EDITORIAL: Route 92 still needs death blow

More steps to be taken toward eliminating Route 92 prospect

   N.J. Turnpike Executive Director Michael Lapolla has finally uttered the magic words.
   In a letter to the state Department of Environmental Protection dated Dec. 1, Mr. Lapolla writes that "we have decided to cancel the Route 92 project" and "consider all applications pending or on record with the DEP as withdrawn."
   Those are the words that South Brunswick residents and environmental groups around the state have been waiting to hear for a long time.
   "This is what we’ve been waiting for, for the past 14 years," South Brunswick Mayor Frank Gambatese said Monday. "Not only has the road been de-funded, the Turnpike is saying, now, not to build the road."
   So, seemingly, years of debate have come to an end. The proposed 6.7-mile toll highway, which hung like the Sword of Damocles above southern Middlesex County, is officially a dead end.
   Or it seems that way. From our perspective, the highway is on the mat, but the referee has only counted to eight — the Turnpike has stripped the project of its funding and canceled the permit process, but the road remains on the books, leaving open the possibility that it could rise to its feet again.
   That is the singular lesson we should take from the long history of this pipe dream. Over the last 70 years, the project we now know as Route 92 has taken many forms and has wended its way along many different paths.
   The road was conceived by the state Department of Transportation as an east-west link between Route 31 in Clinton and Route 33 in Freehold, a way of connecting the Shore area with the northwestern corner of the state. But political opposition, new environmental rules and the changing needs of the region led to various alterations and reconfigurations — the section between Routes 206 and 31 was dropped; later, the highway’s eastern terminus was shifted to the north when Route 133 (the Hightstown Bypass) was approved, first through Plainsboro and later through South Brunswick to Exit 8A, while at the same time political opposition canceled the section between Routes 206 and 27.
   All of this occurred before 1991, when the state Legislature approved a bill — introduced by then-Assemblyman Peter Cantu, the Democratic mayor of Plainsboro — handing control of the road to the N.J. Turnpike Authority. The legislation created new momentum for the road, which was shortened in the early 1990s to its most recent 6.7-mile incarnation due to environmental concerns about the stretch between Routes 1 and 27, and various municipal governments and environmental, business and labor organizations have been battling ever since.
   It is this 15-year-old legislation that leaves open the possibility that the fight is not over, that supporters of the highway may have a couple of good punches left in them.
   That’s why opponents need to continue punching, pushing the state Legislature to approve legislation introduced several years ago by Assemblyman Bill Baroni and state Sen. Peter Inverso, Republicans who represent South Brunswick. The legislation, bills A685 and S883 — reintroduced earlier this year, but dormant — would strip the Turnpike Authority of its "authorization to build the Route 92," making Friday’s cancellation of the road permanent.
   Getting the bills through the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jon Corzine would be the uppercut to the jaw we’ve been waiting for, the kind of blow that would end the fight once and for all.