Appleby changes help conditions on Vliet St.

BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer

SPOTSWOOD — The expanded Appleby School parking lot is complete, along with a new “wrap-around” area for parents to avoid Vliet Street while dropping off students.

Board of Education President Alan Bartlett said the expansion and associated wrap-around, finished in time for the first day of school, have helped to ease congestion in areas where parents would park to drop off and pick up students at the grades 2-5 school. The wrap-around is a half circle that allows parents to drive onto school grounds, drop students off in the rear of the school and go back out onto the road.

Not everyone is sold on the changes. Councilman Curtis Stollen feels the situation has made matters worse. He said the configuration is unsafe because traffic congestion is now centered in one spot at the front of the school.

“It confirmed my original fears,” he said.

Bartlett admitted the new set-up is “not perfect,” but said it is “a lot better than what we had.” He said the wrap-around makes it easier for parents to drop off students and exit the area. Because congestion on Vliet Street has been reduced, emergency vehicles would not have the access problem that existed when cars lined both sides of the street.

When drivers could not reach the Appleby School property, they would line up along Vliet Street, leading to congestion and unsafe conditions for students, in addition to the problem created for emergency vehicles.

“Between buses and cars, it created a huge bottleneck on Vliet,” Bartlett said.

While Stollen acknowledged the situation on Vliet Street itself has improved, he said it is because of new parking regulations, and not the expanded lot and wrap-around. The borough has banned parking on one side of Vliet Street.

“The congestion on Vliet Street has been eliminated by removing parking on one side,” he said.

Stollen said that even though the parking lot was expanded, there was no gain in parking spots because other parking areas were eliminated.

Site work at Appleby included repaving the existing parking lot and expanding it, as well as re-striping the area. Bartlett admitted that the first day of school saw some problems. The district changed dismissal from the front of the school to the back, but quickly realized its old system was better. Officials realized there is not enough room in the back to accommodate all of the students and cars.

“It became a bit of a social event with people congregating,” he said. “There’s not enough real estate to house them all.”