Here Are The Latest Updates On Princeton's Witherspoon St Plan

Princeton NJ

31 August, 2021

4:19 PM

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PRINCETON, NJ — Municipal Engineer Deanna Stockton recently presented an update on the Witherspoon Street design that was approved by the council in June. The town council moved forward with the new plan in June, where Witherspoon Street has been designed as a one-way, one-lane road — a 12-foot travel lane with curb bump-outs at Nassau Street. After Council approved the plan in June, municipal engineers moved ahead with the final drawings and submitted the final plan to the State Department of Transportation on July 12. They also submitted the plan to the State Historic Preservation Office on July 21. "So we are really poised with a little fine-tuning of our underground utility work to put the project out to bid for construction in early 2022," Stockton said. As it stands now, the plan includes the entrance from Nassau Street to Witherspoon Street, with the fifth round of gates in front of Nassau Hall on the south side of Nassau Street. The final pavement area at the intersection is now 13-and-a-half-feet, which is a variation from the previous plan. The earlier plan proposed a 20-foot-wide section. "In order to maximize pedestrian safety at the intersection, we necked down that intersections space so that it's only 13-and-a-half-feet," Stockton said. "The idea is that as you travel north you have a 12-foot travel lane and a 10-foot service lane on the west side of the road." This design leaves engineers with the flexibility to change things in the future if there was an intention to make this a two-way road. The only change that would be necessary is to remove the curb extensions, said Stockton. Read More Here: New Witherspoon St. Plan Advances Despite Princeton Biz Pushback At the two-lane yard parking lot at the entrance of Weatherspoon Street, there is another curb extension, which reduces the travel way again to 13 and a half feet. The Municipality is looking to reinforce that they want lower speeds in this space. The plan has included four parking spaces on the library side and three on the Mistral side between Paul Robeson and Hulfish. In addition to adding parking spaces in the vicinity of Spring Street, there are also going to be additional parking spaces on Nassau right up near the intersection with Witherspoon Street. About mitigation of traffic, the plan proposes to have a striped left and right turn out a Palmer Square West. There was also discussion about relocation meters, the size of the bump-outs, and splitting the loading zone. You can see the entire meeting in the video linked in this article. All the latest updates on the plan can be found on the municipality website. Click here. Thank you for reading. Have a correction or news tip? Email [email protected] Get breaking news alerts on your phone with our app. Download here. Sign up to get Patch emails so you don't miss out on local and statewide news.