Bridgewater Council Unanimously Approves Pavement Protection Plan

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — Seventeen Bridgewater Township roads will see improvements this year after the township council unanimously approved the 2021 Pavement Preservation program at its meeting Thursday night.

The program identifies local roads that have not yet begun to deteriorate but are at risk of doing so over the next few years, township officials said. The project is a critical piece of a multi-year plan to improve Bridgewater’s roads.

Roads that are slated for improvements this year include: Amsel Court, Bertran Drive, Bujak Court, Colmart Way, Craft Farm Road, Freeman Lane, Jarman Place, O’Keefe Road, Redmond Court, Sally Court, Shaffer Road, Simonson Lane, Terrace Lane, Ventura Drive and Whitehead Road.

The projects, in total, will cover more than 3.15 miles of pavement. The cost of the project will be $394,858.40, which will be drawn from the 2021 Capital Fund, as was announced when the wider road improvement program was first announced to the public, township officials said Friday.

“The Preservation Program is crucial to our long-term success,” Bridgewater Mayor Matthew Moench said in a news release. “It allows us to identify roads that haven’t yet begun to deteriorate but are old enough to be considered at-risk, and then to act deliberately to extend their useful lives. This will have tremendously positive effects down the line: years from now, there will be fewer roads in desperate need of repair, and what we repairs we do have to make will be far cheaper for taxpayers than they would be otherwise.”

Work on the various streets will begin in mid-to-late July and is scheduled to be completed by late August. Residents should expect periodic closures and minor delays throughout that period of time as the projects move toward completion.

“The bottom line for me is that this program means more road repairs for fewer taxpayer dollars,” Bridgewater Township Council President Filipe Pedroso said in the news release. “If we don’t preserve these roads, sooner or later they’ll deteriorate, and we’ll have a far, far more expensive reconstruction projects we’ll have to fund down the line. Pavement preservation is a way for us to extend the life of a road at a fraction of the cost for taxpayers, both now and in the future.”