Greenways group holds DOT to Rte. 1 promises

Walter R. Stochel Jr.

Guest Column

We have read the May 17 story about the North Jersey Planning Authority's resolution approving the state Department of Transportation's (DOT) plan to widen Route 1 through Edison and Woodbridge, known as the Route 1 7L project.

As an organization the Edison Greenways Group have been following this project since 1992 to make sure that the DOT follows through on promised bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

We hope that the DOT is not conning the North Jersey Planning Authority and Edison officials on some of the improvements that they have promised, and may not deliver, and other improvements they may not do at all.

As part of the federal environmental review of the Route 1 7L project, the DOT was required to do things to mitigate the increase in the air pollution caused by the widening of Route 1, such as bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

Some of the things that the DOT says it will do are only half measures and will not provide the pedestrian and bicycle linkages that are critical to moving people along and across the corridor.

For examples:

The DOT says they plan to restripe Amboy Avenue in Edison with bicycle lanes. This may have been possible in 1992, but not now. Edison has created a streetscape with multiple pedestrian bumpouts along Amboy Avenue that will not accommodate bicycle lanes. So will the DOT just drop this requirement?

The DOT says they will construct pedestrian crosswalks at Grandview Avenue and Parsonage Road, so that people can cross Route 1 to get to Roosevelt Park and the Menlo Park Mall. Yet the DOT will only do work in the Route 1 7L project, so any connections beyond the project boundary will have to be done by Edison or Middlesex County, without any coordination by the DOT.

At Parsonage Road, the DOT needed to take some of Edison Township's property in the Woodland Greens development for a new jughandle. Yet there are no plans to connect the sidewalks on Melbloum Lane to the new sidewalks on the Parsonage Road jughandle, so that people from the Woodland Greens development could cross Rt. 1.

Nor could you walk from Woodland Greens to Grandview Avenue to cross into Roosevelt Park.

One of the key elements of the DOT's promised bicycle-pedestrian improvements was a multi-use trail along the utility corridor on the east side of Route 1 from the Middlesex Greenway to Gill Lane. This would link the neighborhoods along Route 1 to the pedestrian crosswalks along Route 1.

The DOT can't seem to get approval to build a 10-foot-wide path, yet they can build a third highway lane and shoulder, and developers can get approvals to build parking lots and driveways along this corridor.

The DOT has proposed a bicycle and pedestrian overpass to carry the Middlesex Greenway over Route 1 near Pierson Avenue. Will the DOT now forget this proposal also?

Many years ago the DOT held quarterly meetings of what they called the Route 1 Collaborative, where bicycle, pedestrian and other issues were discussed, and solutions brainstormed. The DOT has not held one of these meetings in years, and slowly seems to be dropping agreed-to improvements.

Now, more than ever, there is a compelling need and urgency to have the North Jersey Planning Authority and the DOT to coordinate their efforts in a timely fashion at the local level.

Walter R. Stochel Jr. is a member of the Edison Greenways Group