By charles w. kim
Staff Writer
CHARLES W. KIM Changes will be made to improve the safety of Ridge Road in the Monmouth Junction section of South Brunswick.
SOUTH BRUNSWICK — The Township Council may soon approve a formal truck route for the municipality.
A truck route resolution and an ordinance to lower the speed limit on Ridge Road to 25 mph may be voted on by the governing body in the next two weeks.
Residents along Ridge Road have been asking for the route, as well as moving renovations to that road and a reduction in the speed limit to make the area safer.
"We don’t want trucks on our lawn. We don’t want children killed," Ridge Road resident Lois Lenart said during Tuesday night’s meeting.
Lenart said that the area has become dangerous, and she is concerned with the safety of children returning home from school.
"We have three and a half weeks (before school opens). That is all we’ve got," Lenart said.
Deputy Mayor Frank Gambatese and Councilman Ted Van Hessen have asked the council to quickly place a formal truck route on the agenda so it could be approved by the state Department of Transportation and then enforced by police.
The formal route, once adopted and posted, would designate a route through the town for trucks that are not making deliveries on local roads.
Trucks using roads like Ridge Road as a shortcut could then be ticketed by police.
An informal route was developed by the town’s industrial commission in 1999, but it only involves roads near the New Jersey Turnpike interchange.
That "recommended" route has been handed out to truckers at Interchange 8A on the Turnpike.
Jason Boynton of Ridge Road in the Dayton section of the township said he supported the proposed improvements in Monmouth Junction, but said that similar changes should also be made in his section of town.
"What you do in Monmouth Junction will have an effect on Dayton," Boynton said.
Boynton asked that the section of Ridge Road in Dayton should also be out of bounds for truckers and the speed limit reduced.
"Our concerns are the same," Boynton said.
Township Manager Geoffrey Urbanik told residents that the township is already requesting the speed limit on Ridge Road be reduced to 25 mph.
"That application is already in to the DOT," Urbanik said.
In addition to barring trucks and lowering the speed limit, the township is starting work on reconstructing the sidewalks and roads in the area.
The project, which is estimated to cost about $1 million, will replace almost two miles of sidewalk and make the road width consistent, according to Township Engineer Jay Cornell.
Cornell said that the project, which is now entering the design phase, will "address many of the residents’ concerns."
The township currently has some $267,000 to start the first phase of the plan.
State Sen. Peter Inverso (D-14) obtained $250,000 for the project last year, and Johnson was able to obtain about $68,000 for the project as a downtown area grant.