By Reuvain Borchardt

 

 

Here’s some good news for those who regularly endure insufferable traffic on Cross Street: Ocean County has announced a plan to widen the street to five lanes – two in each direction, plus a center lane for left turns — along its entire length from Route 9 to East Veterans Highway.

 

The complete widening project is expected to be finished by 2028.

 

“Cross Street is a vital artery in Lakewood Township – the fastest growing community in the state,” John P. Kelly, Director of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement. “This project is designed for the traffic that is there today, tomorrow and into the future. Ultimately the completed improvements should help us maintain traffic on this road for many years.”

 

As part of the Cross Street improvement, there are plans to install new traffic lights at Prospect Street and at White Road; and upgraded traffic signals at James Street/Franklin Avenue and at East Veterans Highway.

 

The announcements come as a major new development is being built at Cross Street and Massachusetts Avenue, and a legal battle is ongoing over a proposed large development at Cross Street and James Street.

 

The first phase of the Cross Street improvement project has already been completed: a center lane for left turns between Route 9 and Augusta Blvd.

 

Officials held a ceremony late last month that served as both ribbon-cutting ceremony for Phase One, and a groundbreaking for the next phase.

 

Lakewood Committeeman Meir Lichtenstein told the Voice, “We appreciate the county doing this work and look forward to seeing the complete job done quickly and efficiently. We remain committed to helping the county accomplish this in any way possible.”

 

While Lakewood residents who spoke with the Voice all expressed happiness – and relief – at the Cross widening project, not everyone is thrilled with the choice the county made for the first phase. They argue that there are few side streets between Route 9 and Augusta, so the just-completed turn lane is rarely used. Therefore, they say, a better use of the widened roadway would have been make it a regular driving lane, with a new turn lane only coming at the end of the project.

 

“We appreciate that this sorely needed expansion is happening,” said resident Aaron Hirsch, “but it could have been planned better for immediate relief.”

In conversations with the Voice about the Cross widening project after the completion of Phase One, Ocean County Engineer Mark Jehnke argued that by “adding a center turn lane, safety is improved for the users of the road. In the section of Cross Street from Massachusetts Avenue to Augusta where it appears there are no streets, there are future streets proposed along the north side of Cross Street … We don’t build just for today. We build for tomorrow also … There’s paper streets throughout that entire area. There’s future developments that are happening.”

 

Pressed as to why they began with the center turn lane for eventual side streets when there is an immediate need for more travel lanes, Jehnke replied, “The limiting factor out there in that entire stretch of Cross Street is the signalized intersection of Cross and Mass. So if I go out there and have ten lanes coming into that intersection the way it is right now, you’re not going to move any more traffic … The signalized intersection is what controls it out there.”

 

Asked if they can’t simply change the signals, Jehnke replied, “We built that intersection the way it is. We have another phase of the project coming through out there now … That signal timing we developed five years ago when this project started.”

 

And now that the new lane turning lane has been striped, he said, “you need to let the traffic kind of settle in, people get used to things and all that stuff. And then we’ll go out there and re-time the signal, you know, three months down the road, whatever it may be. So, this summer, we’re going to be looking at that intersection [and asking whether there are] any opportunities to improve that out there.”

 

The cost of the just-completed first phase was $5,485,078.

 

The County has already allocated another $11 million toward the project, though a final cost of the entire project has not been announced.

 

It is expected that no state or federal funding will be provided for this project, and all funds will be from the county.

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