TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—County Executive James J. Tedesco III has written to Mayor Peter Calamari and the Township Council to confirm the County of Bergen expects to proceed with the public bidding process for the Intersection Improvement and Signalization project at Pascack Road and Washington Avenue, with construction anticipated to start in spring 2022.
Calamari forwarded the letter to Pascack Press shortly after he received it Oct. 14.
The project is the subject of a shared services agreement between the County of Bergen and the Township of Washington as of July 2, 2019.
“It is the county’s understanding that the township has acquired through negotiation or condemnation easements with respect to the various properties which are required for this project. The completion of easement documents to the satisfaction of county counsel, and the resolution of Engineering Division comments on the plans and specifications, will allow the project to advance to the public bidding phase, with construction anticipated to start in spring 2022,” Tedesco wrote.
Calamari told the council Sept. 20 that county officials were expected to give final approval to the long-awaited project with work likely to begin in spring 2022.
Calamari said the township acquired all 16 property easements needed for the road-widening project, with the final two remaining easements taken by declarations of taking filed in August in Superior Court, Hackensack.
The declarations of taking are comparable to an easement, town attorney Kenneth Poller told Pascack Press in August. The final property owner, SZ Realty Investment LLC, Peter Covello, Tonya Covello and Pascack Auto Exchange, did not come to terms with the township for an easement on their land.
According to a public notice, the township exercised eminent domain on Lots 1 and 7 of Block 3103.
County Engineering Director Nancy Dargis had told Pascack Press that the project would not be put on the division’s schedule until all needed property easements were received from the township.
Calamari further reported Sept. 20 that Bergen County notified the town engineer that the entire length of Pascack Road is scheduled to be paved. No timeline was given. He said the first step is for local officials to meet with county ADA experts to prepare a list of sidewalk ramps to be replaced.
The intersection improvement is a defining priority for the council, and funding the engineering “soft costs” was the new council’s first attempted ordinance in 2017.
The intersection, a notorious bottleneck near the fire station — which is being replaced on essentially the same footprint with a $6 million-plus, two-story volunteer fire and ambulance headquarters — daily serves tens of thousands of people in addition to residents.
A final SSA condition added in December 2019 requires the township pay for any new traffic lights needed for public safety at the emergency services building — which itself is expected to be ready for occupancy in early January.