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Princeton, Mercer officials celebrate safety work at school

By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
   Princeton Township and Mercer County officials as well as Johnson Park ElementarySchool Principal Robert Ginsberg gathered Tuesday afternoon to celebrate improvements to Rosedale Road at the entrance to the long driveway that leads to the school.
   The work was completed over the summer to prevent eastbound vehicles on Rosedale Road from using the right-turn lane for the Greenway Meadows entrance to pass cars waiting to turn left into the school’s driveway. It was additionally designed to prevent motorists intending to make a right turn into Greenway Meadow from moving to the right too early. With two crosswalks located at the intersection, the goal of the work was to prevent students and others crossing the street from being struck by motorists.
   Princeton Township employees installed soil and planted grass along the approximately 200-foot stretch of Rosedale Road that formally served as a continuation of a shoulder of the road. Township employees then lined the grass area with curbing and Mercer County employees resurfaced the remaining sliver of shoulder and the vehicular entrance to Greenway Meadows — located directly across from the school’s driveway — and created a triangular “painted island” in front of a section of the entrance to Greenway Meadows.
   While county and township officials have reported that the narrowed shoulder and painted island have decreased the number of incidents occurring at the intersection. The final element of the project — 10 rubber stanchions — were installed around the painted island Thursday to further discourage cars from passing on the right or entering the right-turn lane for Greenway Meadows too early.
   The project was planned by a team of Mercer County and Princeton Township engineers and Princeton Township police following a December meeting with parents and Johnson Park Elementary School officials who complained of several near-collisions at the intersection during peak hours for the school.
   Additionally, police reported in December that they observed nearly 50 violations at the intersection in a short period of time — almost half of which came during a 15-minute period at the start of the school day.
   Police also reported in December that only one motor vehicle accident occurred on Rosedale Road in 2007, and of the eight that have occurred in the last three years, most have been low-speed, rear-end collisions.
   ”From what we’ve seen so far, it’s mitigated some of the speed,” said Princeton Township Police Officer Kim Hodges on Tuesday. “It’s definitely reduced the number of incidents that we’ve seen so far.”
   To further discourage motorists from committing moving violations at the intersection, police are periodically stationing officers at the intersection during morning openings and afternoon closings at the school.
   ”I think we came to a great solution with everybody working together,” said Principal Robert Ginsberg, during the celebration Tuesday. “They came up with a solution that once we have the stanchions will meet our concerns.”
   He added, “They’re (the stanchions) long since overdue. As soon as these things come in, the problem will be solved.”
   Lauren Taylor — a parent of two Johnson Park Elementary School students — was the only person present at Tuesday’s event who expressed discontentment with the work that had been completed at the time.
   Ms. Taylor characterized the celebration as premature, saying that she had not seen any traffic improvements at the intersection since the work had been completed and that until the stanchions were present she saw no reason to celebrate.
   The township contributed $6,000 to the project and the county funded the remainder of the cost, which covered the road resurfacing, the painted island and stanchions, Mr. Kiser said.