Bridge Reopening will take months. Traffic impacts documented

The Clarksville Road Bridge remains closed and the project to fix it remains stalled, the Mayor reported at the Town Councll meeting on March 9. The bridge was closed by the NJ DOT on Nov 2 after a routine inspection found significant structural corrosion. NJ DOT needs a second permit from Amtrak to do the full inspection needed to provide options for repairing it. NJ DOT said that after the inspections are completed they will need four months to analyze the inspection results before they can provide options to repair it.

“It has been a very frustrating experience”, the Mayor said, referring to working with NJ DOT and Amtrak. “The bottom line is that somebody higher up, either the Governor or one of the Senators need to read the riot act to both NJ DOT and Amtrak.” to get them to do what is needed to complete the inspection.

The town sent a packet, posted on the town’s website, to the Governor’s office on March 2 asking the Governor to declare a temporary State of Emergency for the affected area. The packet included letters from Timothy Lynch of the Department of Public Safety and Chief Robert Garofolo of the West Windsor Police Deparment among others. The letters document that the time to respond to an emergency on the other side of the bridge has risen significantly and that traffic accidents caused by re-routing traffic have increased.

Chief Garofalo did some analysis to estimate delays caused by the bridge closure “What I did find is that according to google maps, it now takes 10 or 12 minutes to get to Kestrel Court from (police) HQ, depending which route you take, whereas it used to take approximately three minutes.” The Mayor stated at the meeting that responding to emergencies at Princeton Terrace: “Whatever used to take our fire company 2 minutes to go, now takes at least 10-15 minutes at non-busy times and up to 35 minutes in the evening at a busy time”

The Mayor is asking the public for help in getting NJ DOT and Amtrak to act. He said “At this point anyone is free to do anything. I am not holding anyone back. If someone wants to go yell at Amtrak, be my guest.”