise" solution they've been touting in their own, well-orchestrated letter-writing campaign.
This puts West Windsor officials on the spot. The state now says it will pay only for Option 3. If the township wants to pursue Option 2 (which happens to be the route that's been on the Master Plan for years) or Option 4 (which may actually affect the fewest residents but is also the most expensive), it will have to come up with the additional money itself. And we're not talking chump change here; we're talking several million dollars above and beyond what the DOT will pay for - rebuilding the bridge in its current location - if West Windsor wants to pursue any of these other options.
From a purely financial standpoint, this may be a no-brainer. It is hard to imagine that large numbers of West Windsor residents, outside Berrien City and Windsor Haven, will favor spending local tax money to build a new, realigned Alexander Road bridge if the state is willing to foot the bill for rebuilding the bridge where it is.
On the other hand, just because the DOT says it will pay only for Option 3 doesn't necessarily mean it's the best option. The rebuilt Alexander Road bridge will still carry eastbound traffic to the same T-intersection where it comes to a standstill today; even the addition of a traffic light won't unsnarl the rush-hour bottleneck at this intersection - in fact it may worsen it - and anticipated growth in the area, including the mammoth Toll Brothers' project on Bear Brook Road, will strain the capacity of this intersection even further.
So stay tuned. This latest twist may take the epic tale of the Alexander Road bridge in a new direction - both figuratively and literally. But it hasn't yet reached its exciting conclusion. Not by a long shot.
©Packet Online 2002
State won't pay to realign Alexander Road bridge
By: Gwen Runkle, Staff Writer April 02, 2002
West Windsor faces paying millions of dollars for options located away from current bridge.
WEST WINDSOR - If the township decides to rebuild the Alexander Road bridge anywhere other than in its current location, it is going to have to fork over some extra cash.
That is what officials from the state Department of Transportation told township administrators, members of the Township Council, Planning Board and other leaders Thursday.
The two parties met to review the township's four proposals for rebuilding the dilapidated bridge, which is owned by the state.
According to John Dourgarian, spokesman for the DOT, the DOT strongly supports Option 3, which calls for replacing and widening the bridge at its current location. He said the DOT would pay only for this alignment, which he estimated would cost $3.5 million.
"We decided it would be best to pursue this option of replacing the bridge with the same alignment rather than shifting it, because shifting drives up the cost, increases environmental and community impacts and delays the project," Mr. Dourgarian said.
If the township chose to go with either Option 2, which aligns the bridge with North Post Road south of its current location, or Option 4, which connects it even further south with Everett Drive, the township would have to provide an additional $2.5 to $4 million associated with new roadway construction, he said.
The DOT also would not be able to complete its feasibility study for the project within the year and could not begin work on the bridge as hoped in 2005-2006, he said.
But just how this information will affect the township Planning Board's decision on where to put the bridge is uncertain.
The board is expected to take up the issue at an 8 p.m. meeting Wednesday in the Municipal Building on Clarksville Road as part of its township draft Master Plan deliberations.
"It will certainly be part of the discussion," said Ed Steele, Planning Board chairman. "I am not sure how this will influence how the board votes."
One thing is certain. Option 1, which would have moved the bridge north to align directly with Alexander Road, was eliminated from discussion by both DOT and township officials on Thursday due to the need to take homes with that option.
"When we weighed the traffic benefits against the community benefits, it just didn't add up," said David Toth, manager of the DOT's bureau of project scope development. "And we collectively agreed to eliminate that option."
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh agreed. "I don't want to see any houses taken with any option," he said.
But while residents of Berrien City are happy that homes along Alexander Road will be spared, they still oppose Option 3 - replacing the bridge at the same location - as do residents from Windsor Haven.
"We hope the Planning Board and the Township Council will finally, after almost a year, insist on gathering such crucial data as updated traffic studies reflecting the Toll and Sarnoff buildout, cost analyses and the engineering data for at least Options 2 and 3 before deciding exactly where this bridge will go," said Susan Abbey of Berrien City. "To make such a decision without gathering this data and sharing it with the public is irresponsible."
Joseph O'Shea of Windsor Haven agreed.
"The 1986 Master Plan, which supports a North Post Road alignment, was well thought out and developed to provide emergency services and access to community facilities on both sides of the tracks," he said.
"I don't believe any of these critical requirements were properly studied or presented in the right context to the DOT."
But Mr. Dourgarian and Mr. Toth both stressed the DOT is committed to working with West Windsor on the issues of safety, emergency services and turning movements in regard to Option 3, which, as planned, would be a two-lane bridge with sidewalk and bicycle paths.
Residents of Benford Estates, Clarksville Road, North Post Road and Old Bear Brook Road, which all have supported Option 3, are happy the DOT strongly supports keeping the bridge where it is.
"It's the most fair approach in terms of sharing the circulation burden," said Robert Cavaliere, Clarksville Road resident.
©Packet Online 2002
Much of Middlesex Firm Against Route 92
Mobilizing the Region
Issue 359 April 1, 2002
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
With the draft environmental impact statement for Route 92 due from the U.S. Army Corps this spring, a group of seven central New Jersey officials have organized to voice continued opposition to the highway. The officials mayors from Rocky Hill, Hopewell, Franklin, South Brunswick, Montgomery, Manville and Middlesex County Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula told press last week that they don't want Route 92 constructed.
The NJ Turnpike Authority encountered strong opposition several years ago when it announced plans for Route 92, a new 6.7-mile highway through Middlesex County. The highway is estimated to cost $350 million to build, which could require a toll increase.After efforts by central New Jersey mayors, citizen groups, and the Tri-State Campaign, due to significant wetlands impacts, U.S. EPA mandated a full environmental impact statement.Route 92 would extend from New Jersey Turnpike Interchange 8A to Route 1 at Ridge Road in South Brunswick.
"Route 92 will clog Route 1 to the south of Ridge Road and flood two lane roads to the west with car and truck traffic, worsening traffic flow," Rocky Hill Mayor Brian Nolan told reporters.
"Our town should not be seen as a throughway for highway traffic," said Hopewell Mayor Jon Edwards."Other options, such as improving existing roads or looking into rail development, would be a much better investment for central New Jersey.The last thing we need during these though financial times is to cut through the region with an expensive and unpopular highway.This is an older type of solution - just building more roads," Edwards said.
Route 92, in addition to destroying open space and farmland, would have a domino effect in central New Jersey, inviting more congestion, trucks and sprawl to the area.The officials hope that an avowed anti-sprawl Governor and new leadership at the Turnpike Authority will lead the state to let go of the project.
Decision nearing on building Route 92
Friday, March 29, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
Commuters in search of a new way to get from the New Jersey Turnpike to Route 1 will know in the next few months whether Route 92 is likely to be built.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to finish by late spring or early summer a draft of the environmental impact statement (EIS) that probably will determine the fate of the proposed 6.7-mile road, according to project manager Jodi McDonald.
Information from Our AdvertisersThe current alignment of the road, which Turnpike officials estimate will cost about $350 million, calls for it to stretch between Turnpike Exit 8A in Monroe to Route 1 just south of Ridge Road in South Brunswick near the Plainsboro border, McDonald said.
Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu and West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh yesterday voiced their strong support for the project while mayors of six other towns sounded their objections in a collective press release.
Cantu and Hsueh feel the road will ease congestion on other roads that provide a connection between the Turnpike and Route 1.
``That will help dilute traffic from the very limited roadways to connect the east and west from the Turnpike to Route 1,'' Hsueh said. ``Some of the traffic will have more alternatives.''
Brian Nolan, mayor of Rocky Hill, and Jon Edwards, mayor of Hopewell Township, both said the road will change traffic patterns and force more vehicles through their local streets.
``It doesn't impact us directly in terms of the land,'' Nolan said. ``But if the road exits near Ridge Road, those trying to get over to Princeton and Hopewell will go through Kingston and Rocky Hill.''
Edwards said the state should foster other ways to reduce congestion, such as mass transit and alternate commuting hours, instead of building another highway.
``This is an older type of solution - just building more roads,'' Edwards said.
Edwards, Nolan and officials from Montgomery and South Brunswick pushed for the EIS several years ago, when a less stringent environmental assessment was conducted.
Cantu said yesterday he's anxious to see what the EIS says and feels other municipal leaders should wait for the document to be completed before passing judgment.
``It's a little discouraging seeing people come out of a process they called for and announcing their objections,'' Cantu said. ``If folks are sincere about the issue, they should wait for the EIS they called for.''
McDonald said the statement will address traffic and environmental concerns associated with the road. When the draft is released, a public hearing will be held within two months and the Army Corps of Engineers will then spend up to six months compiling the final document, she said.
The Army Corps of Engineers will make the final decision on whether to build the road.
Copyright 2002 The Times
02/22/02
By EDITORIAL
The state Department of Transportation is proposing to undo some of the good that was done three years ago when former Gov. Christie Whitman banned 102-inch-wide trucks passing through New Jersey -- the biggest on the road -- from thoroughfares that aren't part of the Intrastate Access Travel network. DOT wants to let the trucks back onto some 65 miles of currently restricted highway, including 5-mile stretches of Route 31 in Trenton and Ewing Township and Route 33 in Hamilton and Washington townships. The changes will allow truckers to "avoid the roundabout routing necessitated by gaps in the network," a DOT spokesman explained. "We think the roads can support the trucks."
Clearly, the department is supporting the trucks. It has caved in to the trucking lobby, which wants to avoid "roundabout routing," regardless of the impact on the public's safety and convenience. The Mercer County roads in question are congested, lined with small businesses and residences, and manifestly unsuited for huge 18-wheelers. The mayors of the affected municipalities have promised to fight DOT's plan. They should do so with all the resources at their command.
© 2002 The Times
TRN Meets, Debates Level of Service
Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP)
TRANSFER - Vol. 8, Issue 1
Jan. 24, 2002To see Transfer online, visit http://www.transact.org
The Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington last week included a debate over the future of the Level of Service (LOS) measure of road quality. In this session, Adolf D. May of the University of California at Berkeley moderated as five panelists debated the usefulness of LOS, which grades roads from "A" to "F" based on volume and capacity or intersection wait. The majority of the panelists agreed that current LOS measures need to
be substantially adjusted, or even scrapped, to allow for a broader definition of effectiveness. Panelists noted that although LOS is the measure used most frequently in traffic impact analysis of new developments, it is easily "gamed" to suit developers' purposes. Several participants also
commented that the current LOS measure also usually penalizes roads for providing good pedestrian crossings, frequent bus stops, and similar transportation improvements. The implications of this debate are enormous, as LOS is commonly used as the primary justification for new roads and widenings.The TRB's 81st annual meeting attracted more than 8,000 transportation professionals from around the world, and featured hundreds of sessions, most on highway engineering topics. Some innovative sessions dealt with multi-modal measures of congestion, international perspectives on climate change, new methods in improving pedestrian and cyclist safety, and a
discussion of the public health impacts of transportation projects. For more information on the meeting or TRB, visit http://trb.org/
Officials get their digs in on tunnel
By ALBERT RABOTEAU
Staff WriterTRENTON -- With city and Mercer County officials labeling the almost completed Route 29 tunnel pointless if trucks can't use it, outgoing state Department of Transportation Commissioner James W. Weinstein Jr. yesterday defended the truck ban.
Weinstein, who leaves office at noon today, said officials feared that without the ban, Route 29 south of Interstate 95 would be flooded with trucks seeking to shorten their trips.
The ban, which Weinstein signed last week, prohibits all trucks weighing more than 13 tons from traveling Route 29 between Route 1 and Route 129. That stretch includes the tunnel, which cost $105 million to build and is expected to open next month.
Trucks weighing 13 tons or more also will be barred from Route 29 between I-95 and Route 1 unless they are making local deliveries -- a restriction that already applies north of I-95.
Weinstein said the ban is an attempt to make the area around the tunnel, which includes a minor league baseball stadium, more pedestrian friendly.
City officials, including Mayor Douglas H. Palmer and Council President Frank A. Cirillo, said they pressed for a truck ban years ago and only supported the tunnel because they were told a ban was impossible to secure.
In November 2000, the state banned trucks on Route 29 north of I-95, where the highway becomes a two-lane road, making a ban feasible south of I-95 also, Weinstein said. South of I-95, Route 29 is a four-lane divided highway.
By then, the tunnel was being built.
"This thing with the tunnel is just ridiculous," Cirillo said. "It appears to be a giant waste of money."
The tunnel is scheduled to open next month. Officials expected it to cost $70 million to build, but the figure is now $105 million.
Palmer said he will meet with DOT officials Friday to discuss concerns over the project, including complaints by nearby residents that construction made their houses unstable.
Palmer said he fears truckers will ignore the ban and try to shorten their journeys by using city streets.
A four-ton weight restriction is in place for trucks on city streets near Routes 29 and 129, but city police cannot spare the manpower to enforce the ban, Palmer said.
City police would not provide statistics on how may truckers have been cited for straying onto city streets.
Palmer said he will ask that state police be allocated to patrol local roads and will argue for guards to be posted at the tunnel to ensure no trucks carrying hazardous materials enter.
DOT officials said state police will enforce the ban south of I-95, just as they have been doing north of the interstate and no special measures are planned for the tunnel.
Mercer County Executive Robert D. Prunetti questioned what purpose the tunnel will serve if trucks are not allowed through it.
"I intend to have my transportation director sit down with the DOT and find out their rationale," he said.
Like Palmer, Prunetti said he feared trucks would take a shortcut through the city if they are barred from the tunnel.
The ban is intended to keep trucks on interstate highways, DOT officials have said. The tunnel still is worthwhile because it eliminates a bottleneck where Route 29 formerly terminated at Lamberton Street, Weinstein said.
Staying on I-95 to reach other interstates, such as I-195 and I-295, results in a longer trip than taking Routes 29 and 129 to reach those interstates.
The New Jersey Motor Truck Association (NJMTA) did not protest the Route 29 truck ban north of I-95 but is against extending the ban southward, said the group's executive director, Gail Toth.
"We are absolutely dead set against this," she said. "I don't get it. We'd like to call for this to be rescinded as soon as possible."
The NJMTA will meet today and discuss ways to fight the truck ban, Toth said.
She said the decision came as a complete surprise. The NJMTA had agreed to a ban of hazardous materials trucks through the tunnel, but had no idea a total ban was being considered, she said.
The American Trucking Association (ATA) filed a federal lawsuit against the truck ban when it only applied north of I-95, and a spokesman for the organization said the same problems apply to the new ban.
"We think it's unfair, unsafe and unconstitutional and will continue to await the results of our federal court challenge," said ATA spokesman Mike Russell.
Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Princeton Borough, a member of the Assembly's transportation committee, said he will press for the incoming DOT commissioner to hold meetings with local officials to judge whether the truck ban has negative traffic effects on the region.
Gov.-elect James E. McGreevey, who is to be sworn in at noon today, has not nominated anyone to the DOT commissioner post.
Palmer said he is concerned the tunnel project that DOT officials proposed and the one they delivered are very different.
For one thing, the tunnel was not supposed to obstruct Lamberton Street residents' view of the Delaware River but had to be built higher than expected. Houses now face a high brick wall.
Other development plans near the tunnel are in jeopardy.
Prunetti championed a project to put stores on a median running between the north and southbound sides of Route 29 near Waterfront Park.
Doing so would violate federal rules because the median is too narrow to permit safe access to the stores, DOT spokesman John Dourgarian said.
Prunetti said officials may have been unaware of the restrictions in drafting their concept plans, but he hopes a developer will be able to get around them with help from local government.
"It's not something we're ready to give up on yet," he said.
Tunnel construction began in 1997, and Weinstein inherited the project when taking over the DOT in December 1998, he said.
"I think it's clearly been a challenging project for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being we tried to make it as palatable to the community as possible," he said.
"Frankly, that's not an easy thing to do with a $105 million project. Still, I think it will really facilitate traffic flow and that's going to help the city of Trenton."
© 2002 The Times
Read a response to this article by a Penns Neck Resident
01/08/02 Trenton Times
By KAREN AYRES
Staff WriterWEST WINDSOR -- When Adele Danley was a child, she walked along the edge of Washington Road to her friends' houses without fear of getting hit by a car.
That was more than 60 years ago.
Now, Danley, who still lives on Washington Road, faces a wall of traffic at the end of her driveway. When her husband was in the hospital last summer, she resorted to getting up at 6 a.m. to go shopping so she could easily make a left turn out of her driveway.
"You take your life in your hands, so I went at 6 a.m.," Danley said. "It's changing so much. Now, you can't even let your children walk down the street by themselves."
Danley and many of her neighbors along Washington Road have put up signs urging people stuck in traffic to call the governor's office to request the construction of the Penns Neck Bypass, a controversial road project also known as the Millstone Bypass, which they believe will ease congestion on the road.
The signs read: "Tired of sitting in traffic? Call and tell the governor to build the Penns Neck Bypass." The sign includes the phone number.
Township council member Rae Roeder, who like Danley, has lived on Washington Road her entire life, is spearheading the group "Save Penns Neck."
"Without the bypass, our community will be entirely destroyed," Roeder said yesterday.
Washington Road residents say Princetonians, who have historically opposed the bypass, have overtaken the environmental impact statement (EIS) process now being conducted by the state to review traffic problems in Penns Neck and the surrounding area.
Susan Parris, another Washington Road resident, hopes the sign on her front lawn will help inform commuters who live in Monmouth and Ocean counties of the local bypass controversy.
"The signs were just to express our opinion," Parris said. "When I was a kid, you could have stood out in the middle of that street."
Parris said many residents have lived in Penns Neck for their entire lives and have a great emotional attachment to the neighborhood.
"We need to let people know Penns Neck is here and what a valuable neighborhood it is," Parris said. "We're going to be vigilent."
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed yesterday said traffic on Washington Road, which is also Route 571, isn't the only problem being reviewed by the EIS group.
Former Gov. Christie Whitman ordered the EIS process to be conducted after a less stringent environmental test failed to yield consensus on the project that has been in the works for decades.
Reed and other Princetonians have long contended the bypass, which was proposed as a two-lane road that would cross Route 1 near Route 571, would force traffic into the streets of both Princeton Borough and Princeton Township.
"The state should not make a simplistic decision to remove traffic on one street and put it on other streets, especially the ones in downtown Princeton," Reed said. "It's a question of how all the roads in the region are going to absorb the enormous amount of traffic that is projected for us.
"The fact is that West Windsor is continuing to encourage and allow enormous amounts of office space to be constructed. West Windsor is the municipality that is creating the surge of traffic. Therefore, they're going to have to help find ways to relieve it."
Robin Van Buren, another Washington Road resident with a sign on her lawn, said she understands Princetonians' concerns, but doesn't believe the issues should dominate the state's review of the region's traffic problems.
"I understand any kind of major construction like that affects the entire area," Van Buren said. "But we really need to take more steps to prevent this kind of ridiculous traffic."
When Van Buren and her husband bought their home 10 years ago, they believed the Millstone Bypass would be constructed in the near future. Now, the couple has two children.
"It's ridiculous," Van Buren said. "It's hard to get out of your driveway and it's dangerous."
© 2002 The Times
Read a response to this article by a Penns Neck Resident
More Articles about Traffic Congestion (from 2001)
|
|
|
|
|