Borough officials discuss plans for a 300-space park-and-ride facility behind Busco Brothers on Gatzmer Avenue.
By: Leon Tovey
JAMESBURG Area residents could have a new commuting option in the not-too-distant future. Borough officials said this week that discussions with two bus companies and the state Department of Transportation about building a park-and-ride facility on Gatzmer Avenue are starting to pay off.
Councilwoman Barbara Carpenter said borough officials and representatives from Suburban Transit and Academy Bus Lines have been talking for more than a year about building a 300-space park-and-ride facility on a roughly 5-acre lot behind Busco Brothers on Gatzmer Avenue.
The lot is owned by Conrail, which has also been involved in negotiations and is amenable to the plan, Ms. Carpenter said.
While the plans for the project are still in the early phase and a timeline for the project is still a ways off, Ms. Carpenter and Mayor Tony LaMantia said discussions among the parties involved have been encouraging.
Buses from the facility would operate only during morning and evening commuting times, Ms. Carpenter said, adding that while specific routes have not yet been determined, service to New York City would be a high priority.
"It’s something that I think would be very good for the borough," Ms. Carpenter said. "Mass transit is something we’ve been needing for a very long time and this especially compared to things like the MOM line would be a good solution."
Ms. Carpenter and her fellow Borough Council members have been among the most outspoken critics of the DOT’s proposed MOM (or Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex) high-speed rail line project. One of the three routes being considered would send 40 trains per day through the middle of Jamesburg on the tracks between East and West Railroad avenue on their way to and from Lakehurst and Monmouth Junction.
The route has been unanimously opposed by elected officials in Jamesburg, Monroe and South Brunswick, who have cited concerns about property values and the safety of residents. Ms. Carpenter said a park and ride would be preferable because it would serve the needs of area commuters while having a much smaller impact on the community.
But Ms. Carpenter and Mayor LaMantia said plenty of questions remain about the park and ride that need to be answered among them, how to minimize the impact on traffic and parking.
"Obviously, we want to make sure we’re not having a problem with people parking on the residential streets," the mayor said.
In order to address that, the borough might set up a permit-parking system in the nearby neighborhoods, with free permits for residents, the mayor said.
Ms. Carpenter said she hoped a planned signalization at the intersection of Gatzmer, Lincoln and East and West Railroad avenues would assuage the facility’s potential impact on traffic in the area. Middlesex County officials have been developing a plan for the intersection for close to two years and have said signals could be placed there as early next year.
Both the mayor and Ms. Carpenter also said getting the project done at no cost to borough taxpayers was a top priority. Mayor LaMantia said he hoped it could be funded through grants from the DOT a hope that has been encouraged in his conversations with DOT officials, he said.
"They’re very interested in these sorts of things, so I think we’d have a good shot," he said.

