As township, state, and county officials continue to meet to discuss plans for the traffic circulation in the Princeton Junction train station redevelopment area, it appears the time line for any final conclusions on that portion of the redevelopment plan may take slightly longer than originally expected.##M:[more]##
And RMJM Hillier has asked for modification to its contract that will state that its responsibilities include the creation of a draft redevelopment plan by the end of the year, not its completion, according to township officials. The topic is up for discussion at a special agenda session on Monday, July 28.
The issue first surfaced on July 17 during an “interagency task force” meeting of state, county, and township representatives, who have been meeting to discuss the traffic circulation in the redevelopment area — a critical component of the future redevelopment plan.
Township planning consultant John Madden highlighted how he envisioned the work of the various entities to be carried out in the coming months. Based on the extent of that work, the time line for the traffic element is to take longer.
Decisions on whether Vaughn Drive will be a local or regional or state-funded road; the design of the Washington Road intersection; the grading necessary to traverse the Dinky line’s super elevated grade; the number and spacing of road crossings of the Dinky Line; the general alignment location and the right-of-way width of the Bus Rapid Transit within the redevelopment area; and potential alternative locations for structured and surface commuter parking will have to made by October 1 in order to have a the traffic circulation element of the redevelopment plan to the council by mid-November.
In order for final decisions to be made on subjects like the size of the Vaughn Drive connector road and how traffic should flow along the Route 571 “main street” area, a subgroup of officials from state and local agencies will need the time to continue reviewing traffic data collected by their own experts as well as data collected by InterCap Holdings, which owns 25 acres in the redevelopment area, and whose representatives also attended the meeting. This is to see how the proposals for these roads will fit in with the state’s regional goals for traffic circulation.
Under the current agreement with RMJM Hillier, which was approved last month by council, the $50,”000 contract called for Hillier to have a draft of the redevelopment plan completed by the end of August, with its first presentation to council in September, followed by a presentation at the Planning Board in October, and a final presentation back at council in November. Township officials have said they wanted to have a plan adopted by the end of the year.
The conflict in the anticipated time line was a concern for Council President Charles Morgan, who reiterated during the meeting that he and the rest of council believed a draft would have been completed by August. But he said that if the reality of getting all that data collected and work done before that time is not possible, then the other elements of the redevelopment plan should at least be put into some form of draft by August.
Madden explained that he would like to have all of the input from various state, regional, and local agencies by October 1, at which point the elements for the traffic portion can be completed by November. “August is ambitious and theoretically it can be done, but I don’t think it will answer all of these questions,” Madden said.
Morgan suggested that the plan would contain a placeholder for the traffic information come August, and that the drafts of the plan can evolve and be revised as the information comes in.
Still, some council members, like Linda Geevers and Will Anklowitz seemed wary about the contract change. Anklowitz said he was expecting that the $50,”000 would finish out the remainder of the contract, and that Hillier’s work would come in on budget. “I was expecting that plan would be submitted for the state for state approval,” he added. “I don’t care what they call it — I just need to know it’s going to be something we’re able to use.”
Township officials, however, lauded the July 17 meeting, featuring representatives from all the major players in redevelopment — NJ Transit, NJ Department of Transportation, InterCap Holdings, Mercer County, West Windsor Parking Authority, and township officials — who sat together in one room to assign their responsbilities.
DOT officials said its main priority when it comes to Vaughn Drive is ensuring that, regardless of how many lanes of travel the road contains, that it meets regional connectivity goals as set forth in the Penns Neck Environmental Impact Statement, made in 2001, when the Millstone Bypass was being studied. “We’re trying to figure out if there’s something we can say, ‘Yes, that serves the function of the Vaughn Drive Extension as shown in the EIS,” said DOT representative Mark Stout.
The Vaughn Drive connector road was originally part of the Route 1/Penns Neck improvements project, which came from the final Environmental Impact Statement on the Penns Neck area. But the Vaughn Drive connector was broken out as a separate project once the state heard that redevelopment near the train station would happen in West Windsor. The state dropped funding for the Vaughn Drive project this year, citing the lack of a redevelopment plan as the reason.
But Stout said that if a design is created for the road that meets the state’s criteria, the DOT would be willing to try to get it back into the plan.
Mercer County officials, on the other hand, said they were concerned with the number of lanes on Vaughn Drive and how it would impact their designs for Route 571 — which includes one lane in each direction with a center left-turn lane — which were finally agreed upon by both the county and township officials. “It took 30 years for this agreement to happen, and I don’t want to go back on it now,” said Greg Sandusky, who is with the county.
Morgan said he wants the professionals to review the policies council created for the redevelopment area, and make sure those documents, while preserving the township’s own goals, do not interfere with the regional interconnectivity plans of the DOT.
Jack Kanarek, of NJ Transit, said his organization has been very supportive of the redevelopment plans from the beginning, but stressed it was important for the township to design the financial element of the plan in a way that the private sector would pay for the infrastructure improvements. He said that NJ Transit is “not in a position to offer any funding at this point for parking garages,” he said. “A parking garage is not going to be built by NJ Transit tomorrow using state funds.”
Still, he said, “we’re going to be working very closely with you on physical concepts,” especially for the property NJ Transit owns.
However, days after Kanarek’s comments, NJ Transit released a statement from Steve Santoro, NJ Transit’s assistant executive director, saying, rather, that it is not necessarily “unwilling to make any financial contribution to the project,” but rather that it can do so by other means.
“In fact, NJ Transit has a track record of advancing projects through partnerships that leverage its assets, benefiting local and private participants while promoting statewide public transportation and Smart Growth goals,” Santoro said. Instead, the letter suggests that in Princeton Junction’s case, it can “bring valuable assets to the table — land that can be used to site a parking deck or other elements of a transit village, experience with a range of financing mechanisms, and robust public transportation service that enhances the value of nearby private real estate holdings.”
He pointed to the train stations in Morristown and Hamilton as transit-oriented developments that he says benefited from NJ Transit partnerships. In Morristown, he says, a real estate transaction enabled NJ Transit land to be incorporated into a transit village, and in Hamilton, a “revenue-financing agreement with a private developer enabled NJ Transit to build a much-needed 1,”000-space parking deck with no capital outlay.”
The next interagency meeting will be held on Thursday, August 14, at 2:30 p.m. at the municipal building.
