Mayor Bonaccorso on Raritan Road Paving: 'This Has Been a Nightmare'

At Monday night's Clark Council meeting, Mayor Sal Bonaccorso addressed the calling it "a nightmare" due to the traffic it has created and adding that the county "will never have my blessing again to pave a major artery in the community unless it's done in the summertime."

Paving was supposed to be done on the entirety of the road from Osceola Church through Lake Avenue, but the mayor reported that the second half of the project (from Madison Hill Road to Lake Avenue) has now been rescheduled for the summer. The mayor said Clark traffic in the summer decreases about 50 percent.

"I know this is a hot issue," said Bonaccorso. "It's annoying, it's a process to get through and it's a problem. ... We urged the county to do paving in the business area of Raritan Road in the evening, but at the last minute they changed the plan and went into the daytime."

Paving was scheduled to begin on April 3 and last 10 days, but is continuing this week. The mayor explained the the paving was originally scheduled for last year, but was rescheduled because of Hurricane Sandy.

The mayor advised residents to leave ample time to travel through town, noting that it took him 20 minutes to get from his home on Featherbed Lane to drop his daughter at Arthur L. Johnson High School.

"It's been a crazy, crazy backup," said the mayor. "We will be strongly recommending they do things differently in future. We didn’t think this would be such a project and at the last minute they changed the plan."

How have you been dealing with the traffic during this road construction? How long has it taken you to get through town? Tell us in the comments.