Proposed widening of Sycamore Avenue

Monmouth County Residents

Proposed Widening of Sycamore Avenue in Tinton Falls

Monmouth County currently has a plan to “improve” the intersection at Hance Avenue and Sycamore Avenues in Tinton Falls, calling this a public safety issue. We all agree that there is a public safety issue at this intersection. I share this sentiment, I live here. I don’t have any other choice but to utilize that intersection at all hours of the day. When I go to work in the morning, drive our kids school, go to Lowes, run out for a gallon of milk, go for Sunday bagels.

We know what this intersection is like when we come home from dinner on Saturday night, when we get home from the city at 2:00AM, when we leave early to go to work at 5AM.

The fact is- this is a dangerous and busy intersection for 90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes in the afternoon. To make it less dangerous, and more safe, you need to install a light. Problem solved. If people have to wait, so be it. We wait at every intersection in Monmouth County during those hours, even longer when the intersection is traffic controlled. Install the light, and the intersection will be made safe, and the public safety issue will be solved.

Monmouth County thinks differently. Under the guise of "safety" they want a 5 lane 65 foot wide road cutting through our neighborhood. For the county engineer to say it can’t be done is (to put it kindly) a transparent falsehood. Other towns in our area who have rejected similar plans for over-engineered roads through their historic old towns, and fought successfully to find more simple solutions.

Holmdel, Middletown, Fair Haven, Shrewsbury, Little Silver, Rumson.

Those towns have all told the county, “No Thanks” ! Please make the road safe, but do NOT over engineer our roads, and destroy the fabric of our neighborhoods, and our property values. Most of all, please do not take our property in order to create a highway.

The reason is simple. If you build it, they will come.

The County’s traffic plan is so ridiculously flawed and skewed, its near laughable. For any conscionable Tinton Falls council member to vote in favor of the County’s land grab is to admit that your concerns are not with the people of our town, and are more in line with the County’s plan to use Sycamore Avenue, (aptly named after its trees which line the street), into the Fort Lennar Highway, a 65 feet wide, 5 lane highway meant to be used as a pass through for the future development of Fort Monmouth by developers such as Lennar- a development firm who has historically not lived up to its promises with past development (they have built more than they said they would- and changed agreed to traffic patterns after the fact) we all recall there was supposed to be no left turn out of Lennar onto Hance Avenue?

When will our elected officials see the value in restraint, and in preserving the very qualities that make our towns, and this area of Monmouth County special? You don’t need to go too far into other areas of central NJ to see what it looks like, indeed other areas of Monmouth County. For example, take a look at what the County did to the historical areas surrounding Freehold Mall. Take a good look, because that is what is soon coming to Northern Tinton Falls. Sycamore Avenue is first, Hope Road is next, and Hance Avenue after that. Get ready, because its coming.

The fact is that this is the first part of massive development plan, meant to turn this area into a maze of connected 5 to 6 lane highways that will support over development of Tinton Falls and the new real estate ventures in Fort Monmouth. Unfortunately our elected officials either really like the look of highways running through historical, residential neighborhoods; or they have the interest of the developers in front of their citizens.

This is very much a public safety issue (which could be easily solved), -which has the grin and the greedy hands of developers laughing all the way to the bank underneath it.

Sincerely,

William DeVizia

Tinton Falls, NJ