Camden As part of a smart growth study for the City of Camden, NJDOT undertook a look at what could be done to reduce truck traffic on River Road (County Road 543), which cuts directly through the Cramer Hill community. The constant presence of truck traffic stunted economic growth in an area in desperate for redevelopment.

Because River Road is a county route, government cannot regulate truck access to it. However, the parallel NJ Route 130 offers a readily available alternative.  Even though Route 130 to get past the Cramer Hill area takes less time than River Road, too many truckers the latter because it is more direct. Most of the trucks using River Road come from industrial areas to the west and were making local deliveries in other parts of Camden.

Without the option of legal restrictions, the DOT has opted for arguable more effective information and traffic calming strategies. 

DOT, city and county governments and local stakeholders have devised a four phase plan.  Each piece will increase the intensity of a mix of traffic calming on Route 543, signage around the area and intersection improvements to ease truck access to Route 130 until the desired re-routing is reached.

In the end, all interested parties, including the trucking industry, were satisfied with the plan. Officials are about to launch phase 1.  The DOT has expressed a willingness to work with New Jersey communities on truck traffic issues and credit their success to collaborative problem solving.  DOT is now conducting look at a similar issue in Raritan.

Staten Island   Last month, city and state DOT officials agreed to divert trucks during the clean-up of Staten Island’s Brookfield landfill so the communities of Greenridge and Great Kills are spared from added truck impacts.

Trucks are generally prohibited from using parkways in New York City, but allowing the landfill trucks to use the Korean War Veterans Parkway during the remediation project will keep over 100 trucks per day from rumbling down residential streets.  The plan makes use of two dormant overpasses which were built to connect the parkway and the Staten Island Expressway, though the project was never completed.

The politicians who championed this sensible plan – Congressman Vito Fossella, Assemblyman Vincent Ignizio, and Councilman Andrew Lanza – should consider working to make the change permanent, since truck traffic growth projections for Staten Island are the highest in the city – at least 62% more trucks by year 2020, according to the FHWA.

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