Old Trenton Road Reconfiguration - Township Committee Meeting April 12

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Thanks for your insights. There is one thing I don't understand about your point. Unless the revised master plan gives developers what they want, won't they just keep petitioning for variances, or is there really a light at the end of this tunnel?

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This is only my opinion. Someone can always petition, but developers are less likely to do so if they know the master plan was just reviewed. They know they stand little chance for a variance and they too have to pay attorneys, engineers, etc.. They are also usually smaller than a Wawa or other chain, so why would they spend a lot of money knowing they stand little shot. When a plan is not reviewed for 5 years or so then they feel they have better chances-people change, traffic changes, etc...

Plus, the zoning board then has a better guideline on which to rule which makes it easier for the town to defend.

If retail is allowed on 130 then it alleviates the big problem that the zoning board faces now, even though I personally disagree on allowing it.

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According to the Cranbury Press, Middlesex County’s position on why they won’t lower the speed from 50 MPH is their strict policy that “whatever 85 percent of people do is the speed limit.” So, let me understand this logically? Based on their policy if everyone ignores the speed limit in a 25 MPH zone and drives 50 MPH, they are strictly obligated to change the speed limit to 50 MPH. And if a road is 50 MPH, no matter what the current circumstances on the road the only way for the speed limit to be lowered is for at least 85 percent of drivers to proactively ignore the speed limit and drive substantially below the posted limit?

Does this make sense to anyone? By definition it preserves the status quo because the only way to justify a chance is by mass law breaking. And it doesn’t explain how they would set speed limits in the first place. In the case of Old Trenton the limit is 40 MPH on either stretch except that approximately 2 miles through the residential zone where it is 50. A small amount of the traffic is local to this zone, so most drivers had to go from 40 to 50 to 40 to get from point A to B. Which also explains why they found most drivers weren’t exceeding the 50 MPH in that zone.

[Guest]

It's government. Why should it make sense?

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[RobDiamond]

Here's a bit of an update:

Several Cranbury residents, as well as Freeholder Jim Polos have been trying to get in touch with the responsible Freeholder, Carol Barrett about the redesign of the road as well as the lack of notification. She has not returned calls or emails, even to Mr. Polos.

Tonight (April 22nd), there is a Freeholder's meeting that is open to the public. It starts at 7PM at the County Admin Building at 75 Bayard St. in New Brunswick. Ms. Barrett should be there. There will be an opportunity for the public to address the Freeholder's board.

Please consider attending this meeting.

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[RobDiamond]

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Leave it to public works engineers to over complicate everything -- they seem to have a natural aversion to anything simple or logical. In this case logic says that if the road is 40 MPH before this strech and 40 MPH after this stretch (traveling from either direction) that the speed that will lead to the least confusion or people violating it is 40 MPH. But, no, that makes way too much sense for them.

[Guest]

This is going to be a fiasco. 35 mph is too slow for that road. 40mph is the correct speed as pointed out by all residents who asked for a change. Plus, what will happen someday is a traffic study and the county will raise it to 50 again due to the design speed.

Further, this will push traffic over to Cranbury Neck Rd or other roads depending on the destination, thus increasing traffic on the other roads and reducing the balance today.

Why does the county have to complicate matters? Can't they look at the past township ordinances and say the town has asked for 40, let's do 40? It seems like this is just the county being difficult so residents will complain and then they can say is nothing good enough for you?

BTW, the widening is money spent on jobs so no way would the county not spend the one million plus. This is a handout for a project regardless of needed or not.

[Guest]

Because they know everyone has been asking for 40 MPH for years and they don't want to lose face or perceived power by doing what was asked. By picking a different speed they get to still assert their arbitrary power and they probably realize it will lead to all kinds of problems so this way they will be able to say "I told you so" when the speed has to be changed again. Losers.

It reminds me of the way the highway repair workers in my previous state would always wait until just before the major car travel holidays to intentionally setup for a major construction project they didn't have any intent of starting until after the holiday, so that the lanes would be reduced despite no work and create multiple hour-long bottlenecks on the major freeways for the holiday. They loved the power to screw people over. It was well understood they did this on purpose and would laugh about it over beers, etc...

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