The West Windsor Planning Board voted to change the circulation element of its Master Plan to include Ward Road as a local road as opposed to a minor collector road, as it had been proposed in the Master Plan since 1979.##M:[more]##
At the same time, the Planning Board eliminated the connection between Birchwood Court and Ward Road as part of that local road, and specifically attached language to the resolution that established its primary objective was to accommodate the needs of service vehicles and incorporate a bicycle and pedestrian friendly pathway.
The vote on February 27 came after about 15 residents from neighborhoods near the proposed connector road — proposed to connect vehicular traffic from Penn Lyle Road to North Post Road — told board members that they felt their community would become a thoroughfare for both commuters outside the township and high school students looking for quicker routes through town and to High School South. They said it would create safety hazards to children who live in the developments and play outside. They also said they were concerned about the environmental impacts, including removal of some of the trees making up the greenbelt near their homes.
Planning Board members throughout the meeting grappled with balancing the residents’ concerns with testimony from the chiefs of both the Princeton Junction and West Windsor Volunteer fire companies, who said at least a local road was needed to increase response times, not only to those neighborhoods, but throughout the township as a whole.
Discussions over what to do with the proposed Ward Road have been ongoing. The proposed minor connector road was billed as a 60-foot right-of-way considered part of a network in the center of the township for intra-municipal traffic. It has also been part of previous Planning Board activities regarding subdivision applications, which lead to part of its construction already.
Although the focus of the discussion wasn’t taking place on the impacts to the proposed subdivision of the Charydczak property off Penn Lyle Road, Sam Surtees, the township Division of Land Use manager, pointed out that the property was downzoned in January to 3 1/3 acre lots, and that the planning board denied — without prejudice — the application by developer David Zaidi that was pending before the board.
Zaidi is the contract purchaser for the 22-acre site, as well as the 28-acre Cox site, a former junkyard, both off Penn Lyle Road. Zaidi planned to built 12 houses on each of the sites, but due to the downzoning, can only build six on each. Before the downzoning, Zaidi had submitted an application for the Charydczak site, which was deemed complete in April, 2007. But Zaidi granted various extensions to the township because officials were still trying to decide what to do with Ward Road. In January, the downzoning was approved, and denial of his application followed. While Zaidi was frustrated, he agreed to work with township professionals to come up with a new plan for the future.
But before Zaidi can come up with a concept plan for the subdivision, “he needs to know whether or not he needs to plan for a local vehicular connection between Penn Lyle and Post Road,” Surtees said. “We’re not specifically looking at a layout or a subdivision or any specific details.”
Residents said they were willing to forgo any increase in emergency service response time if it meant their neighborhoods would remain tranquil and undisturbed by traffic speeding through.
Lois Morgan, wife of Councilman and planning board member Charles Morgan, who was not in attendance, read a letter Morgan wrote. In that letter, he supported the removal of Ward Road as a minor collector road, but opposed its designation as a local road as well. Morgan and his wife live on Birchwood Court.
Further, he stated, designating Ward Road a local road connecting with Birchwood Court and Penn Lyle Road would “provide an inviting cut-through for persons not residing in our three neighborhoods. Ward Road should not be turned into a thoroughfare for persons traveling between Village Road and the high school, or between Clarksville Road and St. David the King Catholic Church.”
He said he and the family across the street from him would have the most to gain from the increase in response times, but “when I balance the small advantage of a few minutes of fire apparatus to arrive at my home against the adverse impacts due to cut-through traffic, the answer is simple: the daily vehicular disadvantages far outweigh the advantages of a faster response times that will be needed only rarely, if ever.”
Westwinds resident Lisa Weil said she liked the tree belt in her backyard with many forms of wildlife. “The thought of having asphalt of any sort is very disturbing to me because it’s green, and it’s oxygen, and it’s lovely.”
One child in attendance, Matthew Platoff, who lives on Birchwood Court, said he, too, was opposed to Ward Road because he and his friends play outside on the local roads, which are pretty busy already. He mentioned one of his friends was hit by a car, but was luckily not seriously injured. “The only time I’ve ever seen a fire truck having to come into the area was at Christmas with Santa,” he said.
Anthony Azzara, who lives on the corner of Lorrie and Birchwood, said residents already fail to stop at the stop sign near his home, “and these are the residents who live in the neighborhood. They smile and wave.”
“If that’s what’s happening when we know each other, and we care about each other, imagine what’s going to happen when teenagers from the high school are coming through the neighborhood; imagine what’s going to happen when people who don’t have any concern for the neighborhood, except that it’s a quicker way to get east to west to go through the neighborhood,” he said.
“This plan was devised 30 to 40 years ago to increase car access,” he added. “Priorities have changed. Increasing pedestrian access is more important for a variety of reasons – environmental, social, health-wise.” Azzara also said instead of putting any sort of road in, the board should think about adding sidewalks to North Post Road so residents in the neighborhood could more easily walk to the train station.
Jill Drive resident Andrew Kulley said he presented the board with petitions on two separate occasions, and that there is “virtually unanimous opposition to the construction of any vehicular connection along the right of way of Ward Road.”
“The consultants argued that this road be constructed primarily in support for local traffic in the neighborhoods, but it’s clear the local neighbors do not want this vehicular connection,” he added.
On the other hand, the chiefs of the two fire companies said that the emergency response would not only increase within the nearby neighborhoods, but throughout the township. With the proposal that Clarksville Road be limited to one lane in each direction, as suggested by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission in its study last month, and with school buses and other traffic making those roads already hard to navigate, there needs to be another connection, they said.
“We need to push to have it not so much as a collector, but as a local road as another way to get across town,” said Dennis Huber, chief of the Princeton Junction Fire Company. “We take care of the whole town. We need to look at ways to get around easier.”
Michael Leahy, the chief of the West Windsor Volunteer Fire Company, echoed the sentiment. Said Leahy: “We are facing tough times on the roads right now. Restricting us any further just hurts the community; it hurts our township.”
Planning board members discussed with their professionals whether there could be alternative solutions, including creating a bike and pedestrian path that could support the weight of fire engines in case of emergencies. Traffic engineer Ted Ehrlich said there was a possibility the ground could be stabilized in various places, or the township could put in pavers, or pavement that would allow grass to poke through, and would only be used for emergency vehicles in cases of emergency. All other times, it could be used as a bike and pedestrian trail. The fire chiefs, however, expressed concern that the weight of the vehicles would be too much, and there was some concern that pedestrians, particularly small children, would not know to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle.
There was also some discussion of other means of restricting vehicular traffic to simply emergency vehicles. Placing a chain or mechanical arm at the entrance to the road were options, but township professionals and fire officials said firefighters would have to get out of the vehicles en route to an emergency to lift the arm or open the chain, losing valuable response time. The possibly of placing signage indicating the road would only be used for emergency vehicles was also a possibility.
But officials said that idea wouldn’t work. Township landscape architect Dan Dobromilsky said that “if the road is wide enough for fire trucks, we’re going to get people driving down it, whether it’s legal or not.”
Ehrlich also suggested that a device that is used to change traffic signals, that costs about $300, can be purchased for emergency vehicles and used to lift the movable arm when there is an emergency. The downfall is that they would have to be purchased for each vehicle.
Dobromilsky showed the board and residents pictures of the area and suggested an alternate option to the way a local road could be constructed along the Ward Road right-of-way that would bring the local road more north, not connecting to Birchwood Court, but still connecting it to Westwinds and Zaidi’s property. And the local road could be made very narrow, he added.
Some residents were happy with the idea it wouldn’t connect to Birchwood, but others still said it would impact the Westwinds and Sunrise developments.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner said the board, while it certainly appreciates where the residents are coming from, needed “to weigh the public safety aspects as well.” He said the board had to look at how many people in the town the new road would impact in terms of response time.
The board voted to amend the plan to make it a local road, eliminated the connection between Birchwood and Ward, and specified that its primary objective is to accommodate the needs of emergency service vehicles, while at the same time incorporating bicycle and pedestrian-friendly pathways and minimizing impacts to natural features. But, the board did not mandate that the local road would only be used for emergency services and bike and pedestrian paths.
Gardner explained that the board was setting the direction, and will let the professionals come up with a design and a way to do so. And the wording would ensure that if professionals determined it was not possible to simply restrict the road for emergency service and bike and pedestrian use, there will still be other options.
After the meeting, Gardner said allowing the public and fire chiefs to view the pictures of the area and showing them how the road would look and helping them both to understand where the planning board was coming from as representatives to the whole township “shows you democracy in action.”
“It really just worked,” he said. “I appreciated where the residents were coming from.”
He said the road would not be a straight line running through, which would encourage through-traffic, under the new proposal, and that the actual configuration of the road will not be discussed until a site plan application by Zaidi is brought to the table. “At that point, the public will have another opportunity to
