At last Thursday’s public hearing on the draft EIS for Route 92, a 6.7 mile, four lane NJ Turnpike spur proposed for one of central New Jersey’s most environmentally sensitive spots, not a single elected official above the pay grade of mayor showed up to testify in favor of the project. In fact, the only mayor that did testify for the project was Plainsboro’s. And of the 80 people total who testified, just ten testified in favor of building the road.

Republican district officials (Senator Inverso and Asssemblymember Baroni) have turned against the project, and Democratic Assemblymember Linda Greenstein now says she got her start in politics fighting Route 92. Mayors or council members from several municipalities west of Route 1, and of South Brunswick, where the highway would lie, testified vehemently against it. All of the public officials who said they "were waiting for the DEIS to come out" to avoid taking a position during election campaigns since 2000, were nowhere to be found. No member of the McGreevey administration was in attendance, nor was there anyone from the Turnpike Authority, except the traffic and environmental consultant whose work on the DEIS was described as "grievously flawed" by those testifying.

Even a Monroe Township councilmember called for the Route 92 plan’s demise in favor of smaller operational fixes that practically everyone supports. Monroe has supported the project in the past.

The lack of visible support for Route 92 stands in stark contrast to prior public hearings in 1997, 1999 and 2000, where elected officials of all ranks — up to the governor and US Senate — claimed that the $350 million project was a responsible way to deal with east-west travel needs between Turnpike Exit 8a and the Princeton area. Governor Whitman’s DEP commissioner issued a permit on the spot with dramatic flair, and supporters were flanked by a sea of hardhats, along with developers, Princeton interests and influential others like Middlesex Freeholder Director David Crabiel or people linked to former State Senator John Lynch. None of that was in evidence last night.

The mobilization against the project has also been very strong and consistent: TV ads, press conferences, big-gun lawyers, petitions and satires (hearing attendees were greeted at the hotel lobby by a life-size cardboard cut-out of Governor McGreevey saying, "Route 92: I decide,") are just some of the political tools that have been deployed against project.

Almost everyone, even a couple of Route 92’s handful of supporters, asked to allow communities and stakeholders to engage in a roundtable conflict resolution process – like the one that occurred successfully for the Millstone Bypass project. That project was eventually abandoned in favor of common sense intersection fixes at Penns Neck.

One came away from the hearing thinking that Governor McGreevey, as his re-election campaign draws nearer, would be ill-advised not to give the citizens, mayors and others, what they are asking for — a chance to control their own destiny and decide for themselves how to improve their traffic situation. As once citizen put it, "The way the Turnpike Authority is trying to ram this down our throats is not smart, not popular, and won’t be successful." McGreevey might take a page from Governor Pataki’s playbook – he canceled the controversial widenings of the Cross-Westchester Expressway and the LIE in Queens shortly before his first re-election effort. v