LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
I am writing in response to last week’s letter from Kristine Floren, co-chairperson of the Bypass Committee.
To sum up her March 9 letter, I have never read such rubbish in my life! The Bypass issue should not be reduced to "us vs. them," or for that matter "Hightstown vs. East Windsor"! It astonishes me that Ms. Floren plainly states that the residents and officials of Hightstown are ostriches, burying their heads in the sand to Ms. Floren’s version of the Bypass situation. One would think that a chairperson on any public committee would have the intelligence and courtesy to approach the Bypass issue in a logical, non-territorial way. Her letter seems merely bent to ignite the issue once again.
Whatever happened to common sense? Hightstown is a small, concentrated, long-established town whose homes, businesses and street patterns were set down more than 150 years ago. East Windsor is a large, spread out, sprawling suburban community of farms, homes and businesses. Its history as a community, although equally long, has been primarily rural, and is now a conglomeration of new homes and businesses. Hightstown’s streets and roads are narrow, confined by historical buildings and homes that lie only a few feet off the curb. Imagine any older town or city in America and you quickly get the picture. East Windsor’s streets are wider, more spacious. Large tracks of open space still exist in East Windsor, although they are quickly disappearing from a high growth rate. Hightstown is an established small community with no noticeable growth and no place to grow into, other than renovation of existing building sites.
Having set the physical stage of each of these two beautiful communities, let’s examine the roads: state highway Route 33 and federal highway Route 130. Yes, Route 130 is a FEDERAL highway. A federal highway which incidently runs through Milltown, Monmouth Junction, Dayton, South Brunswick, Cranbury Station, East Windsor, Windsor, Robbinsville, Yardville, Bordentown, Burlington, etc. None of which have claimed it as their "Main Street." Route 130 is nobody’s "Main Street." It is a FEDERAL highway. It carries travelers, cars and trucks, from New Brunswick to Bordentown and beyond.
It is a divided highway, with four lanes of traffic and a 55 mph speed limit. It is a highway designed to carry both large tractor-trailers and cars, from whichever city or town they originate. Route 33 is a state highway. For most of its length it also is a divided highway. Going through the narrow center of Hightstown it is a two-lane, constricted road. The speed limit through Hightstown is 35 mph. It goes through the TOWN CENTER of Hightstown. As beautiful and as vibrant as East Windsor is, it does not have a town center. Its growth as a community was created in a different pattern, more akin to Freehold district as opposed to Freehold Borough.
Which finally leads us to the Bypass. Exactly what does the Bypass bypass? Certainly not the confined core of Hightstown. Definitely not the sprawled community of East Windsor. Any outsider, who has no emotional ties to either community, would expect such a wide, pleasant "bypass" to circle around the nearest town to avoid conjestion and noise. That is certainly how bypasses work in other parts of this state, around our vast country and in the international communities of Europe and the rest of the larger world. Could we not learn from our neighbors, fellow citizens and overseas friends?
Ever travel the interstate highways around Baltimore or D.C.? Would you expect them to suddenly dump you into the center of those cities? Why does our own "bypass" dump traffic into the center of congested Hightstown? Where’s the logic in that? To trivialize the way in which this Bypass moves traffic through both these communities by discussions of "east/west" and "north/south" does all of us a disservice. When will OUR Bypass be reconstructed to do just that, to bypass something? To bypass anything? When will the Alliance of Bypass Committees have equal representation between East Windsor and Hightstown? And, finally, when may we expect the adults of both these neighboring (sometimes fueding) communities to begin to set an example for our children?
Is it truly impossible to work together toward a logical solution to our joint traffic woes? Need our local officials behave as if to follow in the footsteps of our national politicians? Where oh where has our common sense gone? Maybe the same place the Bypass went. Out the window.
Kathy Steventon
Hightstown