The reconfiguration of Garden State Parkway Exit 105 in Tinton Falls is still in the preliminary engineering phase, according to New Jersey Turnpike Authority Spokesman Thomas Feeney.
"We’re likely to schedule a public hearing before the end of the year," Feeney said in an e-mail to Patch. "We won’t have a construction schedule until the design is done."
Feeney said the authority's chief engineer, Rich Raczynski, told the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERA) board in June, 2011 that the final design would take about two years to complete.
The project will include improvements to Exit 105 and the intersection of Route 36 and Hope Road. The plans are part of a proposed $40 million plan to improve traffic flow in the area and improve access to Fort Monmouth.
A preliminary diagram was presented to the board at the meeting that roughly showed what the New Jersey Turnpike Authority plans to do at the intersection.
The main improvement at the Hope Road intersection would include a new ramp from the parkway north exit that would run between a neighboring hotel and the park and ride, and empty out onto Hope Road. Hope Road also would be widened north and south of Route 36, with new traffic signals installed.
Raczynski has said this would let drivers headed toward Hope Road avoid the Route 36 bottleneck that exists now from cars exiting the parkway and turning right onto Hope Road or taking the jughandle to go on Hope Road north.
Cars headed to Hope Road north would also take this new ramp south of Route 36 and then make a left onto Hope Road at the new light and proceed to cross over Route 36, without having to bother with the jughandle.
From this same area south of Route 36, there would also be a new lane that would take drivers headed toward the Monmouth Mall from Hope Road in Tinton Falls, through the woods and onto Route 36 east, completely avoiding the now-congested intersection of Hope Road and Route 36.
The existing ramps from the parkway south would also be widened and the jughandle would remain.
For drivers heading south on the parkway who want to get to the western portion of the fort, there are two proposed ramps that will completely bypass the current Exit 105 which now empties onto Route 36. These drivers would now be able to bear right off the Parkway onto Wayside Road. According to the authority, this gives new access to the already existing Pearl Harbor and Tinton avenues and Route 18 in both directions.
This would be the second major road project in the Tinton Falls/Eatontown area as the New Jersey Department of Transportation just . The intersection improvements allow easier access to Route 35 from Route 36, and vice versa.
With the most municipalities per capital (more municipalities than California), the way intersections are treated varies from town to town. This increases confusion and causes accidents. NJ municipal roads/streets officials would be wise to follow and use the guides from The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials when updating/fixing roads/streets. Their guides are available here: https://bookstore.transportation.org/category_item.aspx?id=DS&gclid=CPqqrunroLECFYFo4Aod2n-UYw
Wouldn't this also alleviate Hope Road problems??? Won't the Fort Monmouth redevelopment cause a need for this anyway??? So many questions....
1. "Dumping traffic onto Rt 36 and bypassing the light at Hope" Only one problem with this, the fact that the busiest time of year that causes these problems there involve Monmouth Park traffic, even if you were to bypass this light, you would still have a backup of traffic all the way from Oceanport along 36 causing a backup to there anyways. 2. "Making an exist 105a" Well, technically it would be exit 107-ish, but even still, the fact that it was never done when the Fort was at it's busiest time (Including the CECOM building days) tends to lend credence that they won't even consider it now when it's completely empty. Add in the fact that the land is really not available for an OFF ramp from either way due to Boro Hall, commercial and residential property, Besides, it's dangerous enough in front of the High-school without added Parkway traffic in the morning and afternoons as it is, something tells me residents would never stand for an approval to make it worse in this tiny area..
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Ft Monmouth close? A year ago? So what are we improving access for? Rats?
A $40 million dollar "ramp to nowhere" - are we Alaska (ala Ted Stevens)? While the Fort has closed and the area needs redevelopment, couldn't $40 million be applied to better use than a ramp that is questionable at best? The ramp won't solve the 35/36 interchange problems. Couldn't the $40 million be applied to seed money for high tech or pharma or bio-pharma replacement R&D labs or high-tech educational facilities? Isn't this a better use of scarce resources? But $40 Million on an oversized ramp gets our local politicians off the hook. They can point to the glistening arcing road with multiple clover leafs and declare SUCCESS. They can say they did their part in REDEVELOPING Fort Monmouth SUCCESSFULLY. Someone needs to tell the Emperor he has no clothes and stop this waste of taxpayer money. Who is paying for this (taxpayers - whether it's state or Federal dollars)? Is this the "Consolation prize" for losing 10,000 Federally-funded jobs? Once again, BRAC WASTES money (besides the upheaval of 10,000 jobs) all under the GUISE of savings. The only ":savings" was the saving of the Hartford MD economy from the influx of 10,000 NJ jobs to MD!