Committee eyes lower speed limit

By: Lacey Korevec
   A traffic study on Old Trenton Road is one step closer to being complete.
   All the data have been collected and will be provided to the township as soon as it’s summarized, Cranbury Traffic Consultant Andrew Feranda said Tuesday. After that, the township can submit it to the county in hopes of lowering the 50-mph speed limit, he added.
   "We had roadway tubes out across Old Trenton Road at three locations to gather speed data," he said. "And what we have to do now is download and summarize and draw some conclusions.
   The township is looking to lower the speed limit on the road in response to a number of complaints and concerns residents shared at a public traffic safety meeting in November. In January, the township asked the county to lower the limit from 50 mph to 40 mph. It then hired Shropshire Associates, of Lumberton, to conduct a traffic study that would determine the average speed that 85 percent of drivers travel on the road.
   The results will be sent to the county, which will then submit its recommendation to the state Department of Transportation, which will ultimately determine whether the speed limit should be changed.
   Mr. Feranda said the study consisted of placed tubes on the roadway at different locations for a seven-day, 24-hour a day period. The tubes reported the speed of all the vehicles driving on the road as well as the time each vehicle passed.
   "We have the volumes within certain periods of the day so that we can determine the higher volume periods," he said. "And it will also allow us to see the range of speeds."
   Sorting through the data should take approximately three weeks and then the report will be given to the township and made public information, he said. Mr. Feranda said he would not comment on the results of the traffic study until then.
   "I don’t know that I want to categorize the information at this point because we have to do some evaluation of the data before I can make any conclusions," he said.
   In the meantime, Cranbury police have been patrolling the road and using radar and decoy cars to try and deter speeders, Police Chief Jay Hansen said, adding that the extra efforts have been effective.
   "We continue to patrol and run radar there as we do on the other roads within the township," he said.
   But Chief Hansen said in October that radar results showed that speeding is not a perpetual occurrence on Old Trenton Road. He said Tuesday that he still finds that to be true.
   "Essentially, there were not an overwhelming number of speeders that we were able to observe," he said.