Jamesburg receives Keep Middlesex Moving Leadership Award.
By: Leon Tovey
JAMESBURG Borough officials who have worked for years to cultivate Jamesburg’s image as a walking town got a pat on the back recently in the form of a Keep Middlesex Moving Leadership Award.
The award, which was given to the borough at KMM’s annual membership meeting May 16, recognized the borough’s longtime participation in the county transportation management association’s Walk Our Children to School Day event, as well as the borough’s efforts over the past few years to improve sidewalks in town.
In the past year the borough has received more than $200,000 in grants for sidewalk work from the state Department of Transportation, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the federal Community Development Block Grant program.
"Any grants for sidewalks that are out there, we go for," Mayor Tony LaMantia said Thursday of the borough’s pursuit of grant money. "We like that Jamesburg is a walking town."
The grant money has been used to improve and replace sidewalks on East Railroad Avenue and Front Street, and to install sidewalks along Franklin and Warren streets.
Improvements also are planned for the sidewalks along Woodland Road and Church Street, Mayor LaMantia said. Those projects are out for bid and should be completed (weather permitting) by the end of summer, he said.
The mayor, who has led the Walk Our Children to School Day event for the past five years, said he was looking forward to taking part in the event again this year. Walk Our Children to School Day is an international event established in 1997 by the Partnership for a Walkable America to encourage parents to teach their children about pedestrian safety.