To the Editor:

It has been eight years since community representatives, municipalities, traffic engineers, environmentalists, and the public developed a plan for the Route 1/Washington Road intersection. The principal components of the plan (called alternative, D.2.A) put Route 1 in a cut under Washington Road and added frontage roads on both sides of Route 1, a west-side connector road to Harrison Street, and a Vaughn Drive connector road. Taking all of these elements together, the NJ DOT envisioned area-wide improvements.

At the time, the New Jersey Department of Transportation stated, “Alternative D.2.A was selected as the preferred alternative because it provides a reasonable level of transportation benefit, while avoiding and minimizing environmental impacts. It represents a project that will achieve significant benefits without entailing years of delay due to extensive environmental permitting requirements. In short, it is a project that can be accomplished expeditiously.”

The DOT noted that it would provide congestion relief by improving traffic flow on Route 1, improving traffic flow on east-west routes crossing Route 1, and reducing traffic on residential streets; minimize environmental impacts to natural areas and species; reduce pollution; avoid residential displacements; minimize impact to historic properties listed with the National Register; and improve bicycle and pedestrian access and safety.

Having studied 20 alternatives, with many configurations, the NJ DOT concluded that the complete plan was needed, not a selection of the elements, instituted haphazardly.

Now the NJ DOT has gone against its own plan and, without community input, without computer modeling, has chosen instead to make employees, commuters, and especially residents of the Penns Neck neighborhood guinea pigs for an experiment that has failed in all parameters except perhaps in possibly improving traffic flow on Route 1 for a relatively short distance.

It is time to stop the Route 1/Washington Road experiment and to restore safety to the Penns Neck residents until funding can be obtained to do the job completely and effectively.

Sandra Shapiro

Wycombe Way