21 June 2007

206 2.0 part 2

I've been thinking about whether or not the new Route 206 bypass proposal has all of the necessary attributes to perform as promised. Earlier this week I outlined my ingredients for a good bypass - and yesterday I started going through them point by point. Take a look at yesterday's blog to see how the bypass fared on: length, geography, and traffic volume - then come back here and we'll finish.


  1. Length? yes

  2. Geography? yes

  3. Traffic Volume? no

  4. Are traffic lights, stop signs and railroad grade crossings kept to a minimum? The addition of the lights at Hillsborough Rd. and near Amwell Rd. mean that the answer to this has to be no. I will say though that the clever design of the interchange at Amwell Road is a good compromise between a full-sized cloverleaf, and a typical signalized intersection. And there is another consideration. If you think about how traffic moves on the current Rt. 206 - especially northbound - you can see how the lights at Amwell, New Amwell, Andria Ave., and Triangle Rd. actually work to meter the traffic as it heads to the bottleneck past Triangle. The traffic lights on the bypass will serve the same purpose.

  5. Finally - Are the northern and southern ends of the bypass blended seamlessly into the current highway? For the northern terminus near Old Somerville Road the answer is yes. Starting at Farm Road, the highway will be reconstructed in such a way that the southbound thru traffic will flow nicely to the bypass. The same can't be said for the Mountain View Rd. area at the southern end. From looking at the plan, it is unclear to me what the incentive will be to choose the bypass over continuing straight on the old 206. Ultimately this may have more to do with psychology than traffic patterns!

I have a lot more to say on this topic, but frankly I am all blogged out. I think I'll "bypass" 206 for a while - at least until I hear some more of your comments.

See you at the next exit!



2 comments:

  1. I agree with you about the alignment at the southern end. I have the same thoughts as you have. I travel daily on Route 206, and for me there will be no incentive to take the new bypass, which will be longer and will have as many traffic lights if not more.

    Single lanes also don't make sense either. Did we wait decades for this?

    I am also concerned about the bend in the highway when it crosses over CSX tracks in Montgomery. How are they resolving the dangerous intersection in that area? I don't hear much about it.

    The Somerset County residents have been forced to accept whatever is offered to them by the DOT simply by the delay of the whole process.

    They accepted a very poorly designed Somerville Circle after a delay of several decades. Now this. They have forced the citizens to accept this as "something is better than nothing" deal.

    I remember, several years ago the proposed overpass design at the junction of Route 1 and Route 130 was rejected by the township. The DOT had to come up with a better design. I wish Somerset County and Hillsborough Township officials had that kind of guts.

    So after decades of waiting and spending millions of dollars, we will have a single lane highway with more traffic lights! When will we have the next phase of improvement? Probably never.

    With so much resistance from so many groups, I don't think in the future any other road will ever be built or upgraded to handle the traffic.

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  2. Thank you Zaheer for your comments. There will be some incentives for taking the bypass northbound. One is that it will have fewer lights than the old 206, which has lights at Hillsborough, Raider, Amwell, New Amwell, and Andria - and there will also be a light eventually at Homestead Rd.

    Also, the speed limit on the old 206 is going to be reduced, maybe as slow as 25 mph - while the bypass will presumably be 50 mph.

    As for the CSX overpass at 601. This is in the plans, but is a separate project. Coming from the south, the overpass will begin sooner than it does now, and make a more gentle curve over the rail line. There will also be a redesigned intersection with a traffic light for 601.

    I guess my overall impression is that this plan is going to be hard to pull off. A lot harder than the straight ahead 4 lane bypass proposed 5 years ago. If it works, we will have to give the DOT a lot of credit.

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