Easing traffic tie-ups at issue in Spotswood
Boro officials hold out for better option from county
BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer

Though Middlesex County has presented options for improving traffic flow in downtown Spotswood, local officials are hoping for a better plan.

Borough officials are seeking a remedy for the gridlock that occurs on and around Main Street during rush hour and on weekends. The tie-ups have become worse in recent years because Spotswood is used more and more by people traveling between Monroe Township and East Brunswick.

Mayor Barry Zagnit said the first goal was to get the county involved in improving traffic flow around the Main and Vliet streets intersection. Main Street is county-owned Route 615.

Council President Curtis Stollen said the county responded with three options, but borough officials did not support any of them during last week's Borough Council meeting.

One option included restriping Main Street and including a

bicycle path. However, the traffic would be so bad that the cars would actually be overlapping onto the path, Stollen said. The restriping would take place near DeVoe Avenue and Main Street and other areas.

Another idea includes increasing the number of lanes on Main Street. One eastbound lane would be for left turns onto Vliet Street, and the center lane would allow vehicles to continue traveling straight. The other lane would allow vehicles to go straight or turn right onto DeVoe Avenue.

That option would require that the two lanes allowing travel straight through the intersection merge a few hundred feet east of the intersection. Stollen said such mergers create more bottleneck traffic.

The most eye-catching idea is that which would "turn Main Street into a superhighway," according to Stollen. It would mean creating five lanes, including three for vehicles traveling west on Main Street. One westbound vehicles would be for right turns onto Vliet Street; the middle lane for vehicles to go straight; and the other for left turns onto DeVoe Avenue. The other two lanes would be on the eastbound side.

That option, however, would require a great deal of land acquisition, including property currently owned by a bank and a cemetery.

Zagnit said borough officials were not thrilled with any particular option.

"We're not in love with any of them," he said. "So essentially we're going back to the drawing board with the county. We'll ask them to meet with us and explore other options."

Stollen said one of the biggest problems was not even addressed in the three options. It is difficult for drivers coming out of Vliet Street to make a left onto Main Street. The area is very narrow and the driver is also faced with traffic coming from the other direction via DeVoe Avenue.

"It's almost like you're playing chicken," Stollen said. "It's very hazardous."

One idea that's been discussed is having a green turn arrow for vehicles making a left from Vliet Street onto Main Street. However, that would worsen the backup along DeVoe Avenue, across from Vliet Street.

"If you take away from one [side], you give backup to the other," Stollen said.

"The solution really lies in somehow getting traffic from East Brunswick commuters going down DeVoe to Monroe through our town without going on Main Street," he said.

This may involve extending Summerhill Road so that it bypasses Main Street, which he said the county has considered. That plan, Stollen said, would be "expensive, but we'll have to face it at some point. It's the only solution."

A big part of the problem, Stollen said, lies in the fact that so much housing continues to be built in Monroe. Those new residents travel through Spotswood going to and from East Brunswick.

The new housing outside of town exacerbates the problem Spotswood has long endured, the fact that so many people use its main roads as through streets between Monroe, Helmetta and East Brunswick.

Councilwoman Marge Drozd said newer communities with downtown areas have drawn up master plans done, but she feels Spotswood's downtown has received too little attention from the state, county and borough.

"We need the whole area looked at and improved," Drozd said.

Borough Administrator Ron Fasanello said the council authorized borough Engineer Bruce Koch to contact county officials in hopes of devising a better plan to improve traffic. Fasanello said the borough would have to pay a portion of costs associated with any project, with the county and possibly the state providing most of the funds.

So far, officials have yet to find the remedy.

"There's nothing to address the traffic coming through our town," Stollen said.