No happy median
By JENNIFER KELLEY
Cherry Hill Sun
9/27/2006

Worried about traffic volume, residents vent opposition to Route 70 plan

Hundreds of Cherry Hill residents squared off against the state Department of Transportation at a contentious town hall meeting last week. It was held to present the DOT’s proposal for the future of median openings along Route 70 – or, rather, the lack of a future for the currently barricaded gaps in the roadway’s wide, grassy divider.

The plan presented would further limit U-turns and left-hand turns on the 2.5-mile stretch of state highway between Haddonfield Road and Interstate 295.

Six cut-throughs that had been in use until June of this year would be permanently closed, and the opening by the firehouse in the township’s Erlton section would be accessible to emergency vehicles only. The $1 million plan also calls for turning lanes to be lengthened at the Kingston Road and West Gate Drive intersection, the turn onto Cooper Landing Road and at the Barclay Farms Shopping Center entrance.

But despite repeated assurances from township and state officials that the proposal was designed to make the heavily congested corridor safer, residents spent the majority of the meeting criticizing the plan as misguided, illogical and dangerous for those living in neighborhoods alongside Route 70.

“What you are suggesting makes no sense,” resident Eli Hiller told a panel that included Mayor Bernie Platt and DOT Commissioner Kris Kolluri. “Your plan will only increase volume (on Route 70 and in surrounding neighborhoods).”

Other residents also told the officials present that closing the median openings was triggering an influx of frustrated motorists in their neighborhoods, who speed through looking for a way to either U-turn or avoid the frequent back-ups on the roadway.

“This plan is terrible,” said resident Susan Asman, who lives in Erlton South. “It will force more traffic into our neighborhoods. People get frustrated by the traffic (on Route 70) and the fact that they can’t turn left or turn around, so they speed through (residential) streets looking for a way around it.

“This plan does not address what’s going to happen when the cut-throughs are permanently closed,” she added.

“What’s happening on Route 70 is causing hardships for (area residents),” said Jackie Fleckner, who has lived in the Erlton section for 52 years. “(The DOT) has come to us with this plan for the cut-throughs without giving any consideration to (the safety of area residents).”

Platt and Kolluri, however, repeatedly told attendees that their goal was to make the accident-prone highway safer for drivers and pedestrians alike.

The results of DOT’s two-month study of the roadway’s traffic and medians – conducted between June and August – indicated that the closure of median openings increases safety along the corridor, according to a report compiled by the DOT and distributed to those in attendance at the meeting. “The more than 10-percent reduction in crashes along the corridor during the study, coupled with the corridor’s high accident rate, congestion and traffic volume, necessitates safety and operational improvements,” the report stated, noting that, as a result, the DOT is proposing the closure of seven (one opening is reserved for emergency use only) of the corridor’s nine median openings, in addition to improving and elongating left- and U-turn lanes and modifying the highway’s traffic signals.

“We want to make Route 70 a safer pace for everyone in the township, and make substantial engineering upgrades to an antiquated highway,” Platt said.

And, after listening to a litany of complaints from residents over the lack of access across the roadway for pedestrians, Kolluri vowed to return to the township with a plan for a pedestrian safety corridor.

“There will be a plan to make improvements at (Route 70’s) intersections to ensure the safe passage of residents,” he said.

“It’s a start,” said Art Campbell, director of the Cherry Hill Regional Chamber of Commerce, “but I don’t think it’s an end – there’s still a great deal of work to do on Route 70. Most of us agree that the cut-throughs in their current format are dangerous, but from the standpoint of business in the community, stacking lanes are needed so people can make left-hand turns. Until (they are constructed), we won’t know what the traffic flow will be or if we’ll need additional stacking lanes, which I suspect we will.”

Campbell also expressed his disappointment that turning lanes weren’t added or elongated prior to the closing of the median openings.

“Previous studies (done on the roadway) indicate stacking lanes should have been put in before the cut-throughs were closed,” he said. But, he added, “Their proposal for the addition of stacking lanes in certain places is a positive thing.”

Some residents, however, were still not placated by the meeting’s end.

“This plan hasn’t considered the neighborhoods that surround Route 70 and the widths of their streets, the merchants along Route 70, pedestrian traffic – nothing as far as Cherry Hill residents are concerned,” said Phil Guerrieri, president of the Erlton South Civic Association. “The only concern (for the DOT) is moving traffic from Philadelphia through Cherry Hill.”

Guerrieri also noted that sealing the median openings along the corridor “would absolutely put a border between the north and south sections of the area’s Erlton and Barclay neighborhoods.

“This proposal stands against the logic of ‘Smart Growth,’” he added, “which is supposed to be about developing pedestrian-friendly communities. But NJDOT is not interested in pedestrians; they’re interested in cars. It’s the mayor who is supposed to be interested in his township’s pedestrians, and he sold out.”

For his part, the mayor emphasized to residents that just because the state presented its proposal for improving the roadway, “it’s not a done deal. The meeting was held so we could listen to residents, and we did that. We heard what they had to say, took down notes and will take their concerns and recommendations under consideration.”

Platt also noted that “some things will have to be tweaked, and they will be.”

Kolluri plans to review comments from the meeting and, along with DOT engineers, determine whether any of their suggestions can be safely implemented, said DOT spokeswoman Erin Phallon, adding that the commissioner would then meet with Platt to determine how to move forward.

“(Kolluri) will also provide a pedestrian safety plan as soon as NJDOT’s engineers can craft one,” Phallon told The Sun.

In addition, both Platt and Kolluri assured residents that there were no plans in place to widen Route 70 – a major concern of residents in the Erlton and Barclay neighborhoods, who fear such a measure would ruin their communities.

“We have no plans to do so this year, next year or the year after that,” Kolluri said.