Traffic Impacts Of Weston Warehouse Application Presented, Questioned

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — Impacts and concerns over traffic for the proposed application to build a 135,000-square-foot warehouse building on Weston Road encompassed the entire Hillsborough Planning Board meeting on Thursday.

The meeting lasted close to 3 hours. It will be carried to June 1 for further questioning of the traffic engineer speaking on behalf of the applicant Weston Road LLC and also any testimony.

Gary Dean of Dolan & Dean Consulting Engineers, LLC in Somerville presented his findings of the traffic impacts to the area for the proposed application.

Dean said he looked at the impacts during peak traffic hours, associated with commuter hours. Those hours included 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6:30 p.m.

Looking at the morning peak hours, Dean found Weston Road saw 460 vehicles and 32 trucks in one hour.

"It clearly accommodates truck activity presently," said Dean.

During the evening peak hours, there were 570 vehicles with 18 trucks on Weston Road.

Adding in the warehouse to the mix, Dean said the area would be "unaffected"

To numerically quantify the impact, Dean said additional site traffic at the Sunnymead and Weston intersection would result in an increase in delay of 0.3 seconds.

"It's inconsequential from a traffic perspective," said Dean.

At the Falcon Road intersection, he said there would be a 0.6 second delay.

"I've concluded that the proposed site plan operations would in no way affect any of the off-track intersections near the site," said Dean.

Attorneys representing the entire Hearthstone of Hillsborough community, who are in opposition to the application, questioned what the turnaround time would be at the loading docks and how many tractor-trailers were included in the number of trucks. Read More: Hillsborough 55+ Community Hires Attorney Opposing Warehouse Proposal

Residents had previously aired their opposition to the Hillsborough Mayor and Council at a November 2022 meeting.

The hearing will be carried to the June 1 Planning Board meeting at 7 p.m.

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