A proposed two-week closure of a portion of Route 206 has members of the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders and area officials urging the state to honor contract agreements already on the books.
Work on the bridge over Crusers Brook in Montgomery Township could force the closure, which officials said could snarl traffic in the township and the surrounding area.
The project calls for replacing the bridge over the creek, which was built in 1925. The overall condition of the bridge is poor, according to an “open house” held by the NJ Department of Transportation (NJDOT) to explain the project in 2016.
The project spans about 1,750 feet along Route 206, and includes replacing the existing concrete bridge with a new concrete bridge. The new bridge will incorporate a 6-foot-wide sidewalk on the southbound side.
Route 206 already has two 12-foot-wide lanes, which will not be changed. The shoulders, which vary in width, will be widened to 8 feet.
Work on the project began in September 2017.
According to officials, the proposed detours would move traffic from Route 206 onto an adjacent roadway network of County Route 601 (Belle Mead-Blawenburg Road), County Route 630 (Belle Mead Griggstown Road), County Route 518 (Georgetown Franklin Turnpike) and County Route 533 (Millstone River Road).
An NJDOT open house presentation prior to the start of the project suggested that the work on Route 206 did not require any closures. Plans for the project called for the work to be done in stages, with unimpeded access to all homes and businesses on Route 206 at all times.
As a main thoroughfare that cuts through a number of municipalities in the area, Route 206 regularly sees a large amount of traffic.
Freeholder Mark Caliguire, a Montgomery resident, contended that the proposed closure would not only increase traffic in the township’s roadways, but could also cause significant issues for the area’s first responders.
“Pushing the southbound traffic from Route 206 onto local roads in Montgomery is an awful idea,” Caliguire said. “It’s not safe, and the through traffic, including significant truck traffic, will cause real problems in our town.”
Caliguire said the contractor had contacted the county administrator and the Montgomery Township administrator in recent months to propose closing the southbound lane for two weeks in August in order to speed up the process. He said both administrators had “significant concerns about any such closure” and were worried that there was no guarantee that the proposal would get the job done more quickly.
The freeholder also said that the contractor said they would return to the table with a better plan, but instead proposed the same closure option.
“Harlingen Road would take the brunt of it, with cars and trucks looking to get back to Route 206 anyway they could,” Caliguire said. “That would mean Skillman Road, Orchard Road and Route 518.”
The Montgomery Township Police, Fire and EMS departments are all located either within or directly adjacent to the construction zone. All three of those entities also respond to emergencies in nearly townships like Hillsborough and Belle Mead.
“I just am not confident that their proposal [would go on] for only two weeks,” Caliguire said. “To me, [that’s] a safety and traffic problem anyway…and after Labor Day it would be a disaster.”
Montgomery Township Deputy Mayor Christine Madrid said she hoped the state would complete the project “without causing gridlock on our local streets.”
“We need the state Department of Transportation to finish the job they started, the way it was supposed to be finished,” she said.