OLD BRIDGE — Township Council members are mulling over strategies to prevent an ever-present problem pestering communities across the nation: speeding on residential roads.
“No matter where you go, you hear there are problems with speeding,” Councilwoman Mary Sohor said. “We’re trying to start a pilot program that we could try with some of the smaller developments, because I think it’s very necessary to try and curtail the speeding here in town, and we’re limited with the things we can do.”
The pilot program would involve a traffic study and the possible introduction of several new stop signs on residential thoroughfares, Sohor said. Roads discussed for the program include Valley Vale Drive, Oakland Road and Higgins Road, among others.
Councilman Kevin Calogera supported the idea for the program, saying that Sohor’s concerns were valid across the township.
“It’s simple: Every ward resident is as important as the next one, and I think if we’re going to do a study, we should do it [across the whole town],” he said.
Assistant Township Attorney Ken Lozier warned council members to take precautions before initiating the pilot program.
“You can’t just go out and put [up stop signs]. You have to have your township engineer go out and do a survey. Until there’s some type of a survey done to justify the stop signs, whether at one location or another, we can’t just put them up,” he said.
Lozier said he had asked acting Township Engineer Pinder Sumal to conduct these types of surveys.
“He said he’s not a traffic engineer, so he couldn’t do it,” Lozier said.
Mayor Owen Henry said that issue would not prevent surveys from being conducted in the near future.
“We’re going to pursue this. We’re going to get some proposals and find out what these surveys cost on these very minimalimpact streets, and maybe we can do something with our capital budget,” Henry said.
Surveys can only be done on roads that fall within a set of guidelines, Lozier said, and residential streets that intersect with county or state roads are not eligible.
“I’ve been in towns where they said, ‘Well, we’re going to put [stop signs] up anyway … Who’s going to stop us?’ If you do something like that, you expose yourself to liability. There’s the case where if you put them up and you don’t have the proper authority and someone gets rear-ended, you’re opening up the township budget. So, as much as you’d love to be able to [put up stop signs] for your residents, you have to follow the proper procedures,” Lozier said.
Contact Thomas Castles at [email protected].