The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is putting out the New Jersey? federal transportation improvement projects for comment, including the Route 571 project between Clarksville and Cranbury roads. You can find details here:
The West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance’s recommendations for the project are here:
The current design calls for adding a center left turn lane, sidewalks and a bicycle-compatible shoulder, maintaining the existing design speed (45mph).
The problem is that the combination of same design speed, the additional center turn lane and roadway widening, but no pedestrian refuges halfway across the road will make it harder, not easier, to cross the street.
Essentially, there will be 30% more cars to dodge when crossing, which will be going faster than today, since they wouldn’t have to slow down for left-turning vehicles (which will be in the new center turn lane).
In our view, Route 571 is already too hard to cross, and this design will make it worse. Please join us in adding your comments to the DVRPC by following the instructions on their web page.
The stated goals are for a bicycle and pedestrian friendly main street, but the design details do not support the goals, according to the NJDOT Smart Transportation Guidebook. On the plus side, the recommended changes will save money and most importantly give us a Main Street we can be proud of, while still increasing? capacity.
Tags: bicycle friendly, Complete Streets, Downtown Princeton Junction, DVRPC, Main Street, pedestrian friendly, Rt 571, Smart Transportation, TIP
The design drawing is available at the township building. A copy of the presentation given by the consultants at the public review is at:
http://www.westwindsornj.org/CR571_ppt.pdf
Jerry
Where do we find the actual details of the plan? All I could find in the document “DVRPC FY 2010-2013 TIP” regarding the 571 was the following statement “Mercer County and West Windsor Township hope to make “Main Street” pedestrian, bicycle, and
site access improvements, including sidewalks, protected turn lanes, and no additional through travel lanes.”