The New South parking lot was proposed by the West Windsor Parking Authority and the administration as a solution for about 650 township residents wait-listed for parking spaces at the Princeton Junction train station. However, one major issue remains: while commuters would be able to enter the new lot from either direction on Alexander Road, only a right turn going out of the lot towards Princeton will be permitted, leaving the majority of West Windsor residents without direct access to the traffic roundabout at Alexander Road and North Post Road when they head home in the evening.
Because the roundabout is the epicenter of rush hour delays, Mayor Hsueh and others defend the design.
“It has to be done that way, otherwise you are going to have a lot of traffic problems over there,” Hsueh said.
Gary W. Davies, vice president of Newark-based AECOM, who is working with the parking authority on the project, explained the reasoning further and offered a route to appease West Windsor residents who live either south or east of the Princeton Junction station.
“We feel there should not be a left turn out of the New South Lot, especially during peak hours when traffic gets backed up onto Alexander Road right up to the North Post Road roundabout. It would be terribly difficult to make the left turn. What commuters would have to do is go north through the New South Lot and head through the existing Vaughn Drive Lot and take Vaughn Drive to Alexander Road,” Davies said.
Vaughn Drive may offer even more than becoming the most logical exit. At the December 14 courtesy hearing township planner John Madden told the officials from the parking authority and the planning board that the ability to “drive” through Vaughn Drive and connect the New South Lot with the New Jersey Transit lot is critical.
“A direct connection to the Vaughn Drive lot would allow someone to go all the way through, right to the train station. We’re talking about this as a future connection and I think it’s a very important mitigation and potential tool for when a developer comes in. It would allow for the major function of Alexander Road, which is distribution,” Madden said.
As proposed, the bigger picture calls for Vaughn Drive to have connections with Washington Road and Alexander Road, a project Mayor Hsueh says was originally pitched in 2007. Hsueh said this will become a focus for the township as on December 30 the administration received a letter designating West Windsor a transit village, opening up opportunities for obtaining state grant money, planning expertise, and other financial assistance.
At the December 14 hearing ACT Engineers’ Robert E. Korkuch gave a presentation based on several pre-conditions of traffic flow being put in place on Alexander Road by the fall.
First, Bear Brook Road would no longer be a through street, eliminating traffic to and from the opposite side of Alexander Road. Second, the traffic light at the intersection of Alexander and Bear Brook would be re-timed by 15 seconds to ease the flow of traffic that builds heavily during the morning and especially the evening rush hour.
West Windsor Division of Land Use Manager Sam Surtees said that “our traffic engineer agrees with the entrances from and exit onto Alexander Road at the Bear Brook intersection. Our master plan says it’s going to happen and the parking authority has no problem with Bear Brook being closed. The question arises as to who will assume the cost of doing that — will the township do it through its capital budget or is the parking authority through the construction department? That has to be ironed out administratively. It will be public funds whichever way you look at it, but the point is if the parking authority is out there for construction it might be more efficient for their contractor to do that as part of overall construction rather than have the town go and hire somebody just to do that work as a stand-alone project,” he said.
None of the financial details behind the project have been finalized yet. Mayor Hsueh expects negotiations of a lease with the parking authority as the tenant and township as the landlord to continue until mid-January at the earliest. However, he said the financial outcome should bode well for both sides.
“Basically it will be annual payments, which more or less we will consider as a rent. On top of that if the parking authority makes profits and real revenues coming in there will be a percentage to be shared by the township taxpayers, but that has yet to be identified,” Hsueh said.
The project’s final cost will depend upon any revisions the parking authority includes when it submits its plans to Surtees. A few electric-vehicle charging stations would be included in the project, as would the electricity to charge such vehicles. Madden, Councilwoman Linda Geevers, and members of the planning board also made the suggestion for the parking authority to include a sidewalk from the main road up to the entrance to the New South Lot so that pedestrians or bicyclists can go to the Alexander Road bridge. Another possibility is an illuminated walkway from the parking lot to the station for added safety and to discourage people from walking through the woods.
These components, although looked upon favorably by the planning board, would increase total cost, as Mayor Hsueh, Business Administrator Robert Hary, and the parking authority are focusing on coming up with a new estimate for the whole project in January. One week after the hearing Hsueh confirmed that if the cost is higher than first anticipated there could be a slight delay.
“After the planning board meeting the parking authority has to modify the site plan. As a result they will have a new engineering estimate for how much it will cost. I think the planning board gave some good ideas, but the parking authority will need permission from NJ Transit to move ahead with that connection,” he said.
The new lot and its potential connections to Alexander and Washington Roads might hold even more potential. At the December 14 hearing Board Chairman Marvin Gardner explained that the lot was designed with the potential to be taken over by a developer that can build a larger parking facility at the site. Testimony given at the hearing also made reference to NJ Transit’s proposal of building a deck to hold 2,100 parking spaces on its lot, which would result in a net increase of 1,500 spaces.
A discussion over the future of the wetlands adjacent to the train station and proposed parking lot became part of the public hearing on December 14. Madden said that as part of the township’s redevelopment he would eventually encourage the administration to work with the governor’s office to mitigate all of the wetlands within the redevelopment area off site, “probably along the Millstone River.”
“This would open up the potential for more development rather than continuing with the current situation where scraps of wetlands are spread around Princeton Junction and are largely avoided, except for road crossings,” Madden said.
For now the township awaits the parking authority’s submission of its final plan to Surtees’s office, and he anticipates a revised plan at some point in the next two months. Surtees added that after the administration and SPRAB’s approval construction should be able to begin in the spring. However Mayor Hsueh pinpoints a timeline of starting the project in the early summer with hopes of having it completed by year’s end. Hsueh says construction would take five or six months, weather permitting.
