Credit: Dougtone licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Openverse

Advocates of a long-deferred plan to rebuild a section of Route 29 in downtown Trenton say there’s a better chance of reviving the project now than at any time in the 30-plus years that it’s been on the drawing board. But any new initiative to improve the roadway will depend on support from Gov. Phil Murphy and the state Department of Transportation.

The mile-long highway between the “Trenton Makes” bridge and the Capitol complex is a high-speed, limited access route that cuts off the city from the Delaware Riverfront, deters commercial and residential development nearby, and exposes pedestrians to the dangers of speeding traffic, campaigners say.

It has been high on the list of desired urban makeovers, and the subject of detailed plans, since at least the 1980s but has never seen a shovel because of a shortage of funding.

Now, the possibility of federal infrastructure funds under the Biden administration’s  Reconnecting Communities program has prompted campaigners to urge state agencies and Murphy to apply for the money in the hope of reviving the project.

“We really think this needs to happen now,” said Dan Fatton, chair of Trenton’s planning board. “For decades, the citizens of Trenton have been saying: ‘This is what we want to see in our city. We want to be reconnected to the river with slower speeds and safer streets.’”

The Biden administration is making $1 billion available over five years for “removing, retrofitting, or mitigating” transportation facilities such as highways or rail lines that creates barriers to “community connectivity.”

As part of the project, campaigners want to convert the large parking lots around the Capitol complex into space for housing and shops. Fatton called the parking lots “the worst misuse of space by the state.”

Calling for Murphy’s formal support

Fatton was one of about 50 signatories including civic and business leaders and residents in a June 2 letter to Murphy asking for his formal support. The letter urged the governor to commit $1 million in state funds to update an existing feasibility study, and to apply for $15 million to $20 million in federal money that would support planning and design. The letter also ask Murphy to involve the Trenton community – which was part of two earlier proposals to rebuild the road, in 2009 and 2016.

The project as planned would cost some $150 million, not all of which would come from the federal Reconnecting Communities grant, Fatton said. He predicted that the plan would be well-positioned to compete for federal funds because many other projects are likely to cost much more.

Dan Fatton: ‘For decades, the citizens of Trenton have been saying: “This is what we want to see in our city.” We really think this needs to happen now.’

“This project is a prime opportunity to recapture developable land, re-establish a neighborhood, recreate a riverfront park and reconnect our community to the waterfront,” the letter said. “The Route 29 Boulevard Project is a shovel-worthy project that needs additional attention and funding to become shovel-ready. The Biden administration’s commitment to equitable transportation, the availability of infrastructure investment and Jobs Act funding provides a generational opportunity that must not be missed.”

Murphy’s office referred a request for comment to the Department of Transportation, which said it is reviewing the proposal but declined to say whether it will apply for the federal funds.

Advocates want the road to be rerouted away from the river, and to become a “boulevard” where traffic speeds would be sharply reduced, pedestrian crossings installed, and access to the waterfront, which has been blocked by the highway since it was built starting in the late 1950s, restored.

Report points to economic development, civic pride

A 2017 report for the City of Trenton argued that the proposed work would boost economic development and help restore the civic pride in a city that is physically fractured by a road that has been called one of the 10 worst urban highways in the country.

“A revitalized waterfront would re-establish Trenton as the downtown to Central Jersey and provide residents with a badly needed civic space,” said the Waterfront Reclamation and Redevelopment Strategic Plan, written for the city by Group Melvin Design, a consultant.

Pete Kasabach: ‘It seems like something that should be very readily supported by the governor’s office.’

The report argued that the project would show that there is an alternative to the car-centered policy that has dominated urban planning in Trenton and other New Jersey cities since the middle of the 20th century. It would be replaced by people-centered development that would create a more livable environment, boost the economy, and restore tax revenue that is currently foregone because of tax-exempt spaces like the state parking lots.

“The cities that auto-oriented transportation and development policies have created are overwhelmingly unattractive and discourage people from wanting to live, work, or shop in New Jersey’s cities,” the report said.

Addressing environmental justice

By restoring access to the river for some of Trenton’s environmental justice communities, the project would also help to address what advocates see as the legacy of racist urban-planning policies.

“This highway has a racist past,” said Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, and a signatory of the letter to Murphy. “It was part of an institutional decision-making matrix that put people of color in worse positions.”

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora: ‘It’s a matter of having the Department of Transportation move it from the back burner to the front burner.’

He called the potential availability of funding a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to rebuild a road that recalls the Jim Crow voting restrictions on Black communities in the 1960s, as well as the car-centric planning principles of that era.

The project’s potential for addressing environmental justice issues suggests that it would win support from Murphy, who signed the state’s landmark environmental justice law, but there’s no clear sign yet that Murphy is on board with the Route 29 plan, said Pete Kasabach, executive director of the nonprofit New Jersey Future, and another signer of the June 2 letter.

The project would also help to address some of Murphy’s other priorities such as urban redevelopment and stormwater control but those things have not yet prompted the governor to explicitly back it, Kasabach said.

“I’m disappointed that the governor’s office is not taking a leadership role in this, and is deferring it to DOT,” he said. “It seems like something that should be very readily supported by the governor’s office.”

Credit: Dougtone licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Openverse

Will DOT back Route 29 project?

The DOT, which wrote plans for the redevelopment of Route 29 in 2005 and 2009, is so far conspicuous by its absence among supporters of the new campaign. Kasabach urged the agency to consider the project’s benefits beyond just transportation, and to apply for the federal funds.

“We would hope that the DOT would view this project as both a transportation and an economic development project, and would want to take a leadership role in moving it forward,” he said.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, who supports the project, said it would boost Trenton’s economy in the same way as waterfront revitalization has helped other cities including Baltimore and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“By expanding the waterfront, we’re hoping to encourage developers to put up high-density housing and have citizens and visitors take advantage of the waterfront that’s here,” he said.

June 2 letter to Gov. Murphy: ‘This project is a prime opportunity to recapture developable land, re-establish a neighborhood, recreate a riverfront park and reconnect our community to the waterfront.’

Gusciora said he has had encouraging conversations with the governor’s staff, the treasurer’s office, and the Department of Transportation. “We seem to all be on the same page that this would be a good project to attain,” he said.

But he hasn’t yet had a formal commitment by the DOT, and that’s essential to hopes of receiving federal funding because the agency would have to ensure potential funders that the project is shovel- ready.

“It’s a matter of having the Department of Transportation move it from the back burner to the front burner,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a stumbling block; it’s just a matter of DOT being completely on board.

“We’re at the ‘why not?’ stage but we understand that there’s limited resources and personnel and the like. We just hope that DOT sees the merits in this project.”