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HAMILTON TOWNSHIP - Richard Desantis liked living on Gale Avenue here for the past eight years.

With no trucks rumbling along the narrow, winding road, life became a little more quiet than in the past.

But with the township admitting that an 8-ton weight limit imposed on the road eight years ago is illegal, Desantis and his neighbors are gearing up for a return of the truck traffic that disturbed their small community along the banks of the Great Egg Harbor River for at least a decade.

"It's a country lane," DeSantis said. "The peace and tranquility we invested in will be destroyed."

"You get to the point where you can't open your windows because of noise," said Gale Avenue resident Joanne Hickman.

Now, it's the residents who are making noise, wanting the Township Committee to keep their street safe and quiet.

The committee already reached one agreement with Arawak Paving Co. and Atlantic Blueberry, which told the municipality they want to use Gale Avenue as a shortcut to deliver their products again. The compromise would allow full trucks to use Gale Avenue only during regular business hours, and have Arawak repave Gale Avenue if it's damaged by the heavy vehicles.

Township Committeeman Roger Silva wants to work out another agreement, this one between the municipality, Arawak, Atlantic Blueberry and Gale Avenue residents regarding truck traffic. The businesses and Gale Avenue residents must all be prepared to compromise, he said.

Township Committeewoman Amy Gatto said that with the absence of any enforceable ordinance, the result will be more like a gentlemen's agreement than a piece of law.

Silva said the township also should turn its attention to what he says is the real cause of the problem: The deteriorating Weymouth Road Bridge, which can't be replaced because it's been designated by the state as a historic structure.

"They have to do something with that bridge," he said, adding that the township should start pressuring Atlantic County government, which has for years wanted to upgrade the span, to have the bridge repaired or replaced.

The township and Gale Avenue residents find themselves in the middle of the truck traffic predicament in part because the state Department of Transportation, or DOT, never finished certifying a 2001 local ordinance imposing an 8-ton weight limit on Gale Avenue. Part of the reason was that the DOT official working on the certification died, and his files were boxed and placed in storage.

The ordinance is still on the books, but enforcement of the weight limit can't be done.

Also, Gale Avenue is a sharply winding road that runs between the Black Horse Pike and Weymouth Road. It makes an easy way for trucks too heavy for the Weymouth Road Bridge to travel between Weymouth Road and the Black Horse Pike without making a 15- to 20-minute detour.

The Township Committee thought it had the solution in 2000, when the bridge was targeted to be replaced by the county with a span that could carry vehicles weighing as much as 30 tons.

However, a township resident argued that the bridge was historic because it is the best-preserved of three Warren pony truss bridges in Atlantic County. The New Jersey Historic Preservation Commission, despite objections from county and local officials, agreed with the resident and placed the bridge on the state register of historic places.

All the talking aside, Gale Avenue residents, such as Tina Fetty, who pushed for a weight limit eight years ago, are concerned about how any agreement with Arawak and Atlantic Blueberry will work. She also contends that even if trucks from those businesses are limited, other heavy vehicles will use Gale Avenue whenever they want.

"How are you going to regulate that?" Fetty asked Township Committee recently.

"I don't think we can," answered Township Committeeman Thomas Palmentieri.

E-mail Thomas Barlas:

TBarlas@pressofac.com

1 comment:

• ruralarea (43) posts 7:06 am

  the detour around that is more like 45 minutes. i'm heading there right now with my big truck

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