Twp. addressing parking on Oak Tree Rd.
Suggestions include shuttle bus, multilevel parking garage
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

Woodbridge Township officials are working on a plan to add parking of up to 30 to 40 spaces that would alleviate some of the parking issues in the Oak Tree Road Business district in Iselin.

"The business owners tell me that the free parking lot at the First Presbyterian Church is packed on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday," said Councilwoman Patricia Osborne. "From Mayor [John E.] McCormac's 10-point plan, we started brainstorming how we could get more parking."

McCormac introduced the 10-point plan for Iselin in January as part of Iselin's visioning meeting, which is part of a $60,000 initiative to explore the township's business districts and the surrounding residential areas. Parking was one of the short-term issues.

"We want to take the cars off Oak Tree Road, period," said McCormac at the visioning meeting in January. "However, finding these surface lots is limited. A parking deck is something that we are exploring and the ideal place is the free municipal parking lot currently near the church at the intersection of Route 27 and Middlesex Avenue. The free parking lot is currently paid by the Special Improvement District [SID], not the taxpayers."

McCormac also added that if a deck were granted, they would look for alternate parking while the deck is being built. He presented two rough drawings of the proposed decks. Both decks show three floors - one had 162 parking spaces and the other had 205 parking spaces.

For now, township officials said they may demolish the white building on Middlesex Avenue, which is adjacent to the current free parking lot of the First Presbyterian Church, for the additional parking spaces.

The white building, which is owned by the township, is currently used by the Iselin Giants to store their equipment. The Iselin Athletic Association agreed to allow the Iselin Giants to store their equipment in a storage facility on Cooper field and also offer a place to hold their meetings.

"The Iselin SID said they would pay to transfer the Iselin Giants' equipment to the facility on Cooper field," said Councilwoman Patricia Osborne.

Township officials said they would not know the exact number of spaces until an engineer could go out and measure how big the site is.

The 10-point plan also included ideas of a shuttle bus, additional police presence, and a streetscape and design layout for Oak Tree Road.

The township is currently doing a survey to see if a shuttle bus is feasible for the area.

"This is a high-density shopping area where people come out of the stores with 40-pound bags of food," said McCormac. "We want to see if the bus could be successful."

McCormac said another idea is increased police presence.

Currently there are two officers, paid through a grant, who make sure traffic runs smoothly from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

"In 2006, police made five arrests, gave 1,094 warnings, gave 4,523 parking summonses and 972 other summonses," said McCormac.

McCormac presented a streetscape and design layout for Oak Tree Road, which showed a drop-off and pick-up area on the road where residents or the proposed shuttle buses would not block traffic, which would help traffic move freely.