Author	Message
publius	Posted: Wed, Jan 6 2010, 10:43 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Amazed wrote: Guest wrote: This is a bit off topic, but related: Have you wondered why buildings have Emergency Exits (alarm will sound if used) that are never used during non-emergency situations? Ah, duh!!! Why does bottled water have an expiration date? Why did WW2 kamikazi pilots wear helmets? Can I get a loudspeaker that goes up to eleven?
Amazed	Posted: Wed, Jan 6 2010, 12:27 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Guest wrote: This is a bit off topic, but related: Have you wondered why buildings have Emergency Exits (alarm will sound if used) that are never used during non-emergency situations? Ah, duh!!!
Guest	Posted: Wed, Jan 6 2010, 7:06 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Just curious. What is the Delany plan?
Guest	Posted: Tue, Jan 5 2010, 9:57 pm EST    Post subject: School Access Sgt. Delaney has had a solution for years. If you are really interested in getting this issue resolved (which has been discussed for over 20 years) please get together and attend both the board of education meeting and the township committe meeting and calmly advise both committees that you want them to listen to revisit Sgt. Delany's plan. Both committes would welcome the attenance of concerned parents and residents. This is not an easy issue, but we have control over land that we did not have years ago, and we can make Sgt. Delany's plan work to today in a way that will not negatively impact many individuals.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Jan 5 2010, 7:18 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition It would have been more believable if Stout suggested that an extensive traffic & engineering study would be needed before the traffic plan could be brought to the planning board. It's always necessary to spend as much of our tax dollars on consultants as possible.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Jan 5 2010, 3:08 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition I particularly love where it says "crappy new ballfield" in the photo
CranburySauce	Posted: Tue, Jan 5 2010, 2:37 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Apparently there's some TC progress on the Schoolhouse Lane traffic issue, too: http://cranburysauce.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/township-leaders-and-residents-applaud-proposed-new-schoolhouse-lane-traffic-pattern/ Let the good solutions keep flowing! Cheers, CS
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 4:51 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Guest wrote: ... or if School Lane was made a 4 lane entrance it would be fine with one officer.
Crossing	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 11:22 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Two officers directing traffic, when the chief stated earlier this year, that sometimes there is only 2 officers working a shift. This sounds like a great idea, the next complaints will be about speeding again. I hope no one needs a police officer during school crossing.
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 9:29 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition How about using the Plainsboro Rd. as the 2nd access?
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 9:21 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition It's based on where the roads would come in and the degree of how much traffic is on Main St. If you look at other districts they have similar issues. I dealt with this on Long Island. It's much the same as how you see police working with road work. If we did not have as busy a Main St. or if School Lane was made a 4 lane entrance it would be fine with one officer. However, because of the separation between Park Place and School Lane you need two areas of traffic control.
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 9:08 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Guest wrote: By the way, as you say the Police are also there to ensure the buses get in and out. We would still need to ensure the buses get in and out if we have a separate entrance and exit. Which means two cops. Otherwise, you end up with a log jam of people trying to turn into the school waiting for cars to pass and another log jam at the school with cars trying to exit into traffic. This is just speculation. The design of the traffic flow pattern for minimizing/avoiding the assistance of police is not a difficult task (my speculation, we are not the first to have this issue in NJ).
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 8:57 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition By the way, as you say the Police are also there to ensure the buses get in and out. We would still need to ensure the buses get in and out if we have a separate entrance and exit. Which means two cops. Otherwise, you end up with a log jam of people trying to turn into the school waiting for cars to pass and another log jam at the school with cars trying to exit into traffic.
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 11 2009, 8:51 am EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Guest wrote: I disagree with posts that state if a seperate exit is established an additional police officer would be needed. The police (dating back to Chief Logan) are not there to get cars out of school lane. The police are there to cross the children and make sure the buses are able to get in. If I choose to drive my kid and I have to sit and wait to get on Main Street, that is my problem. The Police are not just there to ensure kids cross safely as then we could just hire an extra crossing guard and not have a uniformed officer on duty. Just like we have at every other crossing. If it was just to cross kids, then why have an officer on duty at all in that location when we don't need an officer in other areas? The actual police officer is there due to traffic control as much as it is for kids to cross. That does go back to Chief Logan. Though when Chief Logan was there he would not stand in the street directing traffic. He would walk out with the kids if needed so he was more crossing guard than traffic cop. If you add an additional exit you have a second point with traffic control issues. In that instance you need another uniformed officer for two reasons. 1) The two will need to coordinate the flow with each other to prevent Main St. from being a nightmare. 2) The issue of regulating traffic into the entrance will be a major issue and it will require an officer.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 10 2009, 11:31 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Guest wrote: Quote: I have noticed that before the buses can turn into School Lane the cops and the crossing have to stop traffic about 75 feet down school because the buses cannot safely make the narrow turn w/out going into the opposite lane and potentially hitting a car. This is unacceptable. It is not realistic to think that we are going to be able to stop people from driving their kids to school. It just ain't going to happen. School Lane is simply not wide enough to accomdate the volume of traffic, even for 15-20 minutes it is unsafe. This is ridiculous. Just because the cops have to stop the cars a little farther back, it is unsafe? The traffic cop on duty is very diligent to make sure the car is stopped far enough back, if the driver moves up too far, the cop just has it come off Schoolhouse Lane. People deal with traffic worse than this all day long in other places - drive to Princeton at lunch or rush hour and go down Nassau St. We have a traffic cop directing the traffic, we have an additional crossing guard. So what it's crowded for 15-20 minutes, doesn't mean it's unsafe. Pay attention to driving and the direction the traffic cops and crossing guards are giving you and you will be safe. I would be interested to know how many times in the history of the school and town hall did an emergency vehicle have to come in to the school during the exact time of pick up or drop off? The key in a real emergency is to NOT have parents of every single child driving to the school to pick up their kid. That's when it will be chaos and unsafe. The thing that is really unsafe is that despite directions in the school calendar and monthly notices in the school newsletter, people continue to pick up their children from the Town Hall and ballet school parking lot, so they are crossing in front of the traffic to get back to their cars. I agree.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 10 2009, 10:34 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Town Hall clock and nearby road condition Quote: I have noticed that before the buses can turn into School Lane the cops and the crossing have to stop traffic about 75 feet down school because the buses cannot safely make the narrow turn w/out going into the opposite lane and potentially hitting a car. This is unacceptable. It is not realistic to think that we are going to be able to stop people from driving their kids to school. It just ain't going to happen. School Lane is simply not wide enough to accomdate the volume of traffic, even for 15-20 minutes it is unsafe. This is ridiculous. Just because the cops have to stop the cars a little farther back, it is unsafe? The traffic cop on duty is very diligent to make sure the car is stopped far enough back, if the driver moves up too far, the cop just has it come off Schoolhouse Lane. People deal with traffic worse than this all day long in other places - drive to Princeton at lunch or rush hour and go down Nassau St. We have a traffic cop directing the traffic, we have an additional crossing guard. So what it's crowded for 15-20 minutes, doesn't mean it's unsafe. Pay attention to driving and the direction the traffic cops and crossing guards are giving you and you will be safe. I would be interested to know how many times in the history of the school and town hall did an emergency vehicle have to come in to the school during the exact time of pick up or drop off? The key in a real emergency is to NOT have parents of every single child driving to the school to pick up their kid. That's when it will be chaos and unsafe. The thing that is really unsafe is that despite directions in the school calendar and monthly notices in the school newsletter, people continue to pick up their children from the Town Hall and ballet school parking lot, so they are crossing in front of the traffic to get back to their cars.