Cindy and Tim Lynch moved to Robbinsville 17 years ago to build their dream home. They found a farmhouse built in the late 1800s on Gordon Road. It was in rough shape, but Cindy and her husband fell in love with the big backyard, the home’s historic charm and rural area.
“It was in need of a lot of tender love and care, and we’ve given it that,” Cindy Lynch said. “This was just farmland, and we’ve made it an idyllic place.”
They renovated their house, including the 1860s barn out back, which Lynch said is one of the few left in the township, and created a homestead for their family.
“The township is growing incredibly fast, and this is some of the last little bit of rural history left in this town,” Lynch said. “We came here for that reason, and we have loved being here so much, but as my husband said at the [council] meeting [Dec. 3] that has all changed.”
Across the street from the Lynch’s idyllic homestead sits the Matrix Business Park. The 5-million-square-foot park is home to warehouses for multiple companies, including online retailer Amazon’s busiest fulfillment center worldwide.
When Amazon first announced they were opening a fulfillment center in Robbinsville in 2012, right on the border of Mercer and Monmouth counties, there was an immediate buzz of excitement in the area. Having one of the company’s largest facilities in the nation would bring more jobs and even tax relief to residents.
Lynch knew the warehouses would be there when she bought her home, but she didn’t believe it would ever turn into a burden. Her family spent most of their time in their large backyard, where the warehouses are out of sight, but most importantly the township had no plans to build an entrance connecting the park directly to Gordon Road.
While the township’s 2011 redevelopment plan had no entrance on the narrow two-lane road, a second entrance—the main entrance is off Montgomery Way—was added on Gordon Road as part of the 2012 site plan for the approval of Amazon.
“Primarily it was made for public safety issues because we needed to get a second in-and-out,” Mayor Dave Fried said.
If something happened to the main entrance, the mayor said there needed to be a way for police or emergency vehicles to get into the building and get the employees safely out of the park.
While the spare entrance off Gordon Road was never meant to be an additional entrance for everyday use, employees were forced to use it due to overcrowding of the roadways. In order to keep up with the increased demand created by the busy holiday shopping season, Amazon hired seasonal employees.
In 2012, Amazon was approved for roughly 1,000 trips in the morning and just over 2,200 trips during evening rush hours, but Fried said they were averaging 5,000 trips each shift after Thanksgiving.
The roads leading in and out of the park were not built to accommodate the sudden rush of employees all leaving and exiting at the same time. As people were coming and going from the main entrance, they were sitting in traffic to and from exit 8 on I-195.
Fried said that at one point, the traffic was backed up from Exit 8 on I-195 all the way to the New Jersey Turnpike. Once the gridlock reached the Turnpike, state police called Robbinsville officials and instructed them to find a way to divert traffic away from one of the state’s busiest highways.
“The first thing we needed to do was remove the hazard,” Fried said. “The only real way we could have done that was to use Gordon Road.”
Gordon Road was left to take the brunt of the rush hour traffic, which caused problems for residents of Robbinsville, Allentown and Upper Freehold who frequently travel through the back roads.
“It [Gordon Road] was never meant to be used for the traffic that’s currently on it,” Fried said.
Residents who live near the complex said they usually notice an increase in traffic around November, the start of the holiday shopping/shipping season, but this year was far worse than anything they’ve experienced in the past.
“It didn’t slowly ramp up, it almost was like overnight it became really, really bad,” Lynch said.
Lynch said during Amazon’s shift changes traffic would be like a parking lot in front of her house, which is about a quarter-mile up from the park’s entrance. Lynch said the morning gridlock was took place around 6 a.m. and the traffic geared back up again around 5 p.m.
Amazon hired five off-duty cops to direct traffic in and out of the business park, and temporary road signs were placed along Route 539 to direct the Amazon employees to the Gordon Road entrance, but it wasn’t enough to help keep the traffic flowing.
As a result of the gridlock, residents who live near the business park had to alter their schedules around the traffic patterns.
“This has been the worst year of all the two years that they’ve been doing this,” said Kevin Homan, a Robbinsville resident who lives next to the business park on Route 539.
Homan works in Princeton, and on days he had to work late, he would head home during the peak of the traffic.
“I just go over somebody else’s house and wait until traffic dies down because of the gridlock,” he said.
Lynch said her biggest concern about the gridlock was the lack of accessibility to her home. She said in the event of a medical emergency—either at her home or at Amazon—an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get through the traffic.
The township reached a breaking point with the traffic in early December, and Fried threatened to take Amazon to court for creating between 200 and 300 percent more trips than were originally approved. A few days later, however, Robbinsville and Amazon officials reached an agreement to stagger the employee shifts over a 90-minute period in an attempt to break up the traffic.
Fried said the staggered shifts have helped decrease the gridlock, and he’s hopeful that the township can continue to work with Amazon to further alleviate the traffic concerns.
“We’re still tweaking the process, like anything else it takes a little while before you get it right,” he said.
In addition to the expanded shift changes, Amazon has also spent $300,000 to fund the Z-Line bus route, which brings employees to the fulfillment center from Trenton. According to a statement released by the township, it has reduced traffic by 10 percent.
Traffic may no longer be at a standstill all throughout the area, but residents directly near the business park haven’t seen much of an improvement since the shifts were staggered.
Lynch said the traffic is no longer at a bumper-to-bumper standstill, but there’s still constant, slow moving traffic during the employee shift changes. The traffic makes it hard to get in and out of her home, but for many residents the increase of employees brings other issues as well—issues that won’t go away after the holiday season.
“My quality of life has plummeted, with all my waking hours that’s all I think about—my house and what’s happening,” Homan said.
During the offseason, or non-holiday shopping season, traffic remains backed up in front of Homan’s house due to its close proximity to the Route 539 traffic light.
Homan said he seen people stuck in traffic get out of their cars and get into fist fights on his front lawn. People will often use his driveway as a U-turn—with a few people occasionally parking their cars on his driveway or lawn—and throw trash on his property. He’s found liquor bottles, syringes and drug paraphernalia on his front lawn.
Homan has lived in Robbinsville since the 1980s, but when he and his wife had four children, they needed more space than their townhouse could provide. They found the farmhouse on Route 539 and thought it would be the perfect fit for their family.
“When we saw this house there was all farm fields out in the back, and the street was quiet,” Homan said. “And it was just a great place to live and raise kids.”
The traffic, litter and noise has put a strain on Homan’s family, especially his daughter. The emissions from the tractor trailers idling in front of their house has a negative impact on her asthma.
“She actually told us, ‘You and mom can stay but I’m leaving,’” Homan said. “We told her we have no place to go. Nobody would ever buy our house.”
Homan said he’d like to find a new place for his family to live, but his property value has plummeted, making it financially impossible for him move and afford a new place. He said he contacted Matrix representatives and asked them to buy out his property so he can afford to move, but they declined.
“I went to some council meetings and…the council seemed very concerned, but again I don’t know if there’s anything they can do,” Homan said.
Homan and Lynch are just some of the Robbinsville residents who have taken their concerns to the township council. Lynch said that speeding has drastically increased, and trash is always being thrown on her lawn year-round.
Lynch said that she recently noticed an increase in police presence along her road, and she is thankful for the township’s response to her concerns.
“I’m sure the police are just as frustrated at what’s happening because they’re having to deal with it just as much as we are,” she said. ”I know they’re trying very hard.”
Fried said officials are going to look into making structural improvements to the roads, including a potential ramp connecting the park directly to I-195. The township has scheduled meetings with Amazon, Department of Transportation officials, as well as engineers from both Monmouth and Mercer counties, to plan a better traffic pattern or road structure to implement before next holiday season.
“That’s one of the things we’re working on right now—what we can reasonably do with the ramps,” Fried said. “That would make things obviously significantly better and easier. The more people can get on and off the ramp quickly the less traffic we have on the back roads.”
“We realized challenges still remain, and we have been working to address the issue,” Amazon Regional Director of Operations Tim Hall said in a statement.
But for residents like Lynch who live near the fulfillment center, the frustration stems from so many things being changed so quickly—the entrance on Gordon Road, the influx of traffic—to accommodate the busiest fulfillment center for one of the largest corporations in the world.
“I don’t think people realize that when you buy a home in a certain location, and you’re told that this is what to expect over the years, and that changes with one pencil mark and no information to the residents — it’s pretty frustrating,” Lynch said. “People are saying ‘deal with it.’ Well, nobody is going to want to deal with what we’re dealing with right now.”
Police directing traffic outside the Amazon Warehouse in Robbinsville.,
