Jones Lang LaSalle

State to fund 3-mile bypass in Sayreville
$10M project expected to help ease traffic congestion
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
BY NAWAL QAROONI Star-Ledger Staff

Traffic congestion in Sayreville might be alleviated one day with the creation of a 3-mile east-west bypass, fully funded by the state over the next five years, officials announced yesterday.

A total of $10 million -- $2 million annually -- has been earmarked for the borough's Main Street Bypass in the state's transportation capital plan. The project was estimated to cost about $12 million, said engineer Jay Cornell, partner at CME Associates, but several developers are building por tions of the bypass as part of their contracts with the borough.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), who is also the borough's Democratic chairman and the chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, said he lobbied hard for the state funding.

"This bypass will serve a state purpose, too, not just a localized one," Wisniewski said at a press conference yesterday. "If you're traveling north from the Milltown area, you can cut through Sayre ville. It will serve as a supplement to state highways Routes 1 and 9."

Brendan Gill, spokesman for the State Department of Transportation, said the project will be locally managed even though the money is coming from the state.

"We have the ability to fund projects which we feel are critical to our mission to help relieve congestion and promote safety," Gill said. "This project fits that crite ria."

Council President Thomas Pol lando said a connector roadway that would take cars off the borough's most used streets, Main Street and Washington Road, has been in the master plan for 20 years.

"The inability of the borough to finance it kept us from making it a reality," Pollando said. "This is a way for us to keep moving forward, and it's really great for our town."

The project is still in preliminary stages. The next two to three years will be spent designing it, getting permits and securing rights-of-way. That means residents probably won't see actual construction until 2009, said borough engineer David Samuel, of CME Associates.

Samuel said the bypass most likely will begin near River Road and connect with Chevalier Avenue near the National Lead property. It could lead directly to Victory Circle, which is at the end of Chevalier, putting vehicles directly on Routes 9 or 35 or the Garden State Parkway.
The developers that are building portions of the bypass include the Neptune developers; Wick Builders, as part of Sheffield Town on Wilkshire Boulevard, and the Coastal Group, as part of the Winding River project.

Other through streets in the borough, such as Ernston Road, Glynn Court and Sayreville Boulevard, a street built in conjunction with the Town Lake development, have recently been opened in efforts to clear traffic density in the north-south direction.

The decision to open Battista Court as another north-south connector was met with opposition months ago, as many residents lamented the traffic it would put on their quiet side street off Deerfield Road. But Battista Court is ex pected to open in the next couple of months, too, said Cornell.

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