Princeton To Install Speed Cushions On 2 Streets For Traffic Calming

PRINCETON, NJ — The township will be purchasing eight speed cushions to use for traffic calming purposes on Edgehill Street and Hibben Road. Council approved the purchase of the speed cushions for $13,728 during the last meeting.

Back in 2019, the Municipality collected data on streets that needed traffic calming. Measures were planned for 10 streets but had to be put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Edgehill Street and Hibben Road were on the lists of streets that needed traffic calming measures. Princeton currently has four speed cushions.

Councilwoman Eve Niedergang said she was glad Princeton was taking these steps and was looking forward to seeing the results.

“Other places where we've done this, for example like John Street, it really has gotten the desired result,” Niedergang said. “The key thing is to change people's behavior, which is hard. And we're working on ways to encourage people to behave in the proper ways.”

The speed cushions are temporary, and if they work, Princeton might consider something more permanent, municipal engineer Jim Purcell said.

For the speed cushions to be effective, they need to be placed at a certain distance from one another.

“The decision was made based on engineering and in consultation with Tom Murray, of the Traffic Safety Bureau,” Purcell said.

The benefit of using a temporary traffic calming method was to see if they work, said Councilman David Cohen.

“There are other interventions that can be tried if the speed humps are not effective,” Cohen said. “This should be the beginning of a process of solving the problems, not necessarily the end.”

Speed cushions are similar to speed humps or speed bumps, installed across the road. They reduce car speed and are wide enough to not interfere with an ambulance, fire truck or other larger vehicles.

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