Bike trail foes debate with town council
Thursday, April 07, 2005
By Laurie Whalen
The Trenton Times

LAWRENCE - A resolution supporting the paving of a 10-foot-wide bike trail through Carson Road Woods reignited neighborhood opposition to the 3-year-old plan.

Before the township council passed the resolution in a 3-1 vote Tuesday night, at least a dozen residents criticized the township's second attempt to get state funding for an asphalt path for the Carson Road Woods segment of the Lawrence Hopewell Township Bike Trail.

Bob Hunsicker, a resident and member of the Friends of Carson Woods, told the council he didn't understand why it needed to get funds to plow through an area that was supposed to be preserved for open space.

Holding up a huge chunk of asphalt that Hunsicker said was found on his Carson Road property, he said, "You should pave Carson Road not Carson Road Woods."

Other residents accused the council of unexpectedly altering the path's route.

"I'm dismayed in the change in the route," said Ben Brickner, a resident opposed to the change. "We've gone back to where we were three years ago."

The original plan called for a bike path cutting directly through the woods, but last July the township council agreed to reroute the path so that it would not disturb as much of the property.

The compromise came on the heels of the township's 2004 state grant application in the amount of $200,000. The grant was subsequently denied.

Mayor Pam Mount said residents' opposition helped decrease the chances of getting the $200,000.

And she alleged that a letter-writing campaign by Carson Road residents was partly to blame for not receiving the award, since residents with property on the woods' perimeter did not want the intrusion, Mount said.

"I thought we had come up with a compromise, but everyone did not agree to it," she said. "We thought we had an agreement when we applied (for the grant)."

As a result, the rerouting compromise became null and void, Mount said.

Now the township is applying for a $225,000 Local Aid Bikeway Program grant from the state Department of Transportation to help finance the cost of paving a .9-mile section of the 20-mile Lawrence Hopewell Township Bike Trail.

If the township receives the grant, it would have to pay $22,500 or 10 percent of the $225,000 grant, said Bill Guhl, township manager.

Mount defended the resolution and the bike trail idea. "Fortunately 99 percent of people in this township are thrilled to have this 20-mile bike path," Mount said yesterday.

The Carson Road Woods parcel had been eyed by developers since the 1980s, but in 2001 the township raised $8.4 million to buy the tract from a South Brunswick-based developer intent on building 60 luxury houses on it.

Residents raised more than $3 million in private and corporate donations, including $1 million from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which stands to gain from completion of the bike path.

At a ceremony celebrating the township's purchase of its second-largest tract of preserved land, council members said there was no chance of the parcel ever again being threatened by development.

In 2002 business and government officials proposed the 20-mile, $6 million trail looping through Lawrence and neighboring Hopewell Township.

The trail, intended for use by the disabled, bicyclists and walkers, would interconnect three Bristol-Myers corporate centers and Educational Testing Services headquarters, which together employ about 8,300 people.

ETS has pledged $250,000 to maintain the trail, which also passes through The Lawrenceville School, Mercer County Park Northwest, Rosedale Park and the Stoney Brook-Millstone Watershed Association Reserve.

Completion of the trail had been expected last fall, but sections have been delayed because of a lack of funds.