Federal Grant Allows New Center Road Paving Project

An improvement to a one-mile stretch of New Center Road is intended to reduce the number of accidents by allowing water to run off it more easily.

The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority approved the $350,000 project during its Sept. 12 meeting, through its 2012 Local Safety and High Risk Rural Roads programs. The programs provide federal funds to cities and counties for safety improvements that can be implemented quickly.

Still, the county will need to submit its improvement plan and have the federal government approve it before work on the stretch—located between Roycefield Road and Auten Road—can begin.

“Once we get the formal letter, we have to submit the plans for federal approval,” Joe Fishinger, Principal Engineer for Traffic for Somerset County, said. “That’s going to take several months. We are expecting to start it in spring.”

Once the government approves the project plans, the county can begin soliciting bids for the work, Fishinger said. He expects the grant to cover the full project cost, but noted that the county will not know what that is until it receives bids from private contractors.

“It should cover the entire cost of the project,” he said. “But we won’t know the cost until we do the bids. If there is not enough money in the grant to cover the project fee, the county would pick up the tab.”

The county Engineering Department submitted the road for the grant funds in February, noting the tendency for accidents in that area. According to Fishinger, who receives accident summations from local police departments, there have been 66 crashes on the stretch of road, with a vehicle leaving the roadway in 44 of the crashes.

“The program highlights rural roads with high crash locations and we picked this off the list,” Fishinger said. “The understanding from the Hillsborough Township Police Department is that, when it rains, they send an officer out to that area because they expect an accident. .  .In rough numbers, somebody runs off the road there once a month.”

The work will involved repaving the one-mile stretch of road, then using a milling machine to put grooves in the pavement, Fishinger said. The grooves will allow water to run off the road more easily.

“We did something similar on Warrenville Road, North of 22 and we had quite a bit of success with it,” he said.

Since the project has not gone out to bid yet, Fishinger was unable to give a timeline for the work. However, he did say creating the pavement grooves would make the project take about a week longer than a regular paving job.

How the job will affect drivers—and residents—will also be determined once the project goes out to bid. Fishinger said the county would consult with the township about the work, though it tries to avoid closing roads.

“We’ll probably do it as alternating traffic,” he said. “We try not to close roads completely when we don’t have to.”