The money will be used for the reconstruction of a portion of Rocktown-Lambertville Road.
By: Linda Seida
WEST AMWELL The Township Committee has authorized $360,000 to be spent for the reconstruction of a section of Rocktown-Lambertville Road.
West Amwell is financing the work with a grant that was awarded in May from the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.
The reconstruction will stretch from Rocktown-Lambertville Road’s intersection with county Route 601 for 1,500 feet east. Homes line one side of the road; farmland lines the other side.
"We’re very happy to be able to use Bridge Commission funds, and it’s a section of the road that really needs it," Mayor Ron Shapella said.
The road needs the work because of years of normal wear and tear.
The grant will pay for drainage improvements and the milling, widening and resurfacing of the 1,500-foot section of the road, which is 18 feet wide with 2-foot-wide shoulders. The road will be widened to 22 feet, and shoulders will remain 2 feet wide.
For previous work performed on Rocktown-Lambertville Road, the township used grant funds awarded by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
However, those grants required a municipality to put up a portion of matching funds. That stipulation precluded the use of a DOT grant this year, Mayor Shapella said.
"We qualified for a DOT grant, the latest one for this segment, but we were unable to use it," Mayor Shapella said. "We didn’t have enough money to pay our share. This is an outright grant that makes it easier for us to do this."
The commission has awarded grants from a $40 million pot to communities on both sides of the Delaware River to help pay for capital improvements. The grants recognize the fact these communities’ roads and infrastructures are impacted by traffic using the commission’s bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
When the township reconstructed other sections of the road, there were detours in place that permitted access only to local traffic, Mayor Shapella said.
"Usually we do half of the road, then the other half, but we don’t have too much of a disruption," Mayor Shapella said.
No start date for the work has been set yet, according to the mayor. The work probably will not commence until next year, he said.
The council authorized spending the grant for the reconstruction during a meeting July 18.

