The Princeton Battlefield State Park and the Mercer Meadows Park are off-limits to users, but Lawrence Township and the Municipality of Princeton have made it clear that the walking paths and trails in municipal parks in the two towns will remain open.
Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order April 7 that closed state and county parks to visitors, aiming to slow down the spread of COVID-19 that has sickened more than 44,000 New Jersey residents and killed more than 1,200 of them.
Catherine R. McCabe, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the department “regrets” that it has to close the state parks and forests. It was not an easy decision to make, she said.
“As the weather warms, our parks are becoming crowded and it is difficult in many place to observe the social distancing that is so critical to fighting the COVID-19 outbreak,” McCabe said.
Popular parks such as the Princeton Battlefield State Park and the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park and its towpath, which spans Princeton and Lawrence Township, are off limits because of the governor’s executive order.
In Lawrence Township, the executive order closed the Mercer County-maintained Mercer Meadows, which spans Lawrence Township and Hopewell Township.
Mercer Meadows includes the Pole Farm in Lawrence Township, and Rosedale Park, the Mercer County Equestrian Center and Curlis Woods in Hopewell Township.
The executive order does not apply to municipally-owned parks, such as Community Park North, Marquand Park, the Autumn Hill Reservation, the Woodfield Reservation and the Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve in Princeton.
Lawrence Township maintains nearly a dozen parks, ranging from Colonial Lake Park to Drexel Woods, Village Park, Veterans Park and Hamnett Park.
Walking paths and trails remain open in municipal parks in Lawrence and Princeton, but playgrounds, tennis courts and other active facilities in the municipal parks have been closed.
Officials in both towns emphasized that group activities are banned. The basketball courts in Lawrence Township parks may not be occupied by more than two people.
Lawrence Township Municipal Manager Kevin Nerwinski said he was inclined to keep the municipal parks open because “providing areas for people to decompress, get some fresh air and some exercise in a responsible way is extremely important.”
Nerwinski said he and Police Chief Brian Caloiaro agreed the parks should be monitored to ensure that users are abiding by social distancing measures and not getting too close to one another.
“There will be an increase in police presence during this time, and the officers will be actively addressing gatherings of three people or more, but they will do so from a distance,” Nerwinski said.
“If we come to realize that people simply can’t abide by the physical distancing, I will make the decision to close the parks. We, as a community, also have a responsibility to be a part of the solution, not the problem,” Nerwinski said.