Council tackles aging roads, speeding
At Monday night’s meeting, council discussed how to keep Moorestown’s streets safer.
Making Moorestown’s roads safer for motorists and pedestrians alike was the theme of last Monday night’s council meeting. A pair of ordinances adopted on first reading had council appropriating more than $3 million in funds toward road work.
Council passed an ordinance appropriating $725,000 for work on Garwood Road. Plans to resurface the road include stormwater improvements and the installation of accessible curb ramps. Additionally, council appropriated $2.5 million toward the 2018 Roads Program, which will include the resurfacing of various municipal roads throughout the township.
Councilwoman Lisa Petriello inquired about what work would be done to Golf View Road under the Roads Program. She said the road’s S-curve shape has resulted in some deterioration along the periphery of the road, and she wondered if those edges will receive additional maintenance.
“The edges of that road crumble away, and then when it gets rainy and muddy, bicyclists and walkers congregate to the center of the road where the cars are, so if we can make that as wide and as secure as possible, that’d be great,” Petriello said.
Township Manager Thomas Merchel said he anticipated that problem being addressed as part of the Roads Program, but he said he would need to make further inquiries as to what method the engineers will utilize to reinforce the edges.
Mayor Stacey Jordan said she’s interested in a potential meeting with the neighbors along Golf View. She said the neighbors have reported an uptick in speeding, and there’s been talk about potentially making Golf View into a one-way street.
“Before we as council take that on, I’d like to at least sit down with a few of the neighbors and talk to them about what their thoughts are because once you improve that road, I think we’re going to have some more problems with speeding,” Jordan said.
In line with traffic discussions, resident Kathy Sutherland said she met with Petriello, two Burlington County freeholders and a Burlington County engineer to discuss traffic on North Church Street where she and her husband, Fred, are residents. She said the county needs a letter from township to authorize a traffic study on the street.
Sutherland asked council when it anticipates the work on their street being completed. She said she doesn’t want the study done until the work is complete and traffic returns to its usual ebb and flow, so the study is an accurate representation of congestion on the street.
“I really don’t want them to take the traffic study until after the work is done on our street, so I don’t know how long that will be,” Sutherland said.
Merchel said he would speak with Police Chief Lee Lieber about when the work will be completed. At council’s May 7 meeting, it authorized the installation of a digital traffic sign at the corner of North Church Street south of Flynn Avenue as a speeding deterrent.
He recommended the township conduct its own study after the sign has been installed. He said if the county’s study does not find speeding to be a problem on the street, the speed limit may actually increase, so he advised Sutherland to let the township see if the sign has an impact on traffic prior to any county intervention.
Jordan suggested they wait until the fall to conduct the study. She said with schools out for the summer, the traffic is bound to decrease until fall.
“We agree with the fall,” Sutherland said. “We want to just keep moving forward with this.”
The next meeting of Moorestown Township Council will be on Monday, June 11 at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall.
