Plans continue
for upgrades
along Route 9
By dick metzgar
Staff Writer
Monmouth County officials realize that full state support is a must if the Western Monmouth Development Plan to improve the Route 9 corridor in western Monmouth County is implemented.
A study initiated by the Monmouth County Planning Board, funded with a $250,000 state grant, is focused on creating a plan to improve the quality of life in western Monmouth County, according to Bonnie Goldschlag, assistant director of the board.
A series of meetings have been held within the last year by the Western Monmouth Development Plan Collaborative — the most recent convened in Colts Neck — in order to get input from representatives of the targeted municipalities.
The area includes the boroughs of Englishtown, Farmingdale and Freehold, and the townships of Freehold, Howell, Manalapan and Marlboro.
Along with municipal officials, those attending the Sept. 25 meeting in Colts Neck were planners, engineers, real estate professionals, developers, county officials and representatives from the Western Monmouth Chamber of Commerce and the farming community.
The Mayor’s Council, sponsored by the chamber, has also been holding meetings to address such problems as traffic congestion and overcrowding in the region.
"We are now in the process of creating a draft plan from which a final plan will emerge," Goldschlag said. "Our objective is to have this final plan endorsed by the State Planning Commission, hopefully by sometime early next year. This endorsement would mean that the whole area included in the plan would be eligible for financial and technical aid through the state.
"We are the first county in the state to go through this process with the commission," Goldschlag continued. "It is a top priority for us to have our plan endorsed by the state. This would put us in line to obtain the financial and technical aid that will be necessary for us to implement the plan."
The Sept. 25 meeting was the fourth held in the last year by the collaborative, according to Goldschlag.
"The purpose of these meetings was to work with the affected municipalities and get their visions of their communities in the future," she said. "We wanted to use their input to help us come up with a strategic plan for each community in the region."
The study focuses on the area of the Route 9 corridor that is already heavily congested with traffic and is projected to get much worse in the next 20 years, according to the study. County officials have described western Monmouth County as the most rapidly growing region in the county, with no end in sight.
Many of the municipalities share similar problems that call for similar solutions, while some communities have problems that are specific to their location within the targeted area. The study concludes that Route 9 should be widened to six lanes and that intersections should be revamped to help reduce traffic congestion.
The study also suggests that businesses in the strip malls along the Route 9 corridor should be made more pedestrian friendly by linking them with sidewalks. The study also concludes that building the proposed Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex (MOM) rail line is vital to alleviating traffic congestion along the corridor.
New Jersey Department of Transportation James P. Fox has gone on the record saying that millions of dollars need to be spent on improvements to Route 9