To the editor
By:
"[The 206 bypass] will devalue the homes and properties and everything in Hillsborough; it will lessen the value of the town," said a Hillsborough resident after hearing the plans for the Route 206 bypass.
It will ultimately be a four-lane bypass connecting Route 206 and Old Somerville Road in Hillsborough to Route 206 and Belle Mead-Griggstown Road in Montgomery with one interchange at Amwell Road. This is supposed to alleviate the congestion from the main road in Hillsborough, Route 206, and add an alternate route to travel between Hillsborough and Montgomery. In doing this, a more structured town center will become a part of Hillsborough.
Hillsborough already has the beginnings of a "glamorized" Main Street with the new Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Applebee’s, etc., that will supposedly give Hillsborough a more definitive Main Street without as much traffic. The Department of Transportation has been working on this plan for the past five years, and it anticipates full construction to begin by the end of the summer, 2005.
The people of Hillsborough should soon begin to do something about this plan because it will not, in the long run, eradicate the congestion on Route 206, and it is not the best way to solve this problem.
"Even though [the bypass] will alleviate the traffic congestion, it will create arteries through the town, through the developments; and though it might alleviate the congestion in the short run, it will begin to bring additional traffic therefore adding more congestion in the long run." This is the position of another Hillsborough resident.
Though the bypass will lessen the traffic in the next few years, once it has been put on maps and everyone realizes that it is there, it will become an alternate route for long-distance drivers to come through Hillsborough. After about 10 years, more and more people will congest the roads, and we will be faced with the same problem.
The bypass will become obstructed from all the additional traffic, as will the original Route 206, on Main Street of Hillsborough.
The Route 206 bypass will not only add to the congestion, it also will devalue the neighborhoods and property in Hillsborough. All the supplementary traffic will bring the negative effects to Hillsborough that everyone detests about highways, noise, pollution, littering, and basically filthiness. The additional noise will force the current residents to move, but they will have trouble selling their houses.
Who likes honking horns and loud cars in their backyard, and who would pay the high prices that the houses here sell for?
They will have to lower the prices of their houses. Pollution and littering will dirty the town. It will seem as if a low, stuffy cloud is enveloping the town, and the garbage will begin to come into the town and litter the neighborhoods. In the end, this town will be a dirty suburbia, rather than the nice, sophisticated town it is now.
I have noticed that Montgomery Township is doing everything in its power to stop this plan. Mayor Louise Wilson remarked, "Montgomery will do everything it can to prevent this road from being built the way it’s designed," making it perfectly clear that the residents of Montgomery do not want this bypass to cut through the Pike Run developments and are fighting to stop this plan from its fruition.
They have a committee designated to work against the plan for the bypass, with even the mayor involved.
Hillsborough also has many people against this plan, but nobody has voiced their concerns on a public level. Everyone talks among themselves with their friends about how they don’t like it, don’t think it’s a good idea, and people even have their own opinions about what could be done instead, however, no one has taken the initiative to start a committee, or to do anything against it. All we need is one person to stand up and take charge, and then this plan may be put to an end.
In conclusion, the Route 206 bypass will not be a benefit to the town of Hillsborough in alleviating the traffic on Route 206 as the New Jersey Department of Transportation says it will. It will bring more congestion to Hillsborough in the next 10 years, it will ultimately bring more pollution to the town, it will devalue the property of Hillsborough, belittling the town itself. The people of Hillsborough need to do something soon about this, for the sake of our town.
Hillsborough High School

