A traffic bureau has been established in Cranbury Township.
Cranbury Township officials announced that a traffic bureau, which will be associated with the police department, will start by the middle of next month.
“We just hired two new police officers and they are going to finish up their training and start regular duty in the beginning of April,” Committeeman Mike Ferrante said. “So the idea is that frees up enough capacity to reallocate officers to be a Traffic Safety Bureau, that should be in place by mid-April.”
The idea of the Cranbury Traffic Safety Bureau is to put two officers where pedestrian safety is their top priority.
“They make sure traffic is getting consistent focus over the course of the week. With police officers there is always competing things they have to work on. Their first priority is urgent calls, patrolling and there is a hierarchy of things on Main Street and high pedestrian areas,” he said.
The traffic bureau will be in serve all year long.
“The officers will focus on high pedestrian hours Monday through Friday during daylight hours. This is not a temporary thing; it will be a permanent structure of the police force,” Ferrante said.
Right now the function of traffic safety is spread among the responsibilities of the 19 officers on the force.
“With the addition of these next two officers, traffic will be the two officer’s highest priority. It is more of a segmenting of roles and responsibilities,” he said.
The creation of the traffic bureau has been in the works.
“Basically what happened was we used to have 21 police officers before the economic downturn, after two left to attrition and were not replaced,” Ferrante said. “With ratables and tax revenue going back up, there finally was the budget to hire two officers. There was a new renewed focus on traffic safety. I think the chief recognized that in order to make sure pedestrian safety was a high priority you have to make it someone’s top priority.”
He said the Traffic Subcommittee gets constant feedback from residents with concerns about pedestrian safety.
“Cranbury is a very walkable town and there are concerns of speeding and improper behavior of drivers,” Ferrante said.
