Federal highway agency expected to respond soon.
By: David Campbell
The draft environmental review of alternative solutions to traffic problems in the Penns Neck area of Route 1 a document that grew out of the state Department of Transportation’s former Millstone Bypass proposal has been forwarded to the Federal Highway Administration for review.
The draft Environmental Impact Statement was sent to the Federal Highway Administration late last month, DOT spokeswoman Anna Farneski said.
Comments and approval of the draft document by the highway agency are expected this month, with public distribution of the document expected in June. The projected 45-day public-comment period, which will include formal hearings possibly as soon as June 30, is tentatively set to end July 25, Ms. Farneski said.
No date is set for the DOT’s release of its final EIS, which will include input from the public-comment period and a recommended roadway alignment.
The draft EIS has been under preparation for around two years by Rutgers University’s Transportation Policy Institute in cooperation with a community round table that was convened to resolve longstanding conflict over the former bypass proposal. The final meeting of the round table was held April 14.
Several members of the round table said they were satisfied with the timetable for public release of the document, despite some confusion about when it would be released to the public. The April 30 deadline for completion of the draft EIS was apparently for its submission to the Federal Highway Administration, and not to the general public as many had thought.
"I think we’re right on schedule," said Pam Hersh, Princeton University’s director of community and state relations and a round table participant.
Ms. Hersh said the round table, which brought together dozens of people from all sides of the debate, has been an effective though challenging mediation process.
"I have been amazed by the fact they really did get the participants to sit down and talk without hostility," Ms. Hersh said. "I thought it was a very positive process. It was painful. It was very labor-intensive."
Alan Goodheart, a Harrison Street resident who participated in round table meetings, commended the Rutgers team for delaying its release of the draft EIS to the Federal Highway Administration in order to include results from the "synthesis workshops" conducted during the round table’s final two meetings.
The workshops were an attempt by the group to piece together the various elements of the 19 variations of seven broad road-alignment schemes under review, as well as a no-build alternative, to see what the group could agree upon.
Route 1 in a below-grade underpass of Washington Road is one possible solution the round table reached consensus on, as was a Vaughn Drive-connector road, the use of frontage roads along Route 1, and the need for a wildlife inventory.
The workshop participants were unable to reach consensus on an east-side connector road from Route 571 to Route 1, which, depending on how it is placed, could run along the Millstone River, the back of residences along Fisher Place, or down the middle of the Sarnoff Corp. property.
Mr. Goodheart said he hopes to seek ongoing discussions of problem areas such as the connector road while the draft document undergoes Federal Highway Administration review.
Laura Lynch of the Central New Jersey Sierra Club, who participated in the round table, said she was not troubled that the public release of the document is later than expected, and said the mediated round table was an effective exercise.
"I think we all deserve a degree in public policy after this," Ms. Lynch said. "A lot of things fell through the cracks that we ended up catching. I think it was a really good thing."
Noelle MacKay of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association noted that the Rutgers team had extended the deadline for the draft EIS at the request of round table members who said the process was being rushed at the expense of thoroughness.
Ms. MacKay said now she hopes the scheduling of the public review phase in the summer, when people are out of town on vacations, will not exclude the fullest possible public input.
"You want to make sure you get people involved, that you can get people to come," she said.

