In a preliminary environmental assessment released last year, NJDOT supported construction of a four-lane, 2.3 mile bypass - an elevated highway that would run through the Millstone River watershed and end near the historic Delaware and Raritan Canal (MTR #291). But the agency was forced to revisit the issue when, after vociferous local protest, Governor Whitman ordered a full environmental impact study to "ensure we are not creating more harm to the environment than we are trying to eliminate," she said (MTR #294).

Commissioner Weinstein told reporters that the new process will be driven by public input and work with a wider set of transportation improvement goals. In the environmental assessment, the agency rejected any alternatives that did not allow removal of traffic lights from three intersections on Route 1. NJDOT reports that the new study will generate improvement alternatives through interviews with concerned groups and community forums. To this end, the agency has hired a private outreach firm and consultants from the Rutgers University Transportation Policy Institute and its Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution to facilitate public involvement.

Although welcoming greater involvement, citizen, environmental, and transportation groups opposed to bypass construction believe that these forums and "stakeholder meetings" are meager substitutes for a formal reorientation of the project through a new public "scoping" hearing and rewriting official documents directing the study.

A public notice filed with the Federal Highway Administration states that NJDOT will "continue the scoping process begun during the preparation of the [environmental assessment] to evaluate alternatives already under review." The notice leads concerned groups to believe that NJDOT is engaging conflict resolution specialists without making a commitment to formally "re-scope" the project.