West Windsor residents and officials gathered at the Senior Center on Thursday, September 27, to discuss different methods for putting an end to the DOT’s Route 1 jughandle closures that have created traffic and safety hazards in the Penns Neck part of the township.
“I’m very happy to see this group coming together, because it’s important that we have one voice. I don’t want to hear somebody coming up all of a sudden and saying ‘this DOT experiment is a great idea.’ Even if you feel it is a great idea, don’t say anything because I’m going to keep complaining to the DOT. We need to put pressure on them,” Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said.
Hsueh, Pat Ward, director of community development, and council members Linda Geevers and Bryan Maher were all on hand to see residents sign up for petitions and letters to the editor. Some asked questions about how they can take further action and contact DOT Commissioner James Simpson.
On Tuesday, September 25, Hsueh sent a letter to DOT Commissioner James Simpson as well as Assistant Commissioner Anthony Attanasio and Communications Director Joseph Dee. “Basically we made it very clear that we are very frustrated and very unhappy. We appreciate Mr. Attanasio’s efforts on a daily basis, but I let them know we already had a mayors’ coalition meeting — including Princeton University — and all parties agreed to join the efforts initiated by West Windsor,” Hsueh said.
According to Hsueh, he will also involve Mercer County officials, including the county DOT director and the engineer who reports to County Executive Brian Hughes. “Authority governing the county road (Route 571) cannot stay out of this. But all of the county projects do come from the state DOT,” he said.
Accompanying Hsueh’s letter was a DVD of the Tuesday, September 14, West Windsor Council meeting so that Commissioner Simpson “can hear firsthand the distress these residents are suffering.” On Wednesday, September 26, Hsueh not only met with area mayors, he also took a radio station reporter to Penns Neck to witness the traffic as well as illegal U-turns and K-turns.
“To me, having worked in state offices with the DEP for so many years, it was important to have some reports making an impression on public officials. Usually I know the governor’s offices have somebody checking different media and listening to the news reports, so that was part of the strategy,” Hsueh said.
At the September 27 meeting, Mayor Hsueh told the residents about the history behind plans for a Millstone bypass roadway, which were ultimately abandoned. He says the state appropriated roughly $2 million for an environmental impact study, a federal-level initiative which never came to fruition. In 2004 a recommendation was set forth with three major components: a Harrison Street overpass, changes to the Washington Road-Route 1 intersection, and the Vaughn Drive connector that has been discussed along with the transit village.
“There is no environmental impact study. I can tell you that for Harrison Street and for a Vaughn Drive connector to Route 1 the EPA and the DEP already approved environmental impact statements. All we need is the DOT to start doing something about it,” Hsueh said.
The current objection to the Route 1 pilot project is tied to getting the DOT on board with the environmental impact study (E.I.S.). Mayor Hsueh says one objective for the E.I.S. was the renovation of the Penns Neck neighborhood, which he says still needs to be emphasized to the DOT.
Sharon Sibilia asked Mayor Hsueh whether or not the DOT explored receiving federal stimulus money for solving traffic issues on Route 1. Hsueh said that would not be possible, since the DOT had only recommendations but no design for a bypass.
Hsueh said in 2006 he negotiated with the governor’s office, and, contingent on redevelopment being centered around the Princeton Junction station, he secured $178 million from the state. But in June of 2007, he says the Council majority stopped West Windsor’s redevelopment plan, leading the state to take away the funding in March of 2008. Hsueh says some of funding that West Windsor was supposed to receive has gone into the current DOT construction activity going on on Route 1 in South Brunswick.
“As soon as we had the redevelopment plan approved by Council, I went back to the DOT asking for money. The DOT told me sorry, you are not going to see that kind of money anymore with their budget situation. After that I started talking to all the mayors in this area — Plainsboro, South Brunswick, the Princetons, and Lawrenceville — and we have decided to work together. They have all showed their support for what we want to do,” Hsueh said.
The mayor told the residents that in the past, DOT Commissioner James Simpson mentioned the possibility of “value engineering assessments” which ultimately led to the DOT’s decisions for the current closures (no left turns at Washington Road, Harrison Street, and Fisher Place).
At first, the current “trial run” was not even on the board. But Hsueh says that the group of local mayors opposed the DOT’s plan, saying they had to weigh the impact of such changes. The DOT first considered a month-long pilot project for the jughandle closures, but the current three-month trial was agreed upon “to get a clear picture of the kind of impact the changes would have, and whether this would solve traffic problems on Route 1,” Hsueh said.
Hsueh told attendees about the upcoming meeting of the Central Jersey Transportation Forum, hosted by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, in South Brunswick on Tuesday, October 30.
Hsueh and area mayors are not the only officials to take aim at the DOT. At the same time West Windsor residents were hearing Mayor Hsueh’s updates and signing petitions to stop the DOT’s program, the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders met in Trenton and passed a resolution to ask the DOT to end the traffic experiment, saying it has had “a severe and negative impact” on residents of West Windsor and Plainsboro.
The resolution noted the illegal U-turns and K-turns being made in residents’ driveways and on their front lawns. David Parris of Washington Road, who has been actively involved in speaking up about different incidents and safety hazards in his neighborhood, attended the freeholder’s meeting and was personally addressed by Freeholder Pat Colavita.
In West Windsor, Penns Neck residents Tamerra Moeller and Eric Payne led the resident’s meeting and spoke about the need for documentation for why the DOT decided to implement the jughandle closures at this specific time. Some residents debated whether or not accommodating the new hospital in Plainsboro, other corporations in the area, or Princeton University were motivating factors for the DOT.
Moeller and Payne encouraged those who attended to inform others outside of the township about the current efforts underway. Payne said people who travel on Route 1 or commute from Pennsylvania or northern New Jersey should sign the online petition on change.org, which he says received great support in its first few hours.
“I posted it on Change.org at 5:30 p.m. and within 20 minutes 20 people had signed it. By the time I got here there were over 40 signatures,” he said.
Payne said that group E-mails will be sent out to those who attended the meeting and signed up. One shortcoming appears to be soliciting support from residents living on Washington Road. During a show of hands nobody on the main thoroughfare was present and Payne said that so far Smart Traffic Solutions has only met with three families living on Washington Road.
Moeller told residents another way of voicing their concerns would be calling the radio station 101.5 FM on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. when the “Ask the Governor” program is on the air.
The name Smart Traffic Solutions was created to avoid limiting the movement to residents of West Windsor or just the Penns Neck neighborhood.
“Naming it with Penns Neck does not really make sense because the DOT will think that we are just self-serving. There are so many more people upset about this. I work in Princeton and every single person I’ve talked to is extremely upset with this as well,” Payne said.
A similar tactic was used by opponents of the solar field project at Mercer County Community College, who use “Smarter Solar NJ” instead of just noting themselves as residents of South Post Road or just West Windsor.
Several different versions of letters to DOT Commissioner Simpson were distributed to those who attended so that a variety is sent out, and Moeller encouraged residents to edit them and add their own thoughts as well. Meanwhile, the petition gets the attention of residents and commuters through its questions:
– Are you tired of sitting in traffic for almost half an hour on Washington Road after a long train ride?
– Are you tired of the ridiculous “solution” the DOT has implemented at Washington Road, Harrison Street, and Route 1?
“We need an overpass at Harrison Street, the Vaughn Drive connector, and widening of the Alexander Road bridge at Stony Brook. Join Smart Traffic Solutions in our fight! E-mail: smarttrafficsolutions@gmail.com”
Payne told his fellow residents that the first time he called the DOT, he came away with a clear understanding that the concerns or West Windsor’s neighborhoods are secondary to better managing the traffic flow on Route 1. With an eye on the bigger picture, he asked Mayor Hsueh whether or not initial construction for the transit village would be postponed until some progress was made for the flow of traffic through Penns Neck and Route 571.
“Basically my position is that I don’t want the village to get started until we have some assurances as to how we will deal with all of the traffic problems. I consider it to be one of the components of the area, and you probably will see that this project will be delayed for some period of time. It’s not going to happen for the foreseeable future because I see this [traffic flow] as something that we need to get resolved,” Hsueh said.
Payne then asked whether InterCap Holdings might be able to help the township put pressure on the DOT, but Hsueh was not sure that will happen. “They can go by the regulations and they have the right to do certain things, but I would prefer [the Intercap project] doesn’t start until things are resolved,” Hsueh said.
