An NJTPA-funded study completed by Bergen County has advanced to the concept development stage at the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT). The study, undertaken in 2001, identified conditions along Route 17 – Bergen County’s north/south transportation spine – and made numerous recommendations to reduce congestion.
The study examined, among other things, the stretch of Route 17 south of its newly reconfigured interchange with Route 4. At this location, the highway necks down from three to two lanes in each direction, opening up again to three lanes farther south. The completed study was provided to NJDOT for incorporation into the final statement of need for improvements along this section of Route 17.
At a public meeting held on March 14, 2002, state transportation officials presented plans for this 5.6-mile stretch of Route 17 between the Garden State Parkway in Paramus and Williams Avenue in Hasbrouck Heights. The purpose of the presentation was to gauge public reaction to various options, ranging from short-term projects, such as signage and drainage improvements, to longer-term options including a widened Route 17. Funding for the project has not been finalized, and all concepts are preliminary at this point.
The preliminary proposal includes a set of concepts that affect a large region beyond the immediate surrounding communities. The concept with the greatest impact proposes to expand Route 17 from two to three lanes in each direction.
A number of “missing movements” between Route 17 and such major highways as Routes 46 and I-80 along this stretch place the burden of interchanging traffic on local streets not designed for this purpose. Coupled with the fact that vehicles seeking to bypass congestion on the mainline highway often seek these same side streets for relief, local roads crossing and paralleling Route 17 take on an added dimension in serving regional traffic functions. The ongoing study seeks to improve these missing linkages and ease the spillover of regional traffic into local communities.
Traversing Bergen County from its northern border with Rockland County, New York to its southern border with Hudson County, Route 17 is of tremendous regional significance. Although it runs on a north/south axis, it also serves as an important east/west connector between discontinuous county roads. In combination with I-80, Route 17 also serves as an alternate for travel between the George Washington Bridge and Routes 4/208 and I-287, which is a particularly crucial role in light of difficulties in widening already-congested Route 4.
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Traffic on Route 17 South |
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On March 11, 2002, the NJTPA Board approved goals to guide its nine-month, $1 million consultant effort to evaluate strategies for improving transportation throughout northern New Jersey.
"The goals set our benchmarks for how we want the transportation system to perform," said NJTPA Chairman Ted Narozanick, Freeholder from Monmouth County. “We can now use them to find where needs exist and how we should invest federal funds to improve the system.”
The goals are expressed in terms of measures of transportation performance such as miles of vehicle travel, hours of delay, number of jobs accessible within 40 minutes and others. They cover eight dimensions of transportation performance including accessibility, reliability, sustainability, intermodalism and mobility for various modes.
The goals vary across the region depending on the characteristics of the area. For instance, a heavily traveled urban area is expected to have more traffic congestion than a rural area.
"These sophisticated performance measures and goals will serve the region well in reassessing our needs and priorities,” said Union County Freeholder Dan Sullivan, who serves as Chairman of the NJTPA Planning and Economic Development Committee. The committee unanimously recommended approval of the goals by the Board.
With the goals now in place, the NJTPA Central Staff and its consulting team, led by Parsons-Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, have begun identifying regional needs and assessing potential strategies. Future steps will involve estimating strategy benefits and choosing the best strategies to meet needs. The project will also evaluate existing project proposals and ideas.
At the conclusion of the Strategy Evaluation project this fall, the NJTPA will update the region’s long-range Regional Transportation Plan with selected strategies. The NJTPA then will hand off high priority strategies that can be acted upon immediately to the New Jersey Department of Transportation, NJ Transit and other agencies for implementation.
The Strategy Evaluation is enhancing the region’s Congestion Management System (CMS), a federally mandated decision-support process that uses data and computer-based tools to analyze transportation system performance. Further information on the Strategy Evaluation can be found on the NJTPA website, www.njtpa.org.
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In connection with its innovative and ambitious North Jersey Strategy Evaluation study, the NJTPA has assembled an advisory group representing the region’s wide variety of interests. The Regional Transportation Advisory Group brings together a spectrum of interests including cyclists, ferry operators, representatives of the region’s minority communities, motorists, disabled travelers, rail freight companies and businesses.
The Advisory Group serves as a sounding board for the Strategy Evaluation study as it progresses through the different stages agreed upon by the NJTPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. When completed, the study will contain discrete transportation performance goals for different sections of the North Jersey region, as well as a list of localized transportation needs.
The group first met in mid-February to discuss the localized performance goals and needs identified for the region.
Members of the group asked questions and provided feedback used to further refine goals and needs. The NJTPA Board of Trustees approved these goals and needs at its March 11 meeting.
The Advisory Group next meets on April 30 to discuss the project’s subsequent steps, including the development of specific strategies that will be used to reach the goals already adopted.
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The NJTPA expects to have a new software program developed and fully operational in all 15 of its subregions in time for the July 1 start of Fiscal Year 2003. The STP Cost Tracking Software System was developed by the NJTPA, following comments received from the subregions about the time involved in preparing the required quarterly financial reports.
The STP Cost Tracking System will allow the subregions to set up and monitor budgets, track employee work time and costs, keep notes on daily activities, track quarterly expenditures, track DBE participation as necessary, and generate quarterly invoices and reports. The software system also may be used as a project management tool.
It requires employees to record their work time by task, enabling a subregion to see how an employee is spending his or her time on each activity and a financial summary of the entire program.
Once the system is set up – and employee time and quarterly expenses are entered – the software automatically calculates billing amounts and generates the required invoices and reports that must be submitted by the subregions every three months. “The STP Cost Tracking Software System will help the NJTPA summarize the data more efficiently, because all reports from the subregions will be standardized,” said Tracy Lockhart, NJTPA Manager of Finance and Administration, who helped design the program.
Igor Sorin, NJTPA Senior Planner of Tools Development, wrote the innovative software program, which is being provided at no cost to the subregions. The NJTPA also will provide comprehensive training and support. Once the system is completely installed and thoroughly tested, use by the subregions will be mandatory.
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The NJTPA Board of Trustees, at its March meeting, approved $20 million in federal funds for county and city road and other transportation projects. The funding comes from the Local Lead Program, which gives the NJTPA’s 13 counties and two cities an opportunity to apply directly for federal funds to advance local projects through final design, right-of-way acquisition, and construction.
The Local Lead Program is an annual competitive grant program. The NJTPA and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) provide guidance throughout the course of each project. “The projects funded through this program show the commitment of all the counties within the northern New Jersey region to apply for federal transportation funding,” said Monmouth County Freeholder and NJTPA Board Chairman Theodore J. Narozanick.
By county, the projects funded are:
Essex County
$4 million for roadway resurfacing and related work on Stuyvesant Avenue in Newark and Irvington.
Hudson County
$850,000 for resurfacing, drainage, traffic striping, curbing, and sidewalk improvements on JFK Boulevard in Jersey City.
Hunterdon County
$250,000 for the Hamden Bridge Bicycle and Pedestrian Project in Clinton Township and Franklin.
Middlesex County
$750,000 for noise barriers on Route 522 in South Brunswick.
Monmouth County
$1.4 million for the Monmouth County Sidewalk Safety Project in various municipalities.
Ocean County
$600,000 for the milling and resurfacing of Herbertsville Road (Route 549 Spur) in Brick.
Somerset County
$300,000 for the milling, resurfacing and related work on Main Street in South Bound Brook.
Sussex County
$1.4 million for resurfacing and guide rail upgrades on Sussex County Route 565 in Wantage Township.
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| One of two existing bridge abutments in Hunterdon County onto which a pre-fab bicycle and pedestrian bridge will be placed. |
Union County
$3.15 million for the Rahway Signal Modernization Program to replace inferior and failing signal equipment in Rahway.
$2.7 million for milling, resurfacing, handicap ramp construction and related improvements along 14 miles of various county roads.
Warren County
$300,000 for the Warren County Highway Sign Management System to obtain a computer software system, fund required training and conduct a comprehensive inventory of damaged or missing signs within the entire county road system.
City of Newark
$3 million for resurfacing and related improvements on Market Street and Elizabeth Avenue.
Jersey City
$1.3 million to complete the milling and resurfacing of Bergen Avenue.
In addition to the Local Lead program, several other programs support improved mobility in the NJTPA subregions including:
• Local Scoping Program – provides federal funds on a competitive basis to subregions to advance proposed projects through preliminary engineering and federal environmental reviews. Projects often “graduate” from this program to receive funding under the Local Lead program.
• Subregional Transportation Planning Program – provides funding to subregions to complete a core set of planning activities including collecting data, analyzing project needs, facilitating public participation and using GIS applications. fSubregions also can apply for Supportive Tasks that involve studies of regional needs and issues.
• Technical Study Program – provides funding for in-depth studies to identify potential transportation solutions for a particular system or study area consistent with NJTPA's Regional Transportation Plan.
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NJTPA Chairman Theodore J. Narozanick, announced assignments to the NJTPA’s three standing committees for 2002. Committees hold monthly meetings two weeks prior to NJTPA Board meetings.
Officers of the committees are as follows:
Freight Initiatives Committee
• Chairman Peter Palmer, Freeholder, Somerset County
• Vice Chairman Bernard M. Hartnett, Jr., Hudson County Executive
Planning & Economic Development Committee
• Chairman Daniel P. Sullivan, Freeholder, Union County
• Vice Chairman William “Pat” Schuber, Bergen County Executive
Project Prioritization Committee
• Chairman Paul C. Sauerland, Jr., Freeholder, Hunterdon County
• Vice Chairwoman Susan Zellman, Freeholder-Director, Sussex County
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On April 11, members of NJTPA Central Staff participated in a summit on alternative fuels at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, New York. The National Alternative Fuels Day and Environmental Summit was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Clean Cities Program, which supports public-private partnerships that deploy alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs).
The summit began with discussions of the health impacts of diesel fuel and the merits of alternative fuels. Inhalation of particles from diesel fuel is tied to health problems like asthma. This disease is prevalent in places like the South Bronx and Harlem, where there is a high concentration of bus depots and diesel truck traffic.
The summit also discussed the major challenges to implementing AFVs including the expense of the vehicles and the lack of refueling and maintenance infrastructure.
Among the success stories highlighted was the Manhattan Beer Beverage Company, which converted its fleet of vehicles from diesel to natural gas
Such successes are made possible by strong leadership, tax incentives and retaining effective fleet managers.
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Wayne Bradley, NJTPA Planning Director, speaking to high school seniors from Newark's Science High School on February 7. The students visited the NJTPA as part of a Junior Achievement program that allows young people to get a first-hand look at various professions. They heard presentations on transportation planning and capital programming and participated in an interactive session about human resources. |
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NJTPA’s Freight Initiatives Committee, chaired by Somerset County Freeholder Peter Palmer, held its third meeting on April 8. More than 50 people, representing a wide range of regional freight interests, attended. The meeting featured a presentation on the Comprehensive Port Improvement Plan (CPIP), a $3.2 million planning study on harbor and landside improvements needed to support port traffic expansion. The study is sponsored by a consortium of seven agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the Port Authority of NY&NJ and other New Jersey and New York agencies. CPIP is looking as much as 60 years into the future to help the metropolitan region sustain and manage port growth. It will include development of an Environmental Impact Statement. CPIP representatives at the meeting said they will work closely and coordinate with the NJTPA and other agencies that are responsible for freight planning.
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The NJTPA hosted the third meeting of its Transportation Disaster Response Task Force, which was set up to address the dramatic impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the region’s transportation system. Participants in the March 15 meeting included representatives from many different federal and state agencies plus other institutions.
Among other things, the task force heard a presentation about a new study proposed by the NJTPA related to the region’s post 9/11 transportation system. The Critical Transportation Infrastructure Assessment Study — which the task force will oversee — is proposed as part of the NJTPA’s FY 2003 Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP). “This study will assess the impacts of 9/11 on both the traveling public and the region’s freight system, while generating ideas for the development of redundancies in the transportation system,”said NJTPA Senior Planner Chad McCauley.
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NJTPA and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are finalizing case studies that explore the opportunities for freight-related redevelopment of brownfield sites near the port, airport and rail terminals in northern New Jersey. Phase I of the study, completed in Spring 2001, found that the large number of brownfields sites in the port district are potentially valuable resources for helping the region accommodate and benefit from the huge expected growth in freight business activity over the next decade. Phase II of the study has been taking an in-depth look at four case study sites ranging in size from 12 to 130 acres. A more limited analysis is being conducted on three additional sites. The findings of the study are set to be released in a report and briefings in coming months. A Project Update newsletter and other information is available through the NJTPA website at www.njtpa.org.
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The 26th annual New Jersey State Transportation Conference and Expo, known as TransAction 2002, took place April 15, 16, and 17 at the Tropicana Resort Hotel, Casino, and Conference Center in Atlantic City.
Colette Santasieri, NJTPA Assistant Director of Project Development, moderated two timely panels, “Sailing into the Future on New Jersey – New York Ferry Services: What’s Happening and What’s Planned”, and “When Disaster Strikes: A Case Study in Emergency Coordination of the Region’s Transportation System.”
David Harris, NJTPA Manager of Regional Planning, moderated an enlightening session on corridor planning. John Hummer, NJTPA Manager of Freight Planning and Economic Development, served as a speaker on an informative panel titled “Brownfields Update: Innovative Approaches to Bringing Brownfields into Productive Use and the Important Role of Transportation in Making this a Success.”
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North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, Inc.
One Newark Center, 17th Floor. Newark, NJ 07102
(973) 639-8400; Fax 639-1953
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