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PRINCETON: Engineers asked to analyze state’s Route 1 plans

By Philip Sean Curran and Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writers
   Princeton will have one its municipal engineers scrutinize a proposal by the Department of Transportation to reconfigure Route 1 to improve traffic flow.
   Land use Engineer Jack West will sit down in the coming weeks with engineers from West Windsor, Princeton University and Mercer County to go over the state’s proposal, evaluate an alternative plan West Windsor put forward and see if there is a third alternative. Mr. West, in an interview Wednesday, said the goal is to find a solution that works for everybody, the reason for having the parties sit around a table together.
   Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert on Wednesday called it a “good next step” as she said each of the entities comes to the table with “slightly different concerns and priorities.” She said everyone shares a desire to improve north-south traffic flow on the state highway, yet at the same time maintaining or improving east-west crossing and access to neighboring towns.
   In February, the Department of Transportation floated a roughly $40 million concept for widening the highway by adding an extra lane. The proposal, affecting a stretch of highway from the Millstone River to NJ Transit’s Dinky overpass, also would add three jughandles, put a traffic light midway between Washington Road and Harrison Street and make other changes.
   The highway does not run through Princeton, although Ms. Lempert said she liked the part of the proposal for adding an extra lane on either side.
   One of the constraints is money. The state has been clear it does not have the funds to put in an overpass or an underpass. At two recent forums, West Windsor residents have rallied for solutions such as an overpass at Harrison Street and a Vaughn Drive connector, but DOT spokesman Joe Dee said earlier this month those options were “hugely expensive,” and they would not “happen anytime soon.”
   ”If we can do something that’s relatively modest in scale, but cost effective, let’s explore those ideas,” he said.
   The DOT still is gathering comments and feedback from recent forums held in Princeton and West Windsor. Pat Ward, the director of Community Development in West Windsor, said she had received 22 comments from the forums, more than 70 emails and three concept drawings. She plans on compiling the feedback into a packet, which would include a spreadsheet, copies of the raw comments and sketches and a diskette of the emailed suggestions to give to the DOT.
   Once West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh and town officials have attended all the scheduled meetings regarding the Route 1 traffic concept, Ms. Ward said she would send the DOT the compilation.
   Mr. Dee said once the DOT has received all the public feedback, it then would move forward while taking those comments and concerns into consideration.
   ”This is really a dialogue we’re having with the communities, and we’re hoping to find something that will work,” Mr. Dee said earlier this month. “We’re still in the middle of that process.”