Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Hopewell Township has received a $1 million grant from the state Department of Transportation to build another section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail.
Hopewell Township is one of seven applicants to have received a grant through the DOT’s Transportation Alternatives grant program, Township Administrator Paul Pogorzelski said.
This segment of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail, which will be about one mile long, will begin at a lighted crosswalk in the vicinity of 353 Carter Road.
It will loop around through the rear of the former Berwind property, on the east side of Carter Road, and end in the vicinity of Cleveland Road. The land is part of the Mount Rose Preserve.
The trail is proposed to be 10 feet wide and will consist of porous pavement. It will take about two years to build. The trail has to be designed and engineered, and then put out to bid.
Segments of the 22-mile-long Lawrence Hopewell Trail have been built since it was first conceived in 2001 by employees of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. at the pharmaceutical company’s Lawrence Township campus.
The Educational Testing Service, which is also located in Lawrence Township, quickly signed on to the Lawrence Hopewell Trail initiative. Both Lawrence and Hopewell townships have been supportive of the effort.
To date, about 19 miles of the trail have been completed through the two townships -including about seven miles in Hopewell Township. The goal is to link the two townships by providing an off-road bicycle and pedestrian path.
In Hopewell Township, sections of the trail have been built through the Princeton Farms development and on portions of Wargo Road and the Pennington-Rocky Hill Road, along the edge of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Hopewell Township campus.
Segments of the trail also have been built on Titus Mill Road, Old Mill Road and through the Mercer Meadows county park.
Since its inception, portions of the path have been extended into Pennington Borough. There are proposals to make connections to Hopewell Borough, Washington Crossing State Park and Princeton.
