Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST
By Tammy Duffy
Final blueprint of American Metro plan, Princeton Ave was not closed
No one issue impacts our quality of life and generates so much passion, as the issue of how growth can affect a city and how residents should deal with it.
If you’ve lived in Hamilton, NJ, Mercer County for any length of time, you’ll have noticed that our air quality has deteriorated; noise pollution has significantly increased and political corruption is alive and well. The traffic makes one think of Los Angeles or New York with their millions of residents, rather than a town in Mercer County, NJ with a population of only 90,000.
As more and more developments are approved and built, we incrementally remove more and more trees, pave over more and more of our urban land, have increased water usage that results in increased pressure to water outlets, more crowding in our schools, and a seeming loss of that “small town” feel we all moved here for.
You hear people call for “balanced growth” or “smart growth”. If either one of those strategies worked, every town in the U.S. would be a veritable paradise. In fact, almost the complete opposite is true. Most cities in the U.S. have lost their quality of life, prompting people to move out of cities like Hamilton, NJ.
Economic development is a vital city service that helps enhance communities today, and for future generations. However, when economic development is done in a haphazard and unsafe manner, it destroys towns, wastes taxpayers dollars and creates environments that can harm residents physically and monetarily.
Several years ago there was development to the American Standard complex in Hamilton, NJ. During an OPRA request, we uncovered the haphazard, unethical, and extremely poor due diligence by the leadership in the town. They created an extremely unsafe community for residents that clearly has now taken a large bite out of their backsides. Their gross incompetence and continued negligence to address the issues have and will inevitably cause increased deaths and injury to residents in the township. It already has. A youth was decapitated when his vehicle went off the road where no guard rail was installed a few years back.
Since the development of the American Standard complex, Sweetbriar Ave has become a road of continued dangerous, destructive, and continuous 24/7 heavy tractor trailer traffic.
The residents in the area in their diligence to find alternative ways to eliminate this traffic problem have found that the NJDOT is currently attempting to make amendments to the Administrative Code regarding heavy truck traffic. These amendments along with a list of specific reasons to generate an investigation by the Department is the reason several residents sent letter to the NJDOT, the Mercer County Executive's office, the Township of Hamilton's offices and Governor Christie's office. Can you guess how many responses they got from the leadership? One of the residents is a retired 35-year worker of the DOT and her plea for help went unanswered, initially.
The homes in the neighborhood are experiencing constant pounding which causes their homes to shake, which over time has caused structural damage. They have experienced broken windows due to the velocity and level of noise these trucks create is beyond acceptable limits. Their front lawns have been dug up from the huge tire tracks as well as our concrete curbing broken, all of which we as homeowners must incur the expense to repair.
The road has been habitually collapsing in front of one of the homes on this street. There has been water leaking from the water main and creating craters in the road, for years. In the winter months, this area becomes an ice skating rink due to the habitual leak that exists.
This habitual issue has been brought to the attention of all of their departments numerous times. This is well documented within the Mercer County Road Department as well. There have been numerous complaints by residents in the area on this issue. The complaints continue to focus on the structural damage that is occurring to all of their homes due to the issues being caused by this poorly installed water cut out and heavy truck traffic. The homes shake to the equivalent of a 4.0 earthquake on a daily basis due to the habitual issues that the town leadership refuses to address for several years. They do not even respond to the pleas from residents.
In a conversation with a DOT road inspector several weeks ago, it is clear that the past water leak and poor suboptimal rectification of the water leak in the road, has been caused by the Trenton Water Department. They refuse, according to the DOT to address this issue. The Mercer County DOT has been gracious over the years with constantly coming out to fix the craters in the road. These craters when hit by the large trucks that drive at and over the posted 40 MPH speed limit. The cars that drive on the road at an accelerated rate only blow away the cold asphalt that is used to fill the craters. The large trucks that travel the road tear up this collapsing road infrastructure, caused by the water cut out.
A voicemail sent to a resident by the Director of the Trenton Water Works, discusses the issues with the water that leaks from the cut out in the road (Sweetbriar Ave). The residents are appreciative of Mr. McIntyre's follow up, but from his message, clearly there are conflicts with the County that are slowing the optimization process of this issue. This matter cannot continue to be ignored. There is clearly a difference of opinion on who owns these issues.
The residents in the area are very concerned about what happened during the construction of this road several years ago. The contract was given to a company that did not specialize in road construction, they were friends of the administration. This contractor specialized in building homes and buildings.
It is clear from the State of N.J. Department of Transportation statutes that trucks are permitted to use Sweetbriar Ave to make deliveries. However, it is not stated anywhere that the trucks can use Sweetbriar Ave as a primary route of travel. There was a truck depot that was recently implemented on Whitehead Road is adding to the issue. Why are the trucks not using East State St Extension or Rt 1 for their primary mode of travel? There is no restriction to the two bridges that they would traverse in the event they followed this route. The trucks of all size and stature should not be traversing down the side streets off of Sweetbriar Ave as well. This happens on a daily occurrence. It is creating an extremely unsafe environment for residents. Why did the Hamilton Township Economic Development team allow this to happen and not plan routes around residential areas, when they knew this was already a huge issue?
Sweetbriar Ave also does not technically meet NJDOT standards since its shoulders are less than the recommended 4-foot width. This only amplifies the reason why trucks should not be allowed to travel down this street. This was a fact that we uncovered in the traffic studies that were done during the American Metro Way development during an OPRA request that was done.
This creates an extremely dangerous and life-threatening place to live for residents. As leaders of the town, they have an obligation to ensure the safety of the public. There are trucks that are labeled, "Oversize Load" constantly traveling the road, gas tankers, etc. In the event these types of trucks have an accident or issue in this residential neighborhood, it will no doubt lead to deaths and significant damage to residents homes. This would cost the residents and taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and reconstruction.
During the winter months one of these "wide load" trucks got stuck going up the hill on Sweetbriar on the ice. The truck was from Certified Steel. It was carrying a large load of steel. This created quite the traffic jam and dangerous situation. The Hamilton police were dispatched to guide the traffic and the county had to come out and drop sand around the truck so it could get up the icy hill. What did that event cost the tax payers?
There are buses picking up children in the morning having to deal with these speeding trucks as well. Can you imagine if one of these children were traumatically injured or killed by a tractor-trailer speeding down a side street or on Sweetbriar Ave? It appears the leadership in the township and county do not care if this happens. Their silence to the residents only amplifies their lack of concern.
An OPRA request on the construction that occurred on Sweetbriar Ave was performed recently on the American Metro Way development (The old American Standard complex). The results of that OPRA request are quite interesting. We have attached some photos that demonstrate where speed bumps and signage were part of the development, however none of this was ever done by the township to date. Where did the money go for these speed bumps and signage? They were never installed. When we reached out to the township there was no response on this issue.
The road studies were interesting as well. They did not take into account the closure of Princeton Ave. The analysis was performed with the intersection of Sweetbriar and Princeton Ave open. There were plans for 2015 to possibly close Princeton Ave. , but clearly not to close it during the initial development. (see attached photo below demonstrating Future 2015 and above photo showing Princeton Ave not closed)
The unscheduled closure (it's coincidental that the contractor who was awarded the road construction also lives on Princeton Ave ) has had a negative impact on the flow of traffic on Sweetbriar Ave and the surrounding roads. This has greatly affected traffic patterns on Sandalwood, Sweetbriar Ave and all adjacent roads.
The road, Princeton Ave miraculously closed one day. It closed with absolutely no notification to emergency personnel (fire, ambulance, etc) or residents. This is not how economic development should be done.
It was mentioned in a document from the OPRA request," While closing Princeton Ave at Sweetbriar Ave is beneficial to residents on that street, it may cause additional traffic to Sandalwood Ave. Motorists attempting to access their residences to the north of Sweetbriar Ave will utilize." This has happened and needs to be rectified.
When a road closures happen residents and emergency personnel must be notified. One week after this road was closed there was a house fire on Princeton Ave. The house was a complete loss in the fire. The family was not injured but they lost all of their pets and belongings in the blaze. The house was condemned and they later replaced it with a modular home. When the emergency crews got to the house to combat the blaze, they all said," When was this road closed?" One can only wonder if this home would have been a complete loss if fire crews did not have to waste time find a new route impromptu to reach the fire.
There was also a huge disparity between the estimate that was given by Schoor DePAlma and Pulaski Construction for this road development. Given that the township financed this work we do question why this did not go through the public bid process (there are documents in the OPRA request that clearly demonstrate there was no public bid). In the opening paragraph of Article 2 of the Public Improvements Construction Agreement, it could be interpreted to require that projects comply with the Public Bidding Laws.
" Redeveloper shall cause the Work to be performed in accordance with all applicable laws, ordinances, rules, regulations or order of any public authority having jurisdiction."
The Engineer's specifications made no mention of public bidding requirements nor did the bid form include this in the documents.
The construction cost of the project by Pulaski Construction, dated Feb 16, 2005 indicated a bid price of $1,030,306. While the engineer's estimate dated Feb 24, 2005, indicated a total construction cost of $668,500. A difference of this magnitude should have been evaluated and explained. There was no breakdown in the Pulaski bid and the quantities included on the engineers estimate. The township again had no response when we reached out to them for comment on this.
So, how could the township expend public funds on a construction contract that did not go through a public bid? This is not how the township should go about doing economic development. This not only waste taxpayers dollars but in the long run creates bigger systemic issues (like we have with the traffic on Sweetbriar Ave ). These issues will cost more money to rectify.
When will the speed bumps and signage that was part of the original project be installed? Does the township leadership have an explanation as to why this was never done? What happened to the money that was allocated to these calming measures that were never installed? Several messages have been sent to the township, county and state, there has been no response.
Traffic calming measures were to be used to address speeding and high cut-through traffic volumes on the neighboring streets during the American Metro Way development. While the traffic study included capacity analyzes at various intersections in the area, it did not address roadway conditions, sight distance calculations, and most important, traffic calming measures for the adjacent local streets. It also did not take into account the closure of Princeton Ave.
There is nothing in any of the documents that the township has available, to speak to an alternative strategy for the traffic issues. However, we did learn from the Twp Clerk , Ms. Gore, that all the digital files on all township computers (all employees) as well as all of their emails prior to July 2010 have all been deleted and destroyed. When we asked Ms. Gore if there was a certification done on the destruction of the government documents, she replied, "No certification was ever done. They were just discarded. I have been here 35 years and the certification would have to come through me." This is clearly against government protocol. It is illegal to do. Should the clerk and the township officials be held accountable for this?
Residents are also entitled to see productive and positive collaboration between the county, the township and the state to rectify these important issues. (repair of the water cut out on Sweetbriar Ave, elimination of truck traffic, noise pollution created by the trucks, completion of the American Metro Way project to include all of the calming measures that were planned, etc). This is not happening, the leaders are pointing fingers at each other and no one is taking ownership to bring the issues to closure.
During this same development project, Mayor Gilmore issued an Executive Order on March 7, 2006 that focused on controlling the levels of PCB that were exposing residents. The PCB was detected in the recycled concrete that was brought onto the site from Ford Motor Company, despite documentation claiming to demonstrate that the fill material contained no hazards and could be used without restriction. Mayor Gilmore implemented protocols in his executive order that focused on having state-licensed environmental engineers follow protocols established by the DEP. The order is pretty lengthy and detailed. The point of me mentioning this is that this should have been part of the development process. There should not have been a storm of PCB blowing around before someone noticed there was an issue. There were specific steps that were supposed to be taken to meet the expectations of the Executive order. We could not find any of the documentation during my OPRA request evaluation to demonstrate his requests were met. However, as you might remember in an earlier part of this story, we shared with you what happened to all the digital files and emails at the township. They were destroyed and not archived. So, maybe they did exist but are not recoverable at this point.
https://www.tammyduffy.com/ARTFASHION/index.blog?start=1427321295&topic_id=1130212
Above is a link to an article that Duffy's Cultural Couture wrote in March 2015. It focused on evaluating how well Hamilton was doing with the RFP that was released to the CYO for the Bromley Center. As you can see from the article, the continued lack of adequate follow-up by the current township officials is running rampant and wasting taxpayer dollars.
The State of NJ has road weight and size limitations for trucks that travel on roads, especially in residential areas. See link below.
http://freightagents.net/resources/RoadlimitationsUSA.html
The residents of the area are concerned about these guidelines not being followed and the continued use of trucks that exceed these guidelines that travel on Sweetbriar Ave. There are gas tankers carrying full trucks of gasoline traveling daily down the road. If one of those trucks ever has an issue with the brakes and has an accident, this would be catastrophic to the entire Cornell Heights area. This has been brought to the attention of the local township government and county numerous times. There is either no response or no rectification to this matter.
The residents are thankful for the recent installation of the guardrails on Sweetbriar Ave (near Sandalwood Ave and Princeton Ave). There were several vehicular deaths and severe car accidents attributed to the lack of these guardrails. These guardrails will save lives. During the installation of these guardrails there were police officers stopping trucks from traveling the road so that the guardrails could be safely installed. Why is it that this strategy was utilized for the workers installing the rails but is not also followed for the residents who live here every day? They walk or recreationally run or ride bikes to the train station, to the bus stops along Sweetbriar. In many spots are zero shoulders marked. Do the lives and safety of residents not matter to the leadership of this town and county? Why did so many accidents have to happen and people have to die before they approved to install the guard rails?
The amount and type of use a road receives determines the type and frequency of grading necessary. For example, trucks carrying heavy loads flatten the crown and create wheel ruts where water can collect and travel. Cars and trucks traveling too fast blow away the asphalt particles from the road surface and cause the road craters to reform. There is no policing of the road that has taken place in the decades that residents have lived there, even after numerous requests by residents of the area. The township mayor ignores all of the residents calls, letters, emails. When they call the police due to the speeding tankers, they have been told, “It’s not safe for our police to sit there and catch people speeding.” This has also attributed to the issues that remain on the road.
Proper road surface maintenance will get rid of ruts, bumps and potholes by cutting them out and restoring crown. Maintaining the crown is the best defense against having these problems return. There are other problems, however, that are being caused by traffic and water that require different solutions. It is the expectation of residents that there be a solution for this habitual issue. When we reviewed the planned projects for 2015, (see link below) this is not a priority or even on the list. We question why, due to the fact this has been a habitual issue for several years that was been brought to their attention.
http://nj.gov/counties/mercer/departments/pdfs/FINAL%20JANUARY%209%202015.pdf
The residents are of the opinion that if the county and township deem it necessary to continue to ignore this issue that this is gross negligence on behalf of the county and township leadership. Any water damage that can occur to their homes or yards that would be sustained as a result of the breakage of this water line and the continued collapse of the road, would be at a direct result of county and township continuing to ignore this important issue. The township and their leadership would be held liable.
In short, no one wants to work together to divert these trucks to a more alternate route which would not have such a devastating impact on a residential neighborhood. There are children in this neighborhood who take school buses to and from school. one in particular pulls over to the side of Sweet Briar Ave at 6:45 a.m to pick up students. Do the township officials need it spelled out for them what a tragedy it would be if one of those trucks lost control.
Let me point out, these trucks are also coming and going from an Industrial Park terminal located on Whitehead Road. They can be easily diverted to East State Street Extension, a much wider road capable of handling this weight. During some recent work on Sweet Briar, we were told the trucks were being diverted to East State St Extension until the work was completed. Why not permanently? Why when this terminal was approved by the township did the township not evaluate how it would affect the residents? I think we know the answer to that. Their gross incompetence kept them from doing the right thing.
The concerned neighbors have documentation from the decades of their attempts to get back a quality of life and allow them to enjoy our homes. Pictures of tractor trailers during snow storms attempting illegal U-Turns in front of our homes, video of trucks backing up the road for lack of adhering to road closure signs, failures to comply with speed limit and all the responses that Mayor Yaede and her staff never responded to. She stands on her pulpit portraying to be the "Saint of Follow Through", when this is truly not the case.
This creates an extremely dangerous and life-threatening place to live for residents. As leaders of the town, they have an obligation to ensure the safety of the public. Mayor Yaede calls herself the Public Safety director. This is just a title, she is doing nothing to ensure the safety of the general public in these issues. She is ignoring this issue like the heroin issue in her town.
There are trucks that are labeled, Oversize Load" constantly traveling the road, gas tankers, etc. In the event these types of trucks have an accident or issue in this residential neighborhood, it will no doubt lead to deaths and significant damage to residents homes. This would cost the residents and taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and reconstruction.
The residents would like to see a positive collaboration between the county, the township and the state to rectify these important issues. ( repair of the water cut out on Sweetbriar Ave, elimination of truck traffic, noise pollution created by the trucks, completion of the American Metro Way project to include all of the calming measures that were planned, etc)
As residents it is their desire to see a full restriction of truck travel down Sweetbriar Ave and the surrounding residential streets. Any other decision would be unacceptable and not be in the interest of public safety.
As future development unfolds in the township, one can only hope the leadership learns from these graphic and costly mistakes that were made in the American Metro Way project. As taxpayers we do not want to see our hard earned dollars wasted and public safety ignored in the development process.
However, they have not learned. The continued mismanagement and creation of extremely unsafe and hazardous conditions during economic development continues. Attached are photos of two construction projects that are actively occurring in the township. The old Patterson Chevrolet property (which remained vacant over 8 years) and the Mercerville Shopping Center.
At the Patterson Chevrolet site the unsightly appearance of the demolition is just one example of the inadequate economic development that continues in Hamilton.
If one takes a quick ride to Trenton High School, in Trenton, NJ, one can see a city that is focused on creating esthetically pleasing and safe atmospheres during demolitions and development. They have placed a camouflage fence around the entire perimeter of the high school. This ensures outsiders cannot accidentally get hurt and its esthetically pleasing during the process. Are the leaders in Hamilton unaware of these types of fences?
There are also 6 foot holes in the ground that were created with the demolition of the light poles at the Patterson site. There is no fence or hazard warning anywhere near these massive craters that have been created. Anyone can walk across the area and get their leg broken instantly upon coming up to the craters in the earth. Where is Planning and Compliance in Hamilton? The lack of vigilance in this development is an atrocity.
6 foot hole, with no hazard warnings
The Mercerville Shopping Center development has been going on for quite some time. We have photos we took at the site just today.
The fact that the township allows this to go on is outrageous. There is some flimsy cautionary tape placed to guard people from areas that have been completely ripped apart. There are unsightly scaffold placed at the entrances of Party City and Ace Hardware that resemble something you would see in a third world country, not in the USA. A small child could easily walk under it and get caught up in the unsafe environment that has been created by the contractors with the townships permission.
The placement of an industrial dumpster at the store fronts is also equally as mind boggling. In the past two cars both coming and going could traverse the store fronts. The placement of this dumpster no longer allows that in front of these stores. It creates an unsafe atmosphere for cars in the parking lot. Cars are zooming around the lot to avoid this dumpster, creating additional unsafe measures in the mall. There are nails riddled throughout the parking lot from the contractor as well. This has flattened the tire of store owners and shoppers of the mall. Where are the township inspectors? Where is compliance? Why is the mayor completely blind to these issues? Are they on permanent vacation? Why is there no accountability to contractors in Hamilton when development is occurring?
The negative trend continues from American Standard as it pertains to economic development in Hamilton Twp, Mercer County. The leadership did not learn from their gross negligence of the past and continues to make the same mistakes time and time again. The lack of leadership and focus on public safety is terrifying. The public's safety is considerably at risk and the leadership needs to be held accountable for their gross negligence and their significant lack of common sense.
Photo: Courtesy Daniel Keelan. Super WAWA on Rt 130 Hamilton, NJ.
