VIDEO: Mayor Menashe Miller and Deputy Mayor Albert Akerman last week met with officials in an effort to continue the widening of Route 9. Last year, the State managed to add a turning lane on Route 9 between 14th Street and Main Street by deducting 3 feet off each of the four 14 foot lanes, thereby getting an extra 12 feet from the road in order to add the turning lanes.
“When I first heard about it, I thought we would be losing mirrors left and right”, Mayor Miller said. “But to date, I haven’t heard a single complaint, on the contrary, all I hear is compliments how the traffic is really moving.”
The Mayor said he met in Trenton with Richard Krum and James Leonard from the Governor’s office and from the DOT regarding the project, which he hopes will now be moving along at a faster pace.
At the same time, Deputy Mayor Akerman as well as senior activist Bill Hobday, met with Senator Sean Kean for his assistance in the matter.
The Mayor has asked the Township Engineer to put together the sketch and the plans for widening the road between Main Street and Pine Street, using the technique used for the first phase of the project. TLS.
The intersection of Pine/James and route 9 really needs some work. If you are making a left turn from either side onto route 9, you really cant see where you are going and have to wait till the light turns red to make the turn. There are several cars that end up turning left on red because of this. Its a very unsafe intersection. If you eliminate the left turn from James onto Route 9 and instead make a jughandle where the aggressive property maintenance building is, this would make it a whole lot safer. I believe the property is actually for sale too.
Only one problem- from Main St to Pine there are currently only 2 lanes total to deal with, not as simple as when you have 4.
this is a problem and always willl be a problem rt 9 is a tough road to fix there is not much space to work with there are 4 lanes pass main street and it is still unsafe and congested
at pine street and james street there should be a left arrow, just like central ve, this would be a great solution
widening rt 9 will just add more traffic. At he end of the day nobody will gain.
If you widen Rt 9, they will build more developments on Rt 9. Leave it the way it is, and we’ll learn to live with it.
Want to help???? Stop building new developments in quiet residential areas.
There is an old saying – Within six months of widening a road it will again be too crowded. An example is Route 70 – The state widened it into a 4 lane divided highway with jug handles and lights. It used to take me less than 10 minutes to get to Kmart. Now it takes me over 20.
It was a great plan for north of main street, since they had four lanes that they could cut 3 feet from, giving them 12 feet for a new center turning lane. From main street south, there are two lanes, so there would only be an extra 6 feet freed up if they cut 3 from each lane, no where near enough for a new lane. Unless they take away the shoulder, which is not a good idea on a two lane road, since they need that for disabled cars to pull off to.
I still remember when Route 9 was 1 lane in each direction all the way till Old Bridge. Anybody remember the Freehold Circle?
A better idea might be to make Rt 9 a one way, with two lanes going toward Toms River. Then make Vine St a one way toward town. And open Vine St towards Cedarbridge.
Problem solved.
What about an elevated roadway?
There’s not enough room to widen Rt. 9 over there unless, they take parts of people’s properties, which they should have done years ago before Rt. 9 got so developed. I avoid Rt. if I can, like the plague, and I try to take alternate routes when I have to go that way, even if they are further distance-wise, they take less time to navigate.
i think the should make route 9 a two lane up too chesnut st not just add a turning lane that dosent help alot…..
Last week there was an article in the APP that said to make roads safer in NJ, in reference to many accidents on Rt. 70, was to make the roads WIDER. To make the roadway smaller, where you have so much development, and seniors living in the southern part, would possibly create a more dangerous situation.
It was one thing when there were 4 existing lanes to work with, but in this case, only 2 existing lanes, may become a more terrible condition.
#1 If you move the fire house the mexican store and the house on pine street you can have a nice flow of traffic. The state can do this because of emient domain,this was done many years ago on route 9 and ernson rd in sayerville.
I would love if the state used Eminent Domain to remove every building within 1,000 feet of Rt 9. Make it into one huge highway the size of the New Jersey Turnpike with ten lanes in each direction.
There would be much less traffic in Lakewood with so much space.
The Chinese would come more often to just to check out the beautiful highway.
This project would create enough jobs for every Lakewooder for the next ten years (including the next 100,000 additions coming over the next five years.)
The only drawback to this exciting plan is that the Fire House at Rt 9 and James would have to relocate, and they may build the next firehouse a little prettier, and spend some of the surplus. Then it would cause major friction by the next fire election.
But the pros definitely outweigh the cons.
A freilichen Purim to all!!
Buy up the property, and let the developers pay for it, because they caused it – with all the people they added south 9.
what was done till now is grest and should be continued its true no one is losing mirrors but there is an issue with trucks staddling lanes speeding, scaring and slowing down other drivers maybe they can be restricted to only one lane or something
Mr. Mayor………Please try to add a light to Martin Luther King and Pine…Please…its horrible.. the roads can wait.
If they want to improve on the limited space in Lakewood, how about building more apartment complexes, NOT houses? Most people can’t even get approved for the so called “affordable housing.” Statistics prove that to be true. The median household income in Lakewood is $36,516. With an income like that, you can’t even get approved for a $100,000 home.
New Jerseys average below poverty level is 9.1%. In Lakewood, the average below poverty level is 32.8%. BELOW poverty level. These 32.8% of the township are struggling to put bread, and water on the table.
Time to start building affordable apartments, NOT houses. That will improve on space, and the economy as well. People won’t ‘have’ to rent a house for close to $2,000 or more. Financially, having more apartments to rent is a great solution. It may not be as “glorious” as a nice big house, but it’s irresponsible if you are not living within your means. Otherwise, you will continue to accumulate more debt, and that isn’t fair to you or your family.
Well said #20.. I never understood how the typical learning family in this town can afford to live in a $400k hours, which normally would require $100k in annual income. Very bizzare! and yes, we need apartment buildings in this town, large complexes that could fit 200 apartments in the space that is normally used for 10 houses.
I don’t believe this should be there priority. Ultimately, that short stretch of route nine will not solve the general traffic issues in Lakewood.
They should start with Martin Luther and Pine. The issue there is fixable and it seems that no one wants to take action! The folks living i n the Ashley and Arlington area feel that their quite street takes precedence over the rest of the area, and that those streets shouldn’t be opened to Pine. I have no idea why the township refuses to put a traffic light there. So ultimately no wants to sacrifice for the general public. Thats why nothing gets done here.
Realizing martin luther and Pine has been mentioned I’m urged to write. Awhile back the township stated that the intersection will be getting a rental traffic light as a test run to see if it will solve the problem properly, it’s quite behooving how this rental process takes even longer than the building of a house here in town from the initial attorney’s review through approvals and construction and then even moving in, quite interesting if you ask me, is anyone else curious what takes so long? secondly, there is a crossing guard directing traffic daily during the 1:30-2:30 lakewood rushhour at MLK and pine, interestingly the gaurd transferrs positions to the exit of Forest Park and Pine at 2 o’clock daily, aside for the rationalization that there are many cars there, shouldn’t the public street be releived first? those coming up MLK can sit for 6 minutes daily to get through after 2 o’clock, and those making a left from pine onto MLK get messed up as well due to this setup, we’d be better off if the gaurd would go home at 2 o’clock, simply because standing at forest park and allowing a constant flow of cars onto pine street causes cars waiting @ MLK to not be able to have a break in the traffic flow to make the turns , without the gaurd there would at least be a fair chance, naturally, of times for alternating traffic flow!!!!!! how ludicrous, I think there is more behind this intersection!!!!
First suggestion I have, is to lengthen the turning lane at 9 north and prospect. Now that there is a bus company down prospect, every morning around 9am as they are returning to base, they block traffic since they can’t fit in the turning lane (more then 2 or 3 busses at a time can’t fit there…)
no 23
apparently you havent been paying attention. the decision to put a rental traffic light at that intersection was rscinded simply because it would be a debocle for pine st. because the rt 9 light is a state light and the mlk light would be a township light. this (seemingly inconsequential) issue would make it illegal to synchronize the rt 9 light with the mlk light. this would be a disaster for pine st. so while everyone is screaming and yelling for a light at mlk no one is thinking of pine st. the only solution is to open arlington and vine to divert traffic from mlk altogether. they almost opened arlington but some selfish neighbors blocked it. now we all have to suffer. maybe we can take those selfish neighbors to bais din and force them to pay all of us $25/hr for all the time we waste waiting at mlk and pine!
When I got married back in ’73, there were no large apartments. Most had only 1 bedroom , maybe a few with 2 bedrooms. The Yeshiva Apts. were built to accommodate growing families. We weren’t so spoiled as to expect 5 bedroom apts. with playrooms, studies etc. Now even a young kollel couple can start off in a 3 bdrm. apt, and people with just a few kids expect to live in a large house. I bought my house that only had 2 bdrms. when I had 4 kids and I didn’t even have more bdrms until I had 8 kids. (We did use another room for a third bdrm and the basement, but, it wasn’t quite a palace. People now are very spoiled.