Removal of U-Turns Expected to Make Highway Safer

Route 22 may be on its way to becoming a safer highway.

New Jersey Department of Transportation has been working for about five years on a series of changes that, among other work, will eliminate u-turns on the highway.

In 2005, Somerset County and the NJDOT began discussions of the feasibility of improving safety and operations along Route 22, specifically in the center section from Route 202/206 to I-287, according to NJDOT spokesman Timothy Greeley.

"[This was in] the Somerset County Regional Center study to provide safer passage for through traffic, while also accommodating local trips," he said.

This study, Greeley said, would create a more complete street.

The Somerset County Regional Center, Greeley said, had already begun preparing a plan for changing the area of Route 22 to offer more opportunities for drivers and residents when it began to work with the state.

"It was preparing for Somerset County a long-term goal of transforming a diverse suburban area into a center with a greater sense of place and a capacity for sustained growth," he said.

In beginning to outline its own plan, the NJDOT has identified five different short-term improvements for the area to improve safety for drivers. Greeley said these projects are only listed as being short-term because they are easily planned and engineered, and can therefore be completed more quickly than other initiatives.

"So instead of waiting a number of years for a more comprehensive study of the corridor to finish, we can move forward with these smaller improvements," he said.

These short-term projects are to improve safety at the Lone Star Restaurant on North Bridge Street, improve safety at the North Gaston Avenue u-turn near the Midas, improve safety at the Adamsville Road u-turn near the Bridgewater Diner, improve safety at Grove Street and eliminate the bottleneck on Route 22 East by Mountain Avenue.

"The u-turns at Gaston Avenue and Adamsville Road would be removed, and the North Grove Street overpass and Foothill Road overpass would then be utilitzed for u-turn movements," Greeley said. "These short-term highway improvements will focus on alleviating accident hot spots at the u-turns and improving safety along the corridor," he added.

Police have said that these kinds of improvements to Route 22 will be beneficial, particularly in light of constant accidents occurring at the u-turns, including one Saturday in which a motorcyclist died after losing control of his motorcycle and crashing into a light post just after a u-turn.

"That light post gets hit a lot," said Bridgewater Township Police Officer Paul Payne, adding that there are usually accidents there three to four times per year as people take the u-turn too quickly and crash into the post, often knocking it down. "It is something to work on, and we will eventually get rid of the u-turns in Bridgewater."

Payne said the NJDOT project will hopefully help take care of this issue.

"The NJDOT had set up a short project almost six years ago to take care of it," he said. "The u-turns are a real headache."

In 2009, Greeley said, some improvement areas were already taken care of in several breakout projects, including the removal of an abandoned truck weigh station and the installation of a deceleration lane for the Lone Star Restaurant entrance on Route 22 East. In addition, he said, the NJDOT has already worked on the improvement of the North Grove Street ramp onto Route 22 West, converting the shoulder into a weave lane, extending the Route 22 East deceleration lane at Finderne Avenue and prohibiting left turns to Gaston Avenue and Adamsville Road at the u-turns.

These projects, Greeley said, were all designed to improve safety in the areas, and are considered to be "breakout" projects in order to better ensure funding to complete them.

"I wouldn't say that the already completed breakout improvements are or were completely independent of the short-term improvements, as all of these improvements are being made with the same focus on Route 22, and a larger overall corridor improvement in mind," he said. "It is sometimes necessary for projects to get broken out of larger planned projects and studies in order to ensure they will get funded."

As for the short-term improvements, Greeley said, they are all in the preliminary design phase, and a price for the work has not yet been determined. As for a schedule on these improvements, he said, the final design is expected to be completed in summer 2011, with construction beginning in early 2012 and ending in fall 2013.

On the whole, these projects are all designed to make Route 22 a safer road for motorists, Greeley said.

"The focus of the larger study is to redefine Route 22 from a high-speed arterial, which only accommodates motor vehicle traffic, into a boulevard or parkway design, which accommodates local and through motor vehicle traffic, as well as non-motorized travel modes," he said.