Letter: Complete Streets project has had a negative impact on Millburn

This is my first letter to The Item since moving to Millburn Township with my husband Alan in August, 1983. Coming from Westchester County, New York where I had spent my childhood through young adult years, I considered it quite fortuitous to have settled in a New Jersey town whose beauty rivaled anything across the river.

Most recently, I have been admiring the beautiful new planters, flowers, pavers and benches that now grace the central four corners of our town. Just as I have renovated my kitchen, bedrooms and basement more than once over 34 years, so too a town must be regularly freshened and spruced up to appeal to both residents and the out-of-towners that realtors and merchants hope to attract.

While I admire and appreciate the cosmetic work that has been done to brighten the intersection of Main Street and Millburn Avenue, I am dismayed by the navigation difficulties that have been created by the “Complete Streets” project. For example, the bump-out on the right turn from Main onto Millburn Avenue is quite treacherous if another car is on my left.

Then, too, losing the turn from Main onto Essex at the Charlie Brown corner has created an inconvenience as I now must go all the way down Millburn Avenue and around and up Essex to head west out of town. Multiply that detour by the number of cars that must now make that trip and guess how much fuel is being wasted.

But of all the challenge-creating changes in the name of “Complete Streets,” perhaps the most pernicious is the narrowing of the Millburn Avenue approach to the town center, coming from the high school.

Choking off the main thoroughfare down to only one lane into town is the biggest head scratcher of all the work to date. One would think that Arterial, the Montclair-based firm responsible for the design, as well as the Township Committee members who signed off on it, want to keep people out of our town, away from the shops and in search of an alternate route. There is no other way to justify it, in my opinion.

Another conundrum: the broadened sidewalks along Millburn Avenue that now serve as parking space. Is there a soul alive who has ever asked for an added impediment to the much-loathed task of parallel parking?

In my effort to keep my list of criticisms of “Complete Streets” brief, I will only add here that residents of South Mountain neighborhood are experiencing a growing concern that much of the traffic that seeks to avoid the one-lane Millburn Avenue bottleneck through town, are diverting their route down Rector, Ridgewood and on through the South Mountain neighborhood; too many are driving at excessive speed. We remain uncertain as to how the September opening of the Washington School down the street will compound increased traffic conditions.

I call upon fellow township residents who feel as I do to become active in the movement to find the best solution to the “Complete Streets” debacle. This is the time to contact our Township Committee members, and then attend at least one meeting. If you are a South Mountain resident, join the Association’s Facebook page to voice your concerns. And please come to the Meet the Mayor event on Thursday, July 13 in the Williamsburg Room at the Millburn Public Library that has been dedicated to discussing "Complete Streets."

Fran Feld

Millburn