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Sprucewood & Ashwood Circle Scrapped; New Traffic Plans Under Discussion
By Catherine Snipe
What will happen to construction between Sprucewood and Ashwood drives is still in the air, township officials said.
At that site, the township began to construct a traffic-calming circle, what township spokesperson Bryan J. Dickerson called a rotary, designed to slow traffic and increase safety.
Not everyone welcomed the idea with open arms, however.
Now the rotary idea has been scrapped, but there are elements such as teardrop medians and other traffic-calming devices that could be put in place instead. The township is still ironing out those plans.
Why no rotary? Because the people of the neighborhood made their voices heard.
"The rotary is not going to be
completed because the residents
don't want it," Dickerson said. "The hub in middle of intersection will not be completed."
Birchwood Park residents came out in force to Township Council meetings recently, urging the township to stop work on a traffic-calming circle project in their neighborhood. The construction is at the intersection of Sprucewood and Ashwood drives.
The township orded contractor, L&L paving company of Tinton Falls, to stop work after residents came out in droves to council meetings, saying they were not aware of the project and did not agree with it.
The project is designed to slow cars apt to speeding down a straightaway by putting in the circle. Vehicles must slow down to navigate through the curved portions.
The project cost about $76,000, funded with township money and grants, said Elissa Commins, assistant township engineer.
"It's a nationally accepted method of traffic control," Commins said. "It's intended to move traffic at 25 miles per hour."
However, residents are concerned it will also slow emergency vehicles from getting to the area.
There are also concerns raised about how to plow snow from a circle, and if this will actually make the area less safe.
Before work was halted, concrete work was almost complete, with curbing and a teardrop median already constructed.
The township has used the traffic-calming circle method elsewhere in town: twice on Bryn Mawr Drive, and one on Mandalay Road. But residents made it clear over several township council meetings the circle is not what they'd like to be built there.
The circle is about 30 feet in diameter total, Commins said.
The township has distributed a survey to Birchwood Park residents within Cedarwood, Parkway, Maplewood, Lakeland drives and Chambers Bridge Road, asking whether they were in favor or not in favor of the circle.
Also, the township held a workshop to discuss the circle further, inviting residents to come to Hank Waltonowski Park earlier this month, to have township officials answer residents' questions about the project.
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