DOT Awards Morris Twp. $210K For Mill Road

Morris Township has been awarded a $210,000 grant to help with the reconstruction of Mill Road.

The town is one of the 27 recipients in Morris County that received a total of $4.7 million in NJDOT Local Aid grants. 

The grants were announced on March 23 by the Christie administration, and all of the money will be going toward infrastructure improvement projects. Most of the Local Aid grants came from the Municipal Aid Program. There was a total of $78.4 million awarded statewide under 387 Local Aid grants.

Township administrator Timothy Quinn said the township was planning on renovating the road anyway, but he predicts the grant will cover about one-third of the total cost. The exact cost hasn't been determined yet because officials are waiting for the design to come back from the contractors.

Quinn said that some of the renovation plans for the road include correcting drainage issues, curving the road, and creating possible sidewalks and bike lanes.

"We're looking at making the major roadway safer for pedestrians and also bicycle access," he said.

Quinn said he's not sure when the Mill Road plan will come back from design, but he estimates that it will take about a couple of months to complete the project once the reconstruction starts.

There are several other major road projects in the works right now, but most of them are in the design stage of the planning process. Locus Street and Bailey Hollow Road are two of the roads that will also be repaired on this year. The cost for each project depends on the length of the road.

"A lot depends on what exactly has to be done, and the amount of roadway that has to be reconstructed," said Quinn.

Some roads in Morris Township that have been renovated in the past are Old Glen Road, Spring Brook Road and Armstrong Road. Quinn said reconstruction for Mill Road will be very similar to past projects.