The Plainsboro Township Committee has applied for four grants from the state Department of Transportation to help fund various road and pedestrian improvements around the community.##M:[more]##
The committee agreed on the applications during its meeting on June 11. Township planning consultant Richard Preiss made a presentation during a committee meeting last month in which he described the four categories for the grant funding, the criteria, and listed the recommendations the township staff had made toward selecting project that fit that criteria.
The first category is for municipal aid, which covers traditional road projects. The grant application is for roadwork on Edgemere Avenue, Preiss said. “Edgemere Avenue is deteriorating. There’s some known problems with the sewer systems on the roadway,” Preiss said. “Due to its length, it’s a costly project, and we have it phased into two phases.”
The second category covers bikeway projects, and Preiss said the township staff had recommended submitting a grant for the completion of the bike path on Plainsboro Road. “There is a missing link between Maple and Prospect avenues that, once completed, will allow that section of town access to the Village Center,” Preiss explained. “We applied for that one last year and didn’t get any funding, but we noted that no one in Middlesex County got any bikeway funding.”
For the third category — the centers of place grant — Preiss listed four potential projects that could be good nominations for receiving state grant money. The first project, which was submitted last year for the category and was not successful in receiving money, was for the construction of a natural pathway along Plainsboro Pond, between the Pond View Development and Mill Pond Park.
“It occurs on that little island that occurs along the pond, so access for construction is difficult, and you’re seeing that reflected in the costs,” Preiss said. “Since the cost is so high, staff came up with three other possible potential projects.”
Those included the construction of an asphalt pathway along Grover’s Mill Road, which would link the Cora Lane area to the existing path constructed with the Grovers Mill Estates development, and the upgrade and widening of an existing pedestrian path that connects Plainsboro Road to the Lenape Trail that goes between the Brittany and Deer Creek developments. “Right now, it exists as a 6-foot wide path, and it’s proposed to go to 8-foot wide,” Preiss said.
The last option for that category included the upgrading and construction of the 8-foot wide pedestrian-bicycle path on the municipal complex site and along Scudders Mill and Plainsboro roads that would interconnect the municipal complex with the 600 bus route.
This option — which is identified in the township’s state Plan Endorsement as a priority project — was also suggested for the fourth grant category.The new category — Safe Streets to Transit — provides grants for transit-related work.
Mayor Peter Cantu said that “it would seem that in Category Four, that the suggestion you made really is more applicable there and more likely to get attention there,” as opposed to the centers of place category. As for that third category, Cantu suggested the township instead apply for the funding of the Grovers Mill pathway. “It has some potential because you can play up the proximity to the schools,” Cantu said. Other committee members agreed.
