Recently there have been a number of inquiries from residents about ongoing construction as part of the Washington Street project. Below is an update with information addressing some of the most common topics.  The project is expected to be completed by summer of 2018. For the latest updates and additional information, visit www.washingtonstreetproject.com.

CURB EXTENSIONS
Through the multi-year community planning process for the Washington Street project, we learned that our community’s top priority was pedestrian safety – with 98% of residents saying it was important to them and the vast majority supporting the use of curb extensions.

Curb extensions are one of the most effective pedestrian safety measures and are recommended by all federal, state, and local engineering design manuals. They prevent dangerous illegal parking in crosswalks, improve the ability of crossing pedestrians and drivers to see each other, reduce pedestrian crossing distances and exposure, and slow turning vehicles, which is a major cause of pedestrian collisions along Washington Street.

In addition to a high frequency of vehicle-pedestrian collisions along the corridor, a senior citizen was struck and killed by a turning vehicle as she was crossing Washington Street in 2015. As is often the case, the driver said that poor visibility was the reason for the crash. Curb extensions improve visibility between drivers and pedestrians, and by slowing turning vehicles, they help ensure that if a collision does occur, the injuries are minimized and the chance of survival increases dramatically.

Curb extensions don’t extend into the travel lane – they take up less space than a car parked car at the curb – so they don’t block traffic. As part of the design phase of the project, turning templates were performed for all vehicles including fire trucks using Hoboken specific fire truck sizes, and the curb extensions are designed to accommodate these turning movements.

The attached diagram shows the turning template for a Hoboken-specific fire truck at a typical intersection indicating that there are no encroachments.

TREES
The City is adding over 50 new trees through the Washington Street project. This is in addition to approximately 30 new trees that were planted between 1^stStreet and 5^th Street in the past few years through the Shade Tree Commission’s Washington Street Beautification Initiative. For this project, three trees have been removed and 16 more are planned to be removed due to utility conflicts such as drainage improvements. We are working to save or replant existing trees where possible, including an evaluation by the project engineer to determine if possible drainage alternatives would result in keeping some or all trees. No more trees will be removed until the City has reviewed the engineer’s report. The City also conducted a walkthrough with the Resident Engineer of the project and a representative from the Shade Tree Commission to evaluate which trees were likely to survive a replanting. An arborist and landscape architect are also evaluating if the t rees can survive replanting and where they could be replanted.