A contract to upgrade two traffic lights on North Harrison Street has been awarded to a Rahway-based contractor.
Princeton Council awarded a $740,340.95 contract to JC Contracting Inc. at its Dec. 16 meeting.
JC Contracting Inc. was one of six bidders for the project. The firm submitted the lowest responsible bid.
Bids for the project ranged from JC Contracting Inc.’s low bid of $740,340.95 to the high bid of $923,013.13 submitted by Earle Asphalt Co. of Farmingdale.
The Municipal Engineer’s estimate for the job was $794,130.02.
The Municipality of Princeton was awarded a $674,071 “Safe Routes to School” grant from the New Jersey Department of Transportation last year to make improvements to two key intersections on North Harrison Street that will make it safer for bicyclists and pedestrians to cross the street.
Town officials will make up the difference between the grant amount and the contract amount. The town has money available in capital accounts that will cover the gap between the grant and the contract.
Town officials expect work on the project to begin in the spring.
The traffic lights at North Harrison Street and Hamilton Avenue, and North Harrison Street and Franklin Avenue, will be replaced with new traffic lights that allow pedestrians and bicyclists to push a button to change the traffic light so they can cross the street.
Other improvements include handicap accessible ramps to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and automatic traffic light changes for emergency vehicles, such as ambulances and fire trucks.
Also, a new layer of asphalt will be laid in the intersections, and regulatory warning and pedestrian signs will be installed. The intersections will be re-striped to include “stop” bars for vehicles and crosswalks for pedestrians and bicyclists.
The two intersections are used by school children to reach the Princeton Charter School on Ewing Street, and Princeton High School on Moore Street and the John Witherspoon Middle School on Walnut Lane.
The project had its genesis in 2014, when Princeton Charter School parents reached out to town officials about how to get the children to school safely.
There are crossing guards at the two North Harrison Street intersections in the morning and in the afternoon, but the time does not mesh with the start and end of the school day for the Princeton Charter School and the Princeton Public Schools, according to town officials.
When town officials learned of the grant opportunity from the New Jersey Department of Transportation to replace the 40-year-old traffic lights, they jumped on it and succeeded in winning the grant.
When the grant announcement was made late last year, Mayor Liz Lempert and Beth Behrend, the president of the Princeton Public Schools Board of Education, praised the project.
“Princeton is fortunate to have a culture where many of our students walk or ride a bicycle to school,” Lempert said.
Surveys have shown that more children would walk or ride a bicycle to school if they felt safe, so that’s why the Safe Routes to School project is so important, Lempert said.
Behrend said the intersection at North Harrison Street and Franklin Avenue has been a school traffic bottleneck for many years. School district officials are grateful for the grant, she said.
School district officials are looking forward to seeing more children enjoy the benefits of walking or riding a bicycle to school, as well as fewer idling vehicles, Behrend said.
