Alexander Road at Canal Pointe Boulevard
By Greg Forester Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR — A contract for the improvement of a hazardous stretch of roadway that has seen numerous accidents and a 2005 fatality should be awarded sometime in the spring of 2008, township officials said Monday.
The stretch of road targeted for the improvements is the infamous Alexander Road S-curve, located between Canal Pointe Boulevard and the Princeton Township border. Township officials say it desperately needs to be brought up-to-date.
”The current design was built for use by farming vehicles and equipment, used in this area 70 or 80 years ago,” said Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh. “It is not really designed for the speed of vehicles we are using today.”
Township Council already endorsed roadway improvements called for in a concept plan at a late-October meeting, and now the township is preparing to have an engineering firm put together specific construction plans for the improvements, to be used by firms bidding on the project.
Some improvements called for in the plan include the super elevation of the roadway, which means angling the road so that cars negotiating their way through the curve would be turned into the path of the roadway. The current design makes drivers feel like they are being pushed off of either side of the roadway, according to Township Engineer Jim Parvesse.
”It will be angled like what you see on a NASCAR track, on a much smaller scale,” Mr. Parvesse said.
The plan also calls for high-friction pavement, which should further fight the sliding of vehicles negotiating the curve, along with drainage improvements.
”We want to get water off this roadway faster,” Mr. Parvesse said.
The path of the roadway will also be changed slightly, according to township officials.
They said the new path would cut down the visibility problems associated with the northern side of the curve, where a heavily wooded embankment obscures vehicles coming on the westbound side of the road.
The township’s concept plan also called for additional bicycle and pedestrian improvements, coming in the form of a new sidewalk connecting Canal Pointe Boulevard and a sidewalk near the Delaware and Raritan Canal at the Princeton Township border.
For cyclists, there are two 5-foot dedicated bike lanes planned for both sides of the roadway.
Funding for the $500,000 project comes from the township’s capital improvement appropriations, plus $190,000 in funding from the state Department of Transportation, secured in November 2006 by Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, D-Plainsboro.
The firm that prepared the concept plans that were presented before council three weeks ago — Remington and Vernick — would also most likely prepare the specific construction documents that would go out to prospective bidders, Mr. Parvesse said.
That contract would hopefully be awarded in January, with an expected wait time of 30 days before the documents could be put together by the Haddonfield firm.
”Once they provide the construction documents, the project could go out for public bid,” said Brian Aronson, the township’s engineering technician.
A 2005 High Priority Safety Mitigation Study conducted by the township’s traffic consultants named the curve area as the West Windsor roadway that was second most in need of improvement.
The study detailed a total of 18 accidents that occurred at the curve, during a stretch between 2001 and 2003.
”The study was a planning tool used by the township to prioritize improvements called for in our capital budgets,” Mr. Parvesse said.
Months after the release of the study, 14-year-old Stuart Country Day School student Rebecca Annitto was killed in a car accident on the curve when the driver of the car she was riding in lost control of the vehicle on slick pavement and collided with oncoming traffic on Sept. 14, 2005.
Rebecca’s father, William Annitto, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against West Windsor Township in April.
”The matter has been turned over to our insurance carrier, and we don’t have any further comment at this point,” Township Attorney Michael Herbert Sr. said of the suit.

