Residents: Don't Extend W. Hanover Ave. Traffic Study

Several residents of West Hanover Avenue are concerned what will happen to their street if a traffic study is extended to their part of the roadway.

The concern comes after the on June 27, asking the freeholders to extend the study an extra quarter-mile to the traffic light at Burnham Road and Stiles Avenue.

The study, which has been going on for over a year and runs 2.4 miles on East Hanover Avenue from Speedwell Avenue to Whippany Road, is evaluating current congestion in the area and estimating what the impact could be from the proposed redevelopment projects in Hanover.

The residents living in the portion of the roadway that the township wants to add to the study are not happy with the request to evaluate the traffic in their area. They fear their two-lane part of the street could be extended into four lanes, a request that has come up several times before.

"I stand against the expansion of West Hanover Avenue," resident Ken Johnson said. "I want to maintain the community on both sides of the street, for the safety and benefit of the people who live here."

This also comes after a recent resolution approved by the on June 21, opposing the widening of West Hanover Avenue. The resolution states that making the stretch of road four lanes "will eliminate the minimal front yards and off-street parking that currently exist on these residential properties, which will decimate the character of this residential neighborhood."

That section of Hanover Avenue from Speedwell to Burnham and Stiles is the only section that has two lanes, where the other sides of the roads past the traffic signals have four.

Township Committee Member H. Scott Rosenbush believes studying the extra part of the road will aid the traffic study in finding solutions to the congestion.

"While we're studying almost the entirety of East Hanover Avenue for traffic solutions, I think we have to take our blinders off and look another half a mile west and include that stretch of road of the study," Rosenbush said.

But Rosenbush said adding the two extra lanes is not the only alternative, and they won't know what the options are until the traffic study is complete.

"We are not trying to work toward a specific answer," he said. "I don't know what the answer is. We know what the problem is, and the problem is too much traffic."

Freeholder Director Bill Chegwidden, who is also the mayor of Wharton, has been working with traffic studies for 15 years and thinks the option of adding additional lanes will attract more cars to the area and make the traffic worse.

"You're inviting more traffic," he said. "Now it's going to open up. Any study will tell you that the wider the road, the faster and more traffic will go on that road."

Chegwidden also said the traffic on East Hanover Avenue isn't different from other rush-hour traffic, and it is inevitable to occur at that time like other busy roads.

"Traffic is like water," he said, "it's what is going to happen. It's going to find its way and people are going to be going through this neighborhood."

Joseph Cecala, a resident on West Hanover Avenue, was a Morris Plains councilman in 2009 when there was another traffic study done in the area. He said they put cameras on the lights on both ends of the road to help the timing with the traffic, an alternative to adding extra lanes. He is also against the option of adding two more lanes.

"This is a residential area," Cecala said, "we have a lot of young families, medium age families and older families. Even though we are two towns, we are a community together. We have beautiful lawns, we have beautiful homes, we take care of our houses.

"Yet, do we like the traffic coming up and down our street? No we don't. But we knew that when we bought this house, this is what it was, and we have to deal with it. We don't want four lanes here. It's not safe."

Township Committee Member Bruce Sisler said that extension of the study is to benefit other sections of the area as well.

"My thought is to not disrupt their neighborhood, that stretch of road," he said, "but I have to look at two other sections of town, maybe three other sections, that could be impacted on the traffic that another town [Hanover] is doing."

Sisler said it won't be until the results of the study come back that the alternative will be decided.

"I know the people are upset when they hear a study, all of the sudden they think were going to widen the roads," he said. "That's not what the idea of the study is. We just want to see what the best alternatives are going to be."

Another alternative is switching the timing of the light signals, which was what was done in back in 2009.

The next step for the East Hanover Avenue Traffic Study will be determinned at a meeting between Chegwidden and Morris Township Mayor Peter Mancuso and Morris Plains Mayor Frank Dreutzler.

According to Diane Ketchum, the clerk of the freeholder board, the date has not yet been determined.

"We're just trying to facilitate this," Chegwidden said. "We're also looking to make sure that we take all the residents into account."