Walking along Serina Drive off Schalks Crossing Road in Plainsboro on a quiet afternoon, one might revel in the calmness of this residential street.##M:[more]##
But the scene is far from the same amid the buzz of the evening rush hour, according to one resident. From “a train of cars” making u-turns on Serina Drive as a shortcut to making a left out of Forrestal Center toward Ridge Road, to drivers hitting speeds of about 60 miles per hour down Schalks Crossing Road, Serina Drive has become a jughandle off a busy rush-hour thoroughfare.
Emily Bisio, a homemaker, says she has had enough, and is lobbying township officials to make changes. Bisio, who moved into Plainsboro and has lived on the street for nine years with her husband Joseph and her son Roland, has witnessed what she says is a tremendous number of near-misses and accidents and just wants her neighborhood to be safe.
Part of the problem is that the speed limit on Schalks Crossing Road is too high — 45 miles per hour — and should be reduced to 25, she believes.
Schalks Crossing Road runs through the new Plainsboro Village, north over Scudder’s Mill Road and through to Ridge Road in South Brunswick. Heading toward Ridge Road, Forrestal Center’s Research Way empties onto the county road just after Serina, which complicates rush hour traffic.
Once the evening commute arrives, cars waiting to make a left onto the road from Research Way opt to, instead, make a right onto Schalks Crossing Road and make a left onto Serina Drive, where they make a quick U-turn and head back toward Ridge Road, from which they can get onto to Route 1.
Says Bisio: “It’s like a train. I’ve got a circle of cars doing u-turns right on our road.”
The u-shaped Serina Drive is buffered from Schalks Crossing Road by an island of grass and brush. But that buffer did not stop one box truck from plowing right through, and even into a neighbor’s backyard, Bisio recalls. Bisio was vacuuming when she heard the noise from the truck driving over the island. It narrowly missed a telephone pole, ran over the brush, hit a small tree and dragged it into her neighbor’s yard. The driver then proceeded through the neighbor’s backyard — the neighbor’s children were outside, but luckily escaped harm because they were on the deck — down the driveway and back onto Serina Drive, where the truck exited back onto Schalks Crossing and kept going.
Bisio believes the truck driver was traveling too fast and lost control. And even though the neighbor’s children escaped harm, others haven’t been so lucky.
Kevin G. Paulson, 23, of Krebs Road, and a 1998 graduate of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, who died August 29, 2003, when he lost control of his car and struck a telephone pole.
Bisio recalls one three-car pileup near Forrestal Center that caused the entire road to be closed for three or four hours, and another time when a pole was struck in the morning rush hour.
Bisio herself was involved in an accident on Schalks Crossing Road a year ago, when she was hit from behind by a driver who was speeding up to pass her, another usual occurrence on the double-lined road. She says when she went to pick up a copy of the police report, the woman in front of her was picking a copy of hers, one that also occurred on the busy road.
Part of her argument is that in towns like Princeton, the roads leading into busy centers have speed restrictions of 25 miles per hour. But Plainsboro Township didn’t have jurisdiction over the county road and the state Department of Transportation set its speed limits.
Township Administrator Bob Sheehan said officials at Forrestal Center made a commitment years ago that, when the intersection warranted a traffic signal, they agreed they would take up the responsibility to have a light constructed there. Sheehan said those officials have done the analysis, which indicated the signal is needed, and are planning on constructing the signal after winter. “There is a signal in the works,” Sheehan said. “It’s not a township project. They’ll work with the county.”
Sheehan said, though, getting speed limits reduced on certain roads throughout the township is a hardship when the township does not have jurisdiction on them.
“The DOT has a very strict standard that requires you to do a speed survey,” Sheehan said. “They determine that the appropriate speed limit is what the survey shows to be the 80th percentile of the speed being traveled. It’s not easy to proactively lower speed limits. If the conditions suggest that 80 percent of people are traveling 40 miles an hour,” the DOT is going to place that as the speed limit.
Bisio has a different view: “Why don’t they talk about accidents and deaths?” Bisio questioned. “That should be a crucial component of what should determine speed.”
Sheehan did say that it is “an area of town that we monitor very closely.” However, there have only been “one or two serious accidents there over the years.” According to Officer John Bresnen at the traffic unit of the Plainsboro Police Department, between January 2006 and January 2008, there had been 38 accidents reported along the entirety of Schalks Crossing Road, a number he says isn’t above average. “It’s not a high accident area,” he said.
Of those accidents, three occurred at the intersection with Serina Drive, and there was one serious accident at the intersection with Research Way, he said. “But speed was not a factor in the incident,” Bresnen said.
Bresnen did say there have been people who have been seen making right turns out of Research Way and left turns into Serina Drive to do U-turns and go back the opposite way on Schalks Crossing Road. “Technically, there’s nothing illegal about doing that. Serina Drive is not a gated community. It’s a public roadway, and people can turn onto it.”
Says Sheehan: “Once the signal is up, we’re going to see some relief on speed, and we’re going to see a situation where people can safely make that left turn out of Research Way.” — Cara Latham
