Middletown Patch points out that our Freeholders tinkered with the speed limits on Route 516 at their 23 June meeting. For those unfamiliar with our local roads, Wikipedia provides the complicated tale of how County Route 516 wends its way through our county from Matawan to Middletown. They will soon be writing to let our local municipalities know they have to change the speed limit signs.
The change could be a good thing, but the agenda (and Patch's article) didn't indicate that local municipalities were involved in the decision at all. Given that Route 516 cuts through the heart of multiple jurisdictions, such a change will affect all of us and there should be more transparency.
By the way, Mtown Patch: Your article erroneously states that Route 516 is 40 MPH and that it will now become 35 MPH. No one is legally doing 40 MPH on Main Street in Matawan. Or on Green Grove in Keyport. The Freeholders' 23 June 2011 agenda shows Resolution 2011-0503 would amend an earlier resolution to reduce speeds for safety's sake. Our twisted little route has 8 different speed limit zones which will now range from 25 MPH to 40 MPH. The issue was considerably more complex than your article reported.
What I find interesting is item #9 from that agenda
ReplyDeleteResolution appointing member to the Monmouth County Bayshore Outfall Authority – Alan Bateman (5 yr. term ending 2/1/2016) - Off Res.#: 2011-0491
What is that all about? Is this the group that is trying to put the windmill into Union Beach?
MCBOA is a regional sewerage authority. They're in charge of pumping our poop into the Atlantic Ocean about a mile off Sandy Hook. There is little online about what they do. I found a NJDEP Division of Watershed Management report among Rutgers University files online. It is called Raritan and Sandy Hook Bays Sanitary Survey Report 1994 - 1997. It contains a full description of MCBOA, its pipeline from Union Beach to the ocean. I added an environmental resources section to my Research Tools page on the blog -- I'll put a link to that document there shortly.
ReplyDeleteBoth the Middletown Patch and I misread the Freeholders' resolution, it seems. APP got it right finally. The resolution was an amendment to an earlier resolution. The amendment only involved a small stretch of Route 516 between the Old Bridge line and Route 79 in Matawan. But the wording of the current resolution invoked the previous resolution being amended, that earlier version having involved the entire length of Route 516. I'd say "Sorry for any confusion," but I'm not sure the explanation helps much.
ReplyDelete