The work for the reconstruction of Brick Yard Road in Cranbury will be delayed until 2020.
Officials said the delay is due to obtaining some state approvals to specifications on the work for the road.
Brick Yard Road is set to be made wider, which means utility poles will have to move. Also, there are some wetlands on the side of the road that will need permits from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
“This major reconstruction project does not get done overnight. There are steps involved,” said Denise Marabello, Cranbury’s township administrator and chief financial officer. “Because we received the grant money everything has to go through the New Jersey Department of Transportation. They have to approve the bid specs in what we are going to be doing.”
This past July, Cranbury was awarded a $1 million grant from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT)’s Local Freight Impact Fund. The township stated that it would use the money to widen Brick Yard Road. The received grant added to a previous $570,000 grant that they received earlier this year from the NJDOT. In total, the township has stated it has $1.57 million from grants set aside for the project.
“The first grant received was simply for the mill pave and road repair. When we received that, we thought that was the direction we were going in, but then the freight grant came in. We realized we could widen the road,” Marabello said.
The township, on top of the grants, has also received $750,000 in agreements with the developer, Veridan. Veridan was the firm that also constructed the Amazon and Wayfair facilities in Cranbury.
According to Marabello, the grants and the agreements cover the estimated cost of the Brick Yard Road reconstruction.
“We will be working to get to the construction phase of the project. In the mean time, we are going to be making some minor road repairs to the pavement of the road so that we can have the road reopened,” Marabello said. “That will be happening before the winter.”
The road will be reopened from the time the minor repairs are finished until the town has to close Brick Yard Road again to do the full reconstruction work, according to township officials.
“The whole road will be inspected and sections will be decided on before quotes are found for the sections that need to be repaired. We will make repairs so that the road is passable and drivable until we do the actual full reconstruction,” she said.
Township Engineer Tom Decker explained in July that they were in the very early stages of design for the reconstruction.
“We plan to do a recycling of the pavement that is being removed. It gets reused and reprocessed and put back down,” Decker said. “We will be establishing a crown back in the road to get drainage of the road. We will also be putting about another six inches of pavement that will really help with the structural integrity of the road.”
According to Decker, all of the guard rails are going to be replaced and the intersection of Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road will be looked at to improve the maneuverability for the trucks at the intersection.
Officials said the reconstruction of Brick Yard Road will go from the Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road intersection out to where Brick Yard Road joins South Main Street.