Bergen Street Residents Lash Out at Lawrence Township Council Over New Roadway Markings

Members of Lawrence Township Council got an earful and more at their meeting last week (Sept. 20) when a half-dozen residents of Bergen Street and adjacent roads spoke up during the public participation portion of the meeting to complain about travel lane stripes and other road markings that were painted on Bergen Street, between Lawrenceville-Pennington Road and Cold Soil Road, earlier this month after the road was repaved.

The residents argued that the markings – including a double yellow line down the center of Bergen Street, white stripes denoting shoulders along each side, pedestrian crosswalks and lines alerting motorists where to stop at intersections – are an “eyesore” that have diminished their property values and – rather than the marking’s intended purpose of making the road safer – have given Bergen Street the appearance of a “freeway” that has prompted motorists to increase their speed.

Residents made several requests of township council during the meeting, including demanding that the painted markings be removed, that traffic calming devices like speed humps be installed instead, and that township police initiate a speed enforcement campaign in the area. 

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With about as many other residents sitting in the audience in a show of support, the six residents who spoke out expressed several concerns during the 45-minute discussion about the markings – which council members and Township Manager Richard Krawczun explained were part of an effort to make Bergen Street safer for pedestrians and bicyclists under the township’s Complete Streets policy, which was created last year to mirror the national Complete Streets initiative.

By the end of the discussion, council members were promising to “take a step back” and reevaluate the Complete Streets policy in the wake of such vehement opposition. Council, however, did not commit to removing the painted stripes or installing speed humps.   

“Your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears,” Councilman Michael Powers said. “We’ve heard your concerns. We’ll study it and report back.”

The discussion began when Oscar Fahrenfeld, a resident of the 400 block of Bergen Street, queried the reasons behind the road striping. 

“I’m here to express my concerns about recent striping activities that took place on Bergen Street. Why was this dramatic change made to Bergen Street, where we took an unmarked residential street and we striped it to look like a thoroughfare? If you’re going to make a change this big to a street, I would think you would want to involve the people on the street, the residents, to make sure they’re OK with this sort of thing. To the best of my knowledge, there was no notification.

“So I ask why?” Fahrenfeld said. “It’s my feeling that this marking has had a negative effect on the value of the homes on Bergen Street. I think that any potential buyer that comes in to Bergen Street now will look at the street and say, ‘This is a major thoroughfare.’ It’s marked that way. And my concern is that it’s had a negative impact on our property values. My other concern is I don’t think it will work, if the intent was to calm traffic. I’ve been living on Bergen Street for 20 years observing the traffic patterns. I was out in my yard this weekend, both days, watching the traffic patterns. And from what I can tell there has been no change whatsoever. Was there a traffic study done that indicated this striping was necessary? Were there other methods that could have been considered? I don’t know because we didn’t receive any information.”

“Yes, it was a conscious effort,” Mayor Greg Puliti answered, explaining that under the Complete Streets policy the markings are intended to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety. “We had a couple compliments on it; that people appreciated what we did. I’m sorry you’re disheartened by what we did. As far as notification, normally when we do street repairs or street safety enhancements, we don’t notify everybody. It’s not our practice. We would probably spend a lot of money [in order to do such notifications].”

He noted that years ago there was a lot of opposition when speed humps were first proposed for use on township streets. But now many township residents have embraced the speed humps as a successful method of slowing traffic. “That all turned out for the better,” he said.

Krawczun added: “The idea is that the Complete Streets program tries to add to both pedestrian and bicyclist safety by improving their mobility in concert with vehicle traffic. When you stripe the wide shoulders, the manual for uniform traffic control devices requires that the double-striped yellow line is installed as well so there is no passing. Bergen Street is what traffic engineers would consider a ‘collector road,’ where there’s traffic being taken to locations – for example, Cold Soil [Road] and Lawrenceville-Pennington Road. So with those items in mind, this is consistent with the policy that, as the mayor pointed out, was reviewed by both the planning board and the town council. It was brought forward to the planning board, originally, by a task force – the bike and pedestrian task force, formed of citizens here in Lawrence Township.”  

A section of Princeton Pike was the first road in the township to be repaved following the adoption of the Complete Streets resolution that was wide enough to qualify for all the marking outlined in the new policy, Krawczun said.

 “Bergen Street was the next roadway where the public right-of-way is wide enough where we could accommodate the wider shoulders for ‘share the road’ purposes.  There have been some other streets paved in Lawrence since the adoption of the Complete Streets policy but they were much more narrow and therefore we could not accommodate the proper lane-width and shoulder-width for vehicle traffic,” Krawczun explained.

Fahrenfeld noted that the new shoulders on Bergen Street are not quite wide enough for vehicles to park entirely within the shoulders. “What are the implications of that shoulder in terms of parking?” he asked.

“There is no implication. That’s why it’s a ‘share the road’ [lane] versus a bike lane. If we striped it as a bike lane, then we would have to prohibit parking. And that’s not our intention,” Krawczun answered.

“Let’s say this does not work – and I believe that it will not work – what options do the residents on Bergen Street have going forward? Is there a possibility of getting speed bumps put on Bergen Street? They’re already on Yeger [Drive], they’re already on Gordon [Avenue]… Those streets already have speed bumps on them but yet a different approach was taken with Bergen and I think that’s what’s got us angry,” Fahrenfeld asked.

“I don’t think that there was a different approach,” Krawczun answered. “It just so happens that Bergen has a wider right-of-way than the other two roadways that you mentioned. That’s one of the primary reasons that Bergen received striping after the repaving and the other roadways did not. Cold Soil [Road] has some of the same striping that has been applied since the repaving.”

Krawczun continued: “I have spoken to the [township] engineer about removal of the striping. The problem you’re going to have is, if the yellow lines were to be blacked out, all the lines would have to go [and] it’s going to look aesthetically much less pleasing. We’re not going to be able to go back and repave the road. One of the [other] options is actually grinding [the stripes] out. If you grind out those stripes, certainly there’s a substantial cost, and then there’s a disturbance to the repaved surface and you going to be suspect to cracking and damage as winter comes and you’re going to get water penetration. So it would be a condition that would be a lot worse than the new surface.”

Fahrenfeld argued that he had read about a process that uses a jet of water to remove painted stripes from roads. Krawczun said he was unaware of such a process and asked Fahrenfeld to forward the information for the administration to review.

Acknowledging that his did not have the statistics and appropriate regulations at hand, Krawczun expressed doubt that Bergen Street would qualify for speed humps due to its status as a “collector road” and the volume of traffic that it sees. But he promised to look into the matter.

Ruthann Jennings, who lives on Woodlane Road at the corner of Bergen Street, followed Fahrenfeld and continued the assault on the Complete Streets policy.

“I don’t believe the Complete Streets initiative is nice,” she said. “Let’s not do this to the rest of our community. It’s very unattractive. Nor do I think it’s safe. I think you set Bergen Street up to look like a freeway. And I believe people are going to drive on it like a freeway. And I think, similar to what the gentleman [Fahrenfeld] said before me, you have completely dropped the value of our houses with the swipe of a paintbrush… We really have to consider un-doing this, because what you’ll do is you’ll say is the road is getting unsafe and you’ll add more signage, you’ll add lights… It’s really unattractive. You need to look at the Complete Streets initiative and not do it throughout the community.

“My intersection looks like Times Square,” Jennings continued. “I’ve got a wide 3-foot line where cars are supposed to stop. I’ve got crosswalks going four ways. It’s not pretty. Don’t do it to our community. And I think that lineage can be un-done. And yes it will cost money but we have all lost value in our homes. So I think the township should un-do it. I hate looking outside. I think that if you’re going to do that through the whole community, the community needs to be completely aware that you’re just going to paint all these unattractive lines – yellow, white, shoulders, crosswalks, big lines to stop. We’re not like an urban community. We teach our children how to cross and where to cross, we teache people how to be aware of who is on the street… It’s just not necessary.”

Hugh Lavery, a resident of the 400 block of Bergen Street, said he has serious safety concerns over the new striping.

 “Before the lines occurred we had a problem with speeding on the street, and I’ve expressed that to a number of people. It is a throughway between Cold Soil and Lawrenceville-Pennington roads. Automobiles, commuters, delivery vans, school buses – really don’t observe the 25 mph speed limit. I don’t have a speedometer, but I think some days they’re up to 40 or 50 mph. That’s a pretty significant concern. But when you painted the road – and, by the way, I want to thank you for paving it, because I think that’s an improvement – but when you paint it like a freeway, people are going to treat it like a freeway. So I think what’s happened is we’ve exacerbated and we’ve worsened a problem that already existed in terms of people speeding down our street. So while I do appreciate the fact that you paved the road, I am concerned, now, about what has become more of a speeding issue. I am not so concerned about my home value – it is what it is – but I’m more concerned about safety on the street…” Lavery said.

Saying his is worried for the neighborhood children, the elderly who may have difficulty hearing and the bicyclists and joggers who use Bergen Street for exercise, Lavery asked council members to remove the double yellow line (but leave the white shoulder markings for bicyclists); install speed humps to slow traffic down; and have the township police department maintain a presence in the area to catch speeders.

Speaking out next to council was Carole Bentivegna of the 100 block of Nassau Drive.

“It’s an eyesore,” she said of the markings. “I don’t believe it is calming traffic. It just encourages people to say, ‘It’s a major thoroughfare. Let’s drive faster.’ It’s ridiculous the way it looks. The road, while it’s wide enough to accommodate these lines, is not very wide. As someone else said, when cars park along the side of the street, they are over top of the white line and impinging on the traffic lane.

“When it was unpaved, people would freely drive where they needed to on the road to accommodate cars or brush along the side of the road and other [oncoming] cars,” Bentivegna  said. “Last week, after the lines were [painted], was the first time that I nearly had an accident on Bergen Street in 16 years because I was trying to avoid the cars parked on the side of the road and the car coming toward me said, ‘This is my lane.’ They didn’t want to move over for me moving over to accommodate the cars on the side of the road. So I don’t think this is really helping the safety of our street.” 

Similarly, Vytas Laitusis of the 300 block of Bergen Street said he is concerned about people speeding on a road that is used by many children to walk to Village Park and to Lawrenceville Elementary School.

Robert Williams of Dustin Drive spoke about the “tortured history” of Bergen Street and noted that many plans have been proposed over the years to address the concerns of residents about traffic. But in his opinion, the only solution is to install actual traffic calming devices like speed humps.

“What you are hearing tonight is that the road is inappropriate for a residential area, and particularly that residential area because there is no commercial development anywhere in the vicinity,” Williams said. “I can tell you, even though I back up to Bergen Street, there are times when you take a risk of stepping off the curb. It was bad enough in the past. But now, with people on their cell phones, playing DVDs in the car, paying no attention… I think the only thing that will slow traffic down is speed bumps, properly placed. The striping – it’ll help for about a day, until people get used to it, and then they’re going to be right back to their speed unless there’s something that slows them down. I think the big yellow strip is the probably a rotten byproduct of a good idea.

“Just to end on a positive note, whoever did the striping did a nice job. They’re nice and straight, they’re not squiggly,” Williams said, soliciting a few chuckles from members of council.

Mayor Puliti, responding to the residents, said: “Obviously, this was the first one. And it’s very interesting to hear the reaction in the neighborhood. It started out at the planning board stage and came to council with many recommendations. That’s how it originated. So I’m not going to apologize how it got here. But now that we’re here, it sounds like we need to take [a step] backwards, definitely re-look at the speed bump issues and go from there. Loud and clear. We all heard… If this is something that is going to get opposition all over town, it’s time for council to take a step backward.”

Councilman Bob Bostock confessed that he was surprised when he first saw the new markings on Bergen Street. “It was quite a dramatic sight… I think the striping definitely changes the character of the neighborhood. It does look like a thoroughfare. It’s a 25 mph road, but it’s striped like a 35 or 40 mph road. The concern is, is this going to have the unintended consequence – because you don’t see very many 25 mph road striped like this – of drivers going faster. I think before we do any more Complete Streets stuff we really need to look at it… I also think we need to see what options there might be beyond milling to remove the paint.”

“I appreciate all of your concerns,” Councilwoman Pam Mount said. “Certainly when you have something that’s very different from something you have always had, it’s something to get used to. Before this proposal went to the planning board, the Sustainable Mobility Committee spent a great deal of time and effort researching Complete Streets. And we have a number of road experts and engineers on that volunteer committee and they worked very hard. The issues were to try and promote walking and biking safely in Lawrence Township. We are working very hard to build trails in as many places as we can to get people out of their cars, to allow children and families to walk. It was a specific attempt to create a safer environment for walking and biking.

“I do caution that we give it a little time to settle in before we condemn a good intention,” Mount said. “It may not have turned out exactly right on Bergen Street but the intention of building a community where people can walk and bike safely is certainly a good intention and laudable one.”

“The ultimate goal of this council is public safety,” Councilman Powers said in voicing his support of a reevaluation of the Complete Streets policy. He noted that, over the years, the township has had and he spoke of earlier this year during the annual Anchor House Ride for Runaways. “As a councilperson, I want to make sure we have done everything to make sure this town is safe.”