By JACQUELINE DURETT
Correspondent
SAYREVILLE — Resident Danielle Rosen says her street, Burlew Place, should not be used as an access road from Bordentown Avenue to the Sayreville Plaza shopping center on Route 9.
Rosen contacted Councilman Steven Grillo about the issue, Grillo said at the May 23 Borough Council meeting. She also put her concerns in writing for the council to review.
Explaining the issue with Burlew, Grillo said, “Instead of folks taking Bordentown to Route 9 south and then entering the shopping plaza through the shopping plaza entrance, they use this residential street.”
Grillo said he and Councilman Pat Lembo share Rosen’s concerns about Burlew Place, which terminates at the parking lot for Sayreville Plaza, as well as Kenneth Avenue, a cul-de-sac that faces Burlew across from Bordentown.
Grillo said that Bordentown intersection has been the site of many traffic accidents, including one with a school bus on Kenneth Avenue.
“It’s a terrible intersection,” Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said, and other members of the council agreed.
Grillo said he and Lembo were requesting that Business Administrator Dan Frankel contact the police department to look at those streets and make some recommendations for improvement. Frankel said the police have looked at the area, but he will direct them to revisit the issue.
Councilwoman Mary Novak cautioned that before any action is taken, officials should make sure that Planning Board approvals were not provided to any of the businesses in and around Sayreville Plaza contingent on Burlew being an access road, something engineer Jay Cornell confirmed was likely the case.
Rosen herself also addressed the council, explaining that she has studied the volume of traffic that uses Burlew. According to her research, 3,000 cars per day use the street for commercial access. In an example rush hour, she said, only 12 cars were accessing the handful of homes on the street.
“I think everyone here on this council has taken their life in their hands and gone down Burlew Place,” O’Brien responded.
Rosen said she would like to see a barrier placed at the end of Burlew, preventing all access to the shopping center.
She said in the past she has worked with the borough on additional signage to prevent trucks using Burlew, as they are not permitted to use the access street, but those efforts have not resulted in a decrease in truck traffic.
O’Brien said the council would look into it, but that a remedy would likely take time.