While the city of Bayonne doesn’t have the power to rebuild the New Jersey Turnpike Extension interchange to help reduce the heavy traffic that routinely clogs the northeast entrance into the city (see related story inside), officials recently were able to do something small to improve traffic patterns, said 3rd Ward Councilman Ray Greaves. Recently, Greaves, along with the Bayonne Police Department and the Department of Public Works, managed to correct some of the lane change problems for traffic coming off the Turnpike and onto Avenue E.
Just before Memorial Day this year, with the guidance of the Police Department’s traffic division, the Department of Public Works repainted some of the lane lines and installed new signs that would allow traffic to move more safely from the exit just north of East 53rd Street and onto the much more narrow Avenue E, which serves the city as one of its principle gateways.
“We’ve heard a lot of complaints about this year, of people who have come close to other vehicles trying to merge here,” Greaves said.
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“We’re trying to make that area as safe as possible,” Greaves said, noting that southbound traffic must go from two lanes to one lane and that before changes were made in May, merging was confusing, especially when traffic off side streets created an additional risk. “Drivers didn’t know where the lanes were, or even that they were supposed to merge,” Greaves said.
Gary Chmielewski, director of the Bayonne Department of Public Works, said his crew installed a new sign in the area to help warn drivers of the merge. The lines on the street, Greaves said, will make it clear when to merge and reduce the confusion many drivers had before.
“You really were taking a chance trying to merge before this,” he said. “You had to squeeze in nearly at 49th and 50th street.”
Police traffic specialist T.J. Joynt helped work out the details of the new pattern.
“We’ve heard a lot of complaints about it this year, of people who have come close to other vehicles trying to merge here,” Greaves said.
He said Joseph Simonette, a Bayonne resident, alerted him to the problem, and that since then he heard that this has been an issue for a while.
“We needed to take steps to make it safer for residents,” Greaves said.
The Turnpike unveiled yet a new plan for the reconstruction of the 14 A toll plaza, but most residents at the presentation last week found it unacceptable, saying it did little to deal with the basic problems in the area, except to put off the problem for a few years at a cost of $300 million.
The Turnpike Authority improvements will not even start until 2014 and won’t be completed until 2017, and so the city moved for a quicker fix to make the area safer.
For the cost of a few cans of paint and the installation of a new sign, the city will make at least one portion of the interchange safer and more functional, said Greaves.
Part of bigger effort in area
This, of course, is only one small part of an overall effort by the city to improve the gateway to the city, where closed gas stations and other eyesores give the city a blighted look.
Plans are underway to make other improvements to the area, including the takeover of several closed gas stations in the area for the expansion of a park.
Lowe’s home improvement center helped plant flowers in the area earlier this spring, and one small portion of city-owned land in the area is being used as a community garden.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.