to Blueberry Dr. proposal
By jamie dougher
Staff Writer
MILLTOWN — Borough officials say they cannot support a proposal to make a section of Blueberry Drive, where a Wendy’s restaurant will be built, a one-way street.
The Public Safety Committee of the Borough Council discussed the matter June 17, when engineering and police reports were presented regarding the matter, which was proposed in a letter from resident Wayne Burke.
Burke said he and others in the area wanted to make Blueberry Drive a one-way street between Leonard Drive and Hye Court, where he resides, and ending at Ryders Lane. Traffic would be prohibited from entering Blueberry Drive from Ryders Lane.
Residents had traffic and safety concerns as a result of plans to build a Wendy’s restaurant at Blueberry Drive and Ryders Lane. Those plans also prompted borough residents Vivian and John Morris to ask the Borough Council to consider banning the construction of any more fast-food restaurants in Milltown. Mayor Gloria Bradford said that issue will be discussed at a future council meeting.
At the meeting last week, Police Chief Ray Geipel and the borough engineer presented reports outlining the feasibility of the proposal.
Councilman Joseph Cruz said the positive attributions of the plan were that the road would be able to handle an increased traffic capacity and would minimize conflicts from turning onto Ryders Lane from Blueberry Drive.
"It may be good for people who live near Ryders," he said.
But Cruz said officials at the meeting agreed the disadvantages to the proposal outweighed the benefits. He said a one-way street would increase travel time for motorists, including emergency vehicles, seeking to reach Blueberry Drive, because they would have to reroute to alternate avenues such as Washington Road.
"It would increase traffic on other roadways," Cruz said, adding that emergency vehicles could be delayed in their response times to life-threatening emergencies.
Cruz said Geipel’s report illuminated public safety issues in the area around Blueberry Drive. Geipel told officials there have not been any accidents on Blueberry Drive in all of 2002 and as of April 21 of this year.
"People came to council meetings saying it was a public safety issue," Cruz said. "I don’t see any increase in accidents."
No one from the public appeared at the Public Safety Committee meeting to support or oppose the project, but Cruz said he received calls from residents who did not support the one-way proposal.
"There wasn’t a ground swell of support from the public," Bradford said, but she stressed that they held the meeting because they wanted to receive input from professionals on the matter in order to determine whether it could be accomplished.
One of Burke’s concerns was that, particularly after the Wendy’s is built, too many motorists would try to make U-turns on Blueberry Drive to return to Ryders Lane. Cruz said the borough plans to install signs alerting drivers that U-turns are illegal on Blueberry Drive and on cul-de-sacs off Ryders Lane.
Cruz also said that if the borough submits a request to the state Department of Transportation to perform studies to determine the viability of the project, the process could take up to three years and cost the borough close to $10,000 in fees, after which the DOT might not approve the project.
"There’s not even a guarantee," he said. "I didn’t feel I wanted to saddle the public with $10,000 worth of feasibility studies for something we don’t feel there is a need for at this time."