Asbury Avenue Road Project Could Crawl to Completion

The final phase of a long-awaited Tinton Falls road improvement project on Asbury Avenue could begin construction next March and be completed by the summer.

For the residents and business owners in the neighborhood of Essex Road and Pine Street, officials say it will mean safer roads, better pedestrian access and fewer incidents of road flooding. And for the government officials who began this project, it will mean the end of a nine year struggle to bring the project to fruition.

"This time it's finally happening," Tinton Falls Mayor Michael Skudera told an audience of more than 50 at a presentation hosted Wednesday by Seabrook Village.

The project, spearheaded by a  resident in 2003, was picked up by resident and now, Tinton Falls council president, Gary Baldwin, who worked hand in hand with Mayor Skudera, along with the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders.

"I was hoping I would live long enough to see this," Baldwin joked prior to the presentation.

The busy section of road includes an entrance to the parkway, several residential buildings, with many senior units, and a large number of businesses. The road is traveled by trucks and is also the back way to the, which have increased traffic in the last few years, residents say.

Poor sight lines, no shoulder and many senior drivers whose reaction time "is not what it used to be," in Baldwin's words, make for a dangerous stretch of road. The county reports that in just three years the intersections of Essex Road and Pine Street have has seen a combined 43 accidents.

Phase I of the construction plan began in 2006, with the last milestone of the project in 2009. The aim of the improvements are to:

• Drastically reduce road flooding on the steeply graded roadway;
• Provide safer conditions for drivers exiting Essex Road and Pine Street onto Asbury Avenue;
• Provide pedestrian access for local residents to the strip malls just south of the intersections.

The project has been held up with land transfers from the Garden State Parkway highway authority and private owners for right-of-ways (which have since been resolved) and ran into serious slowdowns when Tinton Falls officials added a sidewalk component to the project.

The sidewalks are critical, Baldwin said, especially for the three residents of Pine Street who hit the roads in their motorized scooters.

The addition required new environmental permits, the approval of which has been slow. Monmouth County Engineer Joseph Ettore said at Wednesday's presentation he expects to have them in hand next week.

Ettore noted that the project would have lagged further if it had not been for Mayor Skudera who, along with Baldwin, traveled to Trenton to meet personally with state environmental officials. Their presence, he said, "made the process go much quicker." Skudera, who was a member of council before he became mayor, has been working on the project since 2005.

The sidewalk project will run about 400 feet onto both side streets on the south sides and continue onto Asbury Avenue where they will head south and connect with existing sidewalks of shopping centers. On Essex the sidewalks will not extend all the way to Seabrook Village but Tinton Falls officials said that will be something the town will eventually complete. The sidewalks will cost an additional $75,000 and be paid for by an inter-local agreement between Tinton Falls and Monmouth County.

The entire project will cost just under $3 million and is paid by the county.

Here's what has been done so far in phases I and II:

• A temporary light was installed at the intersection of Asbury Avenue and Essex Road.
• The intersection at Pine Street was moved north out of the lowest lying area.
• Drainage in the area has been improved.

Here's what will happen in Phase III:

• Asbury Avenue will be elevated in this section.
• Essex Road will lose it's sharp elbow shape and be connected to Asbury Avenue at the same intersection as the recently relocated Pine Street. (Old Essex Road will be used as a natural detour before it is ripped up).
• A new traffic light with dedicated lead turn signals will be installed.
• The culvert under Asbury Avenue (or bridge as engineers refer to it on their maps) will be rebuilt to accommodate more water.
• Sidewalks will be installed.

"With confidence," Ettore announced the schedule for construction, saying after the bid process this fall, preliminary utility work would begin during the winter of 2012. Road construction will be set for March 2012 to limit detour time that might be drawn out by bad winter weather. He said he expects the project to take five months. 

Freeholder Lillian Burry, who has been closely involved with the project for years, acknowledged Wednesday that she and everyone else was tired of waiting for it to come together. But she said, she has learned something in her six years in office, "Doing anything worthwhile in government takes nine years."

Editor's note: This story includes information regarding the involvement of Tinton Falls Mayor Michael Skudera that was omitted in a previous story.