Hillsborough Seeks NJDOT Grant For Bloomingdale Drive Roadwork

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — The Hillsborough Township Committee is seeking funding to improve Bloomingdale Drive.

At the June 9 meeting, the Committee approved a resolution authorizing a grant application to the New Jersey Department of Transportation's FY27 Municipal Aid Grant Program for Bloomingdale Drive roadway improvements.

Committeeman Britting said the application reflects how the township is trying to manage its large road network.

"I just wanted to bring to the public's attention that this is a way that we are able to handle the massive amount of roads that we have in this town," Britting said.

Britting said Bloomingdale Drive is in a central part of town with condos, townhomes and apartments, and said the road has "had a really rough, rough go of it for a long, long time."

He also said the road is wider than many others, making the work more expensive.

"The road is much wider than most others, and the cost has been pretty significant to do roads nowadays. It's dramatically more than it was five or six years ago," Britting said.

Lipani echoed Britting's comments, saying that the township has used grants for larger roads that cost more than standard development roads because of their width.

" Because of the width, they're one and a half times or two times the cost of a normal repave," Lipani said.

Lipani pointed to Amsterdam Drive as one example, saying the township received grants three years in a row to complete that road.

He also said the township recently received a grant to begin work on Farm Road from Route 206 to Triangle.

"This is our grant team and engineering constantly looking at ways to save the taxpayers' money and get roads done that we normally would have to spend a lot of money to do," Lipani said.

He added that without bonding, paving costs run "about $500,000 to $700,000 a mile, just as a number to put in your mind what a road costs to pave nowadays."

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