Residents, agencies meet to discuss routes 1 & 27 Agencies, township take 1-on-1 approach to hearing residents' concerns BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer EDISON - Members of several state and local agencies met with residents at the Stelton Community Center on Feb. 8 in the second Smart Growth Planning Summit held in the past three months. Armed with multicolored stickers and oversized satellite photographs of problem areas on routes 1 and 27, the state Department of Transportation, NJ Transit, municipal departments and several consultant groups sat down with residents and hashed out initial plans for the future of the routes 1 and 27 corridors. Representatives from the participating agencies took note of residents' concerns and explained many of the plans they hoped to implement in the troubled area. Mayor Jun Choi said that the Smart Growth Summits were a unique way to accomplish the goal of revitalizing and easing use of Edison's two large thoroughfares. "This is a new way the state is working with municipalities in better coordinated policies," Choi said. "We're trying to get multiple agencies together to develop a coordinated plan. What we are doing is implementing the master plan in Edison." The plan thus far is very much in its infancy. According to Hannah Twaddell, project manager for the Renaissance Planning Group, the point of that summit is to bring people with expertise together from the start. "It is an approach that brings various people with various expertise together to solve problems," Twaddell said. Zoila Mejia-Aragona of the DOT said that such an approach is important because it brings the people who will be doing the various aspects of the project on board early so that there is little surprise or conflict between the agencies who are to bring the projects to fruition. "They all have plans," Mejia-Aragona said about the various agencies involved. "We like to coordinate because everything affects our projects." The vision plan for routes 1 and 27 is an ambitious project covering several miles of a heavily developed, semi-urban area. The different parts will include mixed-use redevelopment of several areas, most notably the former Revlon site on Route 27 and the former Ford site on Route 1, for which redevelopment plans are well under way. Choi said that including all the agencies from conception to fruition was important. "These are all the people who can decide, find funding, determine policy and implement the projects," Choi said. The routes 1 and 27 corridors are major roads in northern Middlesex county containing important transportation infrastructure such as the Edison Train Station and major commercial areas utilized by the entire region. The effects of the redevelopment of these areas will likely affect many outside of Edison as well. One man particularly interested is Scott Green, a Piscataway resident who lives on the border of Edison Township. He is a major user of routes 1 and 27 and said that in the past, those areas were not well developed. "What I see is overbuilt," Green said. "It was not planned right." Green referred to a satellite photo overlaid with current zoning markers that included large swaths of commercial zones up and down Route 27, saturated on all sides by dense residential development. Green said this has caused major congestion and overcrowded conditions. "What have we done to ourselves, we've clogged our arteries," Green said. "And the bill of health is that you have to change your lifestyle." A change in lifestyle seems to be exactly the point of the Smart Growth Planning Summit. One resident sat down with members of the consultant firm of Michael Baker Jr. and the mayor to discuss traffic concerns on Route 1, sketching maps and suggesting ideas that may help alleviate congestion and backups in problem areas. "We're having hundreds of interactions like this," Choi said. Councilman Salvatore Pizzi said that he liked what he saw at the summit and that he thought good things would come from the projects. "We have to absorb all the ideas and try to define where we are going," Pizzi said. "The council will welcome this with open arms and a lot of scrutiny."