Width of travel lanes on new road surface will be designed to slow traffic
By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
The portion of King George Road between Park Avenue and Pennington-Rocky Hill Road will be reconstructed with a $352,000 state grant, Pennington officials reported last week.
The grant comes from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT).
”This grant is one of the largest ever received by the borough for street reconstruction and will allow us to make much needed improvements to lower King George Road, Mayor Tony Persichilli said. “As part of the project, the width of the travel lanes on the new road surface will be designed to slow traffic, a major concern of residents on the street and the borough’s Traffic Calming Committee.”
That committee was formed in the spring of 2007 to study the issue of how to slow down traffic, particularly commuter traffic, in the mile-square borough.
The project includes installation of sidewalks and curbing on the south side of King George Road. The new sidewalk will connect with a recently installed sidewalk near Kunkel Park, thereby providing pedestrian access to the park and upper King George Road from houses along and near lower King George Road.
”A new feature to be included in this project will be bike lanes on both sides of the street,” said Councilman Tom Ogren. “The bike lanes will connect with the proposed extension of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail along Pennington-Rocky Hill Road to the borough from the Bristol-Myers Squibb site.”
The grant was provided under the DOT’s Municipal Aid Program. Each year municipalities apply to the program for grant funds for roadway and other infrastructure projects. The borough was awarded a grant of $250,000 last year for the reconstruction of Burd Street from West Delaware to Laning avenues.
According to Councilman Joe Lawver, chairman of the borough’s Public Works Committee, “work on that project is expected to be done next summer when schools are not in session.”
Councilman Lawver added that, “the lower King George Road improvements would be completed the following year, in 2010.”
Municipal aid grants for 2009 also will go to:
— Hopewell Borough, Blackwell Avenue, road improvements, $275,000;
— Hopewell Township, roadway improvements, Pennington-Titusville Road Phase II, $275,000.
NJDOT invites municipalities to apply for municipal aid funding. The grant program covers a variety of projects, including road resurfacing, rehabilitation, reconstruction and signalization. Municipalities are encouraged to apply for funding for projects that support walking and biking as part of Gov. Jon Corzine’s Pedestrian Safety Initiative.
NJDOT allots each county a specific funding amount based on its population and road mileage and distributes funds to towns based on field investigations and engineering evaluations of proposed projects. NJDOT provides 75 percent of the grant amount when it awards a contract and the remaining 25 percent upon completion of the project.

