PACKET EDITORIAL, Oct. 10
By: Packet Editorial
For the past 50 years or so, official road maps of central New Jersey have featured a prominent dotted line, running east-west from Monroe Township to South Brunswick, designating a proposed highway that would link the New Jersey Turnpike with Route 1.
Some older versions have the roadway continuing on to Route 27 in Franklin, or even Route 206 in Montgomery. Newer ones show it as a turnpike extension, subject to approval.
Old-timers still refer to this highway as S-92 (New Jersey used to put an "S" in front of its state highways), but most of us now know it simply as Route 92. Proponents call it an essential missing link in central New Jersey’s transportation network. Opponents call it an economic boondoggle and an environmental nightmare.
As of today, we can pretty much all call it dead.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won’t come right out and say it, but when it released its Final Environmental Impact Statement on Route 92 last week without recommending either building the controversial highway or killing it once and for all, it effectively killed it. The Army Corps has a history of favoring construction projects from levees and dams to bridges and tunnels and highways unless there are overwhelming economic or environmental obstacles, in which case the agency reluctantly recommends alternatives, with no-build almost always being the last and least-favored option.
So when the Corps offers no recommendation at all as it did in the case of Route 92 it is essentially punting the decision to the political arena. Which means it’s up to the applicant, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, to rally support from the grassroots right up to the governor’s office if it wants to press ahead with the project.
But the Turnpike Authority hardly seems inclined to go that route. While its spokesman didn’t come right out and say it, his reaction to the release of the EIS "The bottom line is that the whole Route 92 project is not really a priority right now" might as well have been a eulogy to a ribbon of highway that was once paved with the best of intentions but has plainly unraveled over the years. Last December, the Turnpike Authority took the money it was going to spend on Route 92 and redirected it to widening the toll road farther south, leaving no doubt that the east-west artery had been cut from the must-do list and relegated to the rearmost back burner.
If the Army Corps won’t recommend that Route 92 be built, and the Turnpike Authority won’t rally the support necessary to get a favorable recommendation, who’s going to keep this proposal alive? Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu, one of the highway’s outspoken supporters, is keeping a stiff upper lip, and he’ll probably nudge his counterparts in other municipalities that view the project favorably the Princetons, West Windsor and Cranbury to lobby as hard as they can to resurrect it. But with South Brunswick, Montgomery, Rocky Hill and other nearby communities lined up in opposition to Route 92, the proponents face a steeply graded uphill climb.
We have favored Route 92, and we continue to believe construction of a limited-access east-west highway is crucial to relieving traffic congestion in this part of New Jersey. We also feel that sound planning and zoning practices can prevent the kind of environmental degradation, specifically the sprawl development, that has accompanied this kind of road construction in the past. But we can see the handwriting on the wall here. The Army Corps and the Turnpike Authority may be mincing their words, but their message is unmistakably clear: Route 92 has likely arrived at its final destination a permanent rest stop.

