Mahwah
June 8, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 9
Veterans Memorial Park bus shelter put on hold
by Frank J. McMahon Installation of the new bus stop shelter slated for the northwest corner of the intersection of Old Station Lane and Franklin Turnpike, across from Veterans Memorial Park, has been put on hold. Mahwah Township Engineer Michael Kelly reported to the council that the curbing and bus shelter pad that were to be constructed as part of the township’s 2010 road improvement program will not be installed until the fall of 2011 in order to coordinate the work with the intersection and traffic signal improvements planned by Bergen County later this year. Veterans Memorial Park is located at the southwestern portion of that intersection between Old Station Lane and East Ramapo Avenue. New Jersey Transit bus riders usually wait at the curb on Franklin Turnpike in front of the park to catch a bus to New York City. The bus shelter was to have been installed in the fall of 2010 after the township applied to the New Jersey Transit Corporation to have a shelter placed in front of the Gulf station. The shelter will be purchased and installed by NJ Transit once the Bergen County Transit Planning & Management Department endorses the agreement between the township and NJ Transit and a concurring resolution is adopted by the county. The design of the bus shelter chosen by the township includes dark green posts with a white barrel type roof. The front will have two access ways and the walls of the shelter will be clear and will contain no advertising. The shelter will not have any lighting. The existing planter at the location of the bus stop will be reconfigured as needed to permit the shelter to be located diagonally at the intersection which will have a rounded curb and sidewalk that will meet the existing curb and sidewalk on Old Station Lane and be tapered to meet the pavement on Franklin Turnpike. The bus stop shelter location will be protected by bollards on each end. Residents who ride the NJ Transit buses have been asking for a bus shelter at this intersection for some time to protect them from the elements. The township council has been discussing the location of a bus shelter in this area for several years. The NJ Transit buses currently stop in the area in front
of Veterans Memorial Park on the southwestern portion of the intersection which has never been designated as a legal bus stop by the council. That existing bus stop adjacent to the Veterans Memorial Park is identified by a bus stop sign that was installed by NJ Transit, but it is not a designated bus stop in the township’s bus stop ordinance, and it has been described as “extremely problematic” by Captain Robert Sinnaeve, the Mahwah Police Department’s traffic safety officer, because it can create a bottleneck at that location with vehicles being stopped behind a bus and blocking the intersection. Sinneave has claimed for years that the Veterans Memorial Park site is unsuitable for a bus stop because the dimensions of the site are not adequate and they do not meet the minimum required by the New Jersey Department of Transportation. In October 2009, a bus rider appealed to the council to consider a bus stop at this intersection and Kelly issued a report in which he concurred with a previous report by Sinneave that the most appropriate location for a bus stop and shelter would be at the northwest corner of the Franklin (continued on page 11)