FLASH: State approves Route 522!
Costs 1/100 what 92 would;
does the same job with far less damage!

Expired, terminated, inert, deceased, perished, passed on, lifeless, belly up, dead.
(Or is it?)

Route 92 —
Wrong for Central New Jersey

The Turnpike Authority has announced that Route 92 is cancelled -- but it still has the authority to build the road someday. To kill it really dead, we need to get Assembly Bill 685 and Senate Bill  883 out of committee, passed, and signed by Governor Corzine. Please support A685 and S883!

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has disputed the Army Corps Draft EIS, saying that it has not adequately evaluated better alternatives. A copy of the EPA’s letter to the Army Corps is here.

Former Governor McGreevey was also handed 1,800  letters opposing Route 92, and probably has received many more directly. These letters came from a wide region, including Plainsboro and the Princetons, whose citizens would also be impacted.

The Army Corps’ almost-final EIS is here, and it’s just as defective and deficient as the draft was. Every community that raised questions about 92 was given the brush-off. Not surprising, since the contractors that did the EIS are tightly coupled to the  Turnpike Authority. (We’ve asked the Army Corps to do due diligence to prevent conflicts of interest, and they handed us a contractor who “hadn’t worked on Route 92 before.”)

Make no mistake -- the Army Corps never met a construction project they didn’t like. Please send Governor Corzine a letter to cancel 92 now!

Route 92 is the New Jersey Turnpike Authority's proposed 6.7 mile highway to connect Exit 8A and

The Route 92 western terminus impact zone. Roads that would likely be burdened by 92 traffic are shown in red. How close is your home? Click on the image for more detail.

Route 1 in Middlesex County, virtually duplicated by the existing Route 522, just one to two miles to the north. Route 92 would waste more than $350 million of our money, make local traffic worse, destroy wetlands, endanger historic communities, and turn our most beautiful open space into sprawl throughout four counties.

The No 92 Campaign has been working since 1994 to stop construction of this highway and believes there are more viable alternatives.

The project has now reached a critical point. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement has been released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). From all appearences, the DEIS strongly favors issuing permits to build 92 - contrary to all common sense and scientific evidence about what the road would do to our region. From all appearances, the Army Corps took virtually no notice of any of the huge amount of past public input in preparing the DEIS.

The state is still moving forward on construction of 92. Even though former Acting Governor Codey said  that Route 92 is low priority, the Turnpike Authority has no plans to cancel 92. In fact, the Turnpike is getting construction permits for 92 from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. NJDEP must also issue a certification that water quality will not be degraded before the Corps will consider granting the wetlands permit.

Route 92’s Alignment on the NJ State Plan ― running directly through “Environmentally Sensitive” areas. Click on photo for a larger version.

Construction of Rt. 92 would run directly counter to the State of New Jersey’s official efforts to save open space, preserve farmland and protect critical habitat and environmentally sensitive areas.  Under the existing State Development and Redevelopment Plan, adopted on March 1, 2001, Rt. 92 would cut right through State Plan Areas 4 (rural farmland) and 5 (critical habitat, environmentally sensitive areas).

Doesn’t the Turnpike Authority know what’s in the State Plan?  Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? 

Why shouldn’t the Corps and Governor Corzine allow construction of Route 92 to commence? For starters, the proposed alignment for Route 92 runs directly through the Environmentally Sensitive areas on the State Plan map. The alignment also directly traverses 14 acres of wetlands, slated to be destroyed with construction of Rt. 92. By promoting sprawl, the project conflicts with New Jersey’s smart growth agenda, which has directed the State Depts. of Environmental Protection, Agriculture, Community Affairs, and Transportation to consider the impacts of sprawl in the evaluation of their projects.

Then there’s the money. Federal transportation funds are scarce in New Jersey, and the state borrowed almost a billion dollars in 2004, just to pay for maintaining the roads they already have. Route 92 would squander hundreds of millions of dollars - maybe a billion or more - on a Turnpike boondoggle less than a mile from an existing, free, high-speed road, Route 522. How can Gov. Corzine call Route 92 fiscally responsible?

92 would chop the Plainsboro Nature Preserve in two, fill it with road noise and pollution, and threaten endangered species - and that’s not very comical! Click the image for a full-scale version - and please visit our friends at www.conehenge.com.

Public opposition to Rt. 92 has been long and fierce. At hearings in 1997 convened by USEPA, and 1999 and 2004 convened by the Corps, hundreds of speakers from a broad range of interests argued against the project, including the mayors or council members from the municipalities of Hillsborough, Hopewell and Rocky Hill Boroughs, Franklin, Hopewell, and Montgomery Townships, and South Brunswick, all of whom have passed resolutions against the project.  Even a May 1999 letter from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service stated that the project “would result in unacceptable adverse impacts to fish and wildlife resources and their supporting ecosystems.” 

The construction of Route 92 can be stopped with your support! Explore this website further to learn about alternatives to the construction, why new highways create more traffic in the long-run, and what you can do to let Governor Corzine know that you don’t want Route 92 in your community.

Can you help us stop 92?
Please contact us at no92@verizon.net.