Plainsboro is one of seven Middlesex County towns to receive a grant for bike and pedestrian path improvements.
The $80,000 grant will be used toward the completion of phase two of the Plainsboro Road Bikeway. According to Township administrator Robert Sheehan, the first phase was paid for by the township and the state, and runs near Plainsboro Road “from the west side of the Amtrak Bridge, over the bridge to Maple Avenue.”
Phase two will take the bikeway along Maple Avenue to Prospect Street. Says Sheehan: “This is a critical project because the area west of the Amtrak bridge has been developed, with Walker Gordon Estates, and the people who live there don’t have safe access over that bridge. It’s been an issue for us for years.”
The project is stalled because it requires utility lines to be moved. “It’s been the utility company’s practice to move their poles and lines when we have public projects on the master plan,” says Sheehan. “What we’re being told now is that this was not a road project, and they’ve characterized it as an extravagance that they didn’t want to fund.”
The utility company and the township have engaged in at least one meeting on the subject but have been unable to come to an agreement.
In the meantime, there is a temporary sidewalk along the construction site for the path. Pedestrians can use it, but it would be a tough squeeze for cyclists.
“We don’t have a time frame yet for phase two,” says Sheehan, who anticipates the first phase will be finished in the next few months.
