BY LARRY RAMER
Staff Writer
Construction work on the Henry Hudson Trail Extension is scheduled to begin later this month.
When it is completed, the extension will run between Main Street in Freehold Borough to Division Street in Matawan. The extension will pass through sections of Freehold Township and Marlboro.
The project will include the replacement of 12 bridges and culverts, the creation of 23 street crossings and the paving of 9 miles of trail, Monmouth County Park System spokeswoman Laura Kirkpatrick said.
The trail will be built along the route of the former Freehold branch of the NJ Transit railroad right-of-way. It will be paved with asphalt, according to the park system’s Web site.
Most of the work on the 9-mile extension may be completed by July 2005, Kirkpatrick said, although some sections of the trail may be opened by December, she said. Lucas Brothers of Marlboro received a $1.5 million contract to construct the 9-mile extension to the existing Henry Hudson Trail that runs between Aberdeen and Atlantic Highlands.
Several complex road crossings along the new section of the trail will not be completed during this stage of development because the county is still determining the best way of constructing these crossings, Kirkpatrick said. The county is resolving issues involving trail crossings at several places, among them Route 520 in Marlboro; Pleasant Valley Road and Route 79 in Marlboro; and the Matawan Lake Bridge in Matawan, she said.
The Henry Hudson Trail Extension will not extend to Big Brook Park which is expected to be developed on Route 520 on property across from the former Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital. The county is not ready to provide access to the park for two reasons, Kirkpatrick explained.
First, the state has just recently begun to follow through on a commitment it made in 1997 to remediate soil on county-owned land adjacent to Big Brook, the spokeswoman said. The property was farmed and contains what Kirkpatrick called farming byproducts. The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is preparing to remediate the site. The park, which was formerly state-owned land, was purchased by the county in 1997. The state is supposed to remediate the site as a condition of sale.
The other reason the county will not extend the Henry Hudson trail to Big Brook Park during this phase of construction is that the Route 520 crossing will not be implemented in this phase, the spokeswoman explained. As a result, people would not be able to continue on the trail after reaching Big Brook Park.
The county has decided that people who use the trail will not have to cross Kozloski Road in Freehold Township, even though the Freehold branch railroad right-of-way does cross the road, Kirkpatrick said.
The route of the trail will be diverted south along Kozloski Road to a traffic light at Dutch Lane Road, where users will cross the road, the spokeswoman said. The trail will cross East Freehold Road at a point where there is no traffic light.
Asked how the safety of pedestrians would be ensured, Kirkpatrick said, "Traffic on East Freehold Road is less busy now that the traffic has been redirected to the Kozloski Road extension … [and] the crossing will be striped and signed like existing crossings. The striping and signage at the crossing will meet state guidelines."
People will have to cross several other roads using only striped and signed crossings, Kirkpatrick said, adding that this is standard practice on trails throughout the country.
The county has taken several steps to protect people whose property is near the path of the trail, Kirkpatrick said. In areas where the right of way is wider, such as behind the Monmouth County Care Centers John L. Montgomery Division in Freehold Borough, the county will move the trail further away from private property, according to Kirkpatrick. In other areas, screenings such as bushes and shrubs have been planted to shield property owners.
Some homeowners have built their own fencing and other types of buffers, Kirkpatrick explained.
However, the trail will go through the Kensington Gate development in Marlboro.
"The neighbors knew the trail would go through the development because it’s in the plan," she said.