A $700,000 project to spruce up pedestrian crossings and reconfigure traffic-signal timing at Broad Street, Maple Avenue and Newman Springs Road is to start Monday, the state Department of Transportation says in a press release.
From a story in today’s Asbury Park Press:
Among issues to be dealt with in the project is the annoying double wait endured by drivers on Newman Springs Road when a train passes through the crossing and the traffic light turns green for Broad Street. That will change.
Work on the crossing project will be done at night and drivers will be alerted to closed or narrowed lanes by variable message boards on Route 35 in the vicinity of the project, DOT officials said.
As redbankgreen reported back in April, here are the highlights of the plan, as outlined by Borough Engineer Richard Kosenski and two DOT engineers:
• The installation of a concrete island in the center of Maple Avenue. The island will “shorten the pedestrian distance” across the mouth of the street as it meets Broad, said Kosenski, and give pedestrians a place to stand if they are unable to traverse the width of the intersection before the light changes.
In conjunction with better signage on Broad just south of the the tracks, the island will also serve to better channel northbound traffic, said DOT engineer John Fusella.
• A “sophisticated” new signal control system that will vary the signal rotation from its present fixed cycle, under which cars turning left onto Broad from Newman Springs are always the last to get a green, no matter when the cycle was interrupted by a passing train.
Now, “whichever street was next to move forward will move forward,” Kosenski said.
“One street isn’t getting a predominant heavy green at the expense of the others,” said DOT project engineer Chris Haritos.
• New barrier gates, to be installed by New Jersey Transit; and some new sidewalks.
• Left turns from Maple Avenue onto Broad will be prohibited.
