By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR — The next step in the long road to reconstructing Canal Pointe Boulevard was taken Monday night when Township Council awarded a $58,850 contract to Van Cleef Engineering Associates to develop bid specifications for the project.
Township Council voted 4-1 to approve the contract for the engineering firm. Council President Linda Geevers and council members Ayesha Hamilton, Peter Mendonez and Alison Miller voted to award the contract, but Hemante Marathe abstained. He was unhappy that the request for proposals, which was sent out to engineering firms, was not shared with Township Council in advance.
Van Cleef Engineering Associates will survey the roadway and use that information to prepare bid specifications — but the engineering firm will not decide whether the reconstructed road will be put on a “diet,” reducing it from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction.
That decision will be made by Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, who agreed — after some wrangling with Township Council Monday night — to make his decision after factoring in public comment on the controversial issue.
And although the decision is Mayor Hsueh’s under West Windsor Township’s form of government, he said he would share it with Township Council so they can have “another bite of the apple.” The administration can propose an action, but it is up to Township Council to fund it — if necessary.
Monday night, Ms. Miller noted that if Township Council allows the administration to move ahead and a preliminary design is drawn up, the mayor would get back to the council. They can discuss it and perhaps reach a consensus, based on the professionals’ judgment, she said.
Mayor Hsueh favors a road diet for Canal Pointe Boulevard as a way of reducing the number of cars and their speed. The road is four lanes wide — two lanes in each direction — but the road diet would reduce the number of lanes to one in each direction, plus a lane in the middle for left turns and a bicycle lane on both shoulders.
The proposed traffic calming measure, which has been in discussion for several years, has drawn mixed reviews from residents who attended Township Council’s March 21 meeting and its Monday night meeting. The road diet was proposed in a 2008 study of Canal Pointe Boulevard and then included in an updated study last year.
Residents continued to express their views on the proposed road diet Monday night, with some calling the bicycle lanes “a lane to nowhere” and others asserting that bicycle lanes will make it safer for bicycle riders. Eliminating the four narrow lanes for cars and striping the road for two lanes would also make the road safer for motorists and bicyclists.
Township Council was also presented with informal petitions — one from Princeton Greens residents in which 70 residents called for maintaining four lanes of traffic, and one from Canal Pointe in which 59 residents called for keeping a four-lane road configuration and 5 residents supported the road diet.
Virginia Manzari, who lives on Berkshire Drive, said the bicycle lanes don’t go anywhere and that no one is going to ride a bicycle on Canal Pointe Boulevard. If the reduction in the number of lanes leads to gridlock, people will shop at stores in other towns and not at the nearby shopping centers, she said.
Ms. Manzari also read a letter to Township Council from Martin Olech of Trinity Court, which is off Canal Pointe Boulevard, that expressed his opposition to the road diet. He wrote that “lessening the number of lanes is a horrible idea.”
Canal Pointe Boulevard is a heavily traveled road because many people use it to avoid Route 1, Mr. Olech wrote. There are more cars, more road rage and not enough new roads, “and now we’re going to shrink the usage on the roads we have? It’s just incredibly stupid,” he wrote.
But D.J. Varner, who lives on Amherst Way, said he is a bicyclist and that the present configuration on Canal Pointe Boulevard makes it a “no-go zone.” The road diet, which would include bicycle lanes, “is a step in the right direction” because it would encourage people to ride their bicycles, he said.
Sylvia Ascarelli, who lives on Melville Road, said the road diet is not about bicycle lanes but about speeding and safety. Once Canal Pointe Boulevard is paved, speed will become a problem, she said. The speed limit is 35 miles per hour.
Ms. Ascarelli, who favors the road diet, said it would likely discourage motorists from using it as a bypass from Route 1, which is practically a parking lot during rush hour. “We want people off Canal Pointe Boulevard,” she said.
