Morristown Talks 'Traffic Congestion' and Land Use

A walkable Morristown, land use and open space preservation were among the topics discussed Monday as residents and officials craft a vision for the future of Morristown.

Morristown Moving Forward charrette week kicked off at the Hyatt HQ Plaza to collect input for the town's Master Plan project, with the public invited to a series of presentations through Thursday.

Circulation Mobility

“Everyone wants a walkable and bikeable Morristown,” said Daniel Hernandez, Morristown director of planning. “No one likes the traffic congestion that happens at certain hours of the day, except some of the retailers. We don’t like the idling and the long traffic lights.”

He added that officials will be looking at the corridors in and out of Morristown.

“You have to think about streets, not as where cars drive and pedestrians walk, but they’re places where your house front is on too and where a retailer has their front door on ... look at those places as also social places where people interact and commerce actually happens," he added.

Janet Jenkins, of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., spoke about mobility.

“We’re doing a really unique process to link the intended land use and the transportation circulation for Morristown,” Jenkins said. She said that they plan to classify roads by their uses and how they relate to the actual community and land uses. “This creates a hierarchy of streets. We’d like to hear back from (the public) on how the streets work for you.”

The focus areas include:

• Regional connectors: Morris-Spring-Speedwell; Washington-South Street; Route 287;
• Local connectors and bypass routes: secondary connectors to the region, such as Abbett, Elm, Maple, MLK, Ridgedale;
• Local corridors and activity districts: the Green; Train Station district; Speedwell Avenue; South Street; Washington Street.

Land Use and Urban Form

“This is where we get into talking about what do we want Morristown to look like, what uses do we want to see where and how do we address the streets to create the walkable streets that we so desire,” said Hernandez. He introduced Keith Covington, of Third Coast Design Studio, who continued the discussion on land use.

“(We need to) not only look at use, but the form of community,” said Covington. “Based on our observations in the area, input we received from the community in January and good planning principals, we have created a map that looks at all these different character areas.”

He added that during Charrette week, the public and come and learn and discuss with planners about these different character areas, such as what general planning and design principles the town has for them.

“That’s what we want to hear from you, are we on the right track? Is the intensity right for this are? Are these the appropriate building types in these areas?” said Covington.

The presentation shows that they plan to look at: building types; preservation and development; design character.

Public Realm and Urban Design

Hernandez is looking for public input on the public realms around town such as open space and plazas and how to make them accessible.

He added that they want to start looking at redevelopment plans as redevelopment areas within a district, so that when the town is developing that area, it’s not just about the plan, but its relationship to the area around it.

The Morristown Moving Forward activities continue as follows:

• 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday: Design Studio Open House, 18 N. Park Place;
• 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Design Studio Open House, 18 N. Park Place;
• 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday: Presentation of final designs, Hyatt HQ Plaza

Check out the Morristown Moving Forward website for more information.