By David Kilby, Special Writer
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — A handful of residents from Hedding Road showed up at the committee meeting Monday to discuss the road’s dangerous conditions and the high number of tractor-trailers that travel upon it.
At the meeting the committee passed an ordinance providing for the repair and resurfacing of Hedding Road, appropriating $250,000 for the project. Work on the road should begin around the end of February, or beginning of March 2013.
The road is a common throughway for tractor-trailers coming to and from the Petro truck stop in between Interstate 295 and the New Jersey Turnpike.
There are signs at all entrances to the road indicating a 4-ton weight limit, but many truck drivers’ GPS systems tell them to take the road, residents and committee members said.
Ray Snook, Tom Rolle and Steve Comins, all residents who live on Hedding Road or Bordentown-Hedding Road, spoke during the public hearing for the ordinance.
Mr. Snook, a former truck driver, mentioned there’s a huge sinkhole on Hedding Road that couldn’t be fixed even after two attempts to do so.
”Please take note that something is going on there that continues to sink the road,” he said.
Mr. Snook said when trucks travel down the road things fall off the wall in his house, and one time he came home to find the traffic light at the corner in his driveway.
Mr. Rolle added that the dishes in his cupboard rattle when trucks hit the sinkhole.
”It’s a terrible street to live on,” Mr. Snook said. “I realize it’s between interstates, but the state police certainly don’t help us. They go down the road and the truck goes the other way.”
Mr. Rolle said the tractor-trailers are a real nuisance and a danger, adding that there are children living in the neighborhood. He suggested putting up signs that say the weight limit is strictly enforced.
”Something’s gotta be done,” he said, “and I know you guys are doing the best you can.”
”We are out there enforcing (the weight limit),” Police Chief Frank Nucera said. “I know what you’re talking about.”
He added that local truck deliveries are allowed on the road. Also, trucks have difficulty avoiding the road due to the fact that the Interstate 295 interchange is not a full diamond, so trucks have to find alternate routes to get back on the highway.
Chief Nucera said trucks are fined $1,500 for violating the township’s traffic law for the road, and they’re “not getting warnings. They’re getting tickets.”
The chief asked when the truck traffic on the road is most prevalent, and residents said on Sunday nights after 5 p.m.
Mr. Comins, also a former truck driver who lives on the road, said despite all of the trucks he’s seen come down the road over the past nine years, he’s only seen one pulled over.
Chief Nucera later told the Register-News that in situations like Hedding Road, the township uses three methods to try to fix the problem: engineering, education, and enforcement — sometimes called “the three Es.”
The police chief said when Bordentown Township repairs the road next year, the engineers may be able to design it so that trucks have more difficulty turning onto the road, thereby dissuading them to do so.
