Traffic

Whomever decided to close several streets in Millburn today should be fired. Just horrible

What is closed?

rhw said:

What is closed?

More like what isn't?

disaster. Ages to get no where and had to turn around and come home

To my knowledge: Wyoming Avenue at Millburn Avenue, Ridgewood at Millburn Avenue, the side streets between Ridgewood and Millburn Avenue, Glen Avenue off of Wyoming/Millburn, and the ongoing construction disaster that is Millburn Avenue downtown.

I understand the town helpfully tweeted that residents should find alternate routes. I'm just not sure what those would be.

Complete cluster-f. Glen Avenue was completely backed up by the library in both directions. Couldn't make a turn at either Lackawanna or Wyoming. I feel terrible for local businesses. Incompetent leadership.

Heading to Staples via Ridgewood, we were directed down a side street to Millburn Ave. Fine, we made a right on Millburn Ave., and joined the line and waited through a couple of light cycles, But then were not allowed to turn left on to Vauxhall! The "detour" sign just pointed you straight on down to Millburn Ave. What DETOUR? There were no more signs. Fortunately, I knew that there was no easy way to get to Valley or Vauxhall through the South Mountain section, but seriously - what did they want you to do? We gave up on the Staples trip and went home.

I felt bad for the folks who didn't know that area intimately and were trying to navigate by signs or GPS.

I consider Millburn to be a lot like the Honey Badger: just doesn't give a f*ck

elsie said:

I understand the town helpfully tweeted that residents should find alternate routes. I'm just not sure what those would be.

Use a transporter maybe?

a guy from Buncher's Hardware was supposed to come out this afternoon to take some measurements. He was 4 hours late because of all this.

Not like anyone has anyplace to go the day before a major holiday.

I was very fortunate yesterday morning at about 10:30 am. I approached Millburn Avenue from Vauxhall (coming from an early trip to Costco in Union), made the left onto Millburn Avenue easily considering all the traffic, and pulled into Trader Joes without incident. Coming back to Maplewood, I found that the Wyoming Avenue bridge was open heading north (though closed south), found very little traffic taking Wyoming to Glen to Ridgewood and home. It must have gotten a lot worse later in the day.

Millburn's website states that the construction induced problems in that area will resume on Monday of next week. Does anyone know if it will possible to make it to Millburn from here between today and Sunday?

It is utility work so not sure how much say the town had.

Lackawanna Place: Miller Pipeline Co. has been subcontracted by PSE&G to work on a gas main that runs down the center of the street. This construction requires the closure of Lackawanna Place for 3 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Monday). For individuals looking to use Lackawanna Place, proceed to Holmes Street to make the left or use the loop at Millburn Ave and Essex Street (by Annie Sez).

Wyoming Ave between Glen Ave and Millburn Ave: Miller Pipeline Co. has been subcontracted by PSE&G to work on maintenance of gas lines in the area of Wyoming Ave. This work will result in a lane closure for 3 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Monday).

Ridgewood Road at Millburn Ave: Fletcher Creamer has been subcontracted by New Jersey American Water to work on infrastructure improvements (replacing pipes) at the intersection of Ridgewood Road and Millburn Ave. This work will result in lane closures for the next 3 weeks.

I ran into this last Friday morning. What a mess. Not closing Wyoming AND Ridgewood at the same time should be a no-brainer, but apparently not.

It's probably just Joey D's retribution for Millburn's threats to secede from Essex county. "Time for some traffic problems in Millburn..."

I live in Millburn and I think the crews (Flanagan?) have been doing an amazing job. I have lived in towns that would take years to complete the same work that Millburn has completed in the last 2+ months. I have seen some of the pipes that came out of the ground and calling them pipes doesn't quite seem to describe the rust flakes they have been pulling out in pieces.

I think that Essex St. wrong way drivers, speeding, signage ignorant drivers, oversized trucks jake-braking down Main St, and folks unable to parallel park in under five minutes, are also a large part of the traffic issues. The accidents due to inattentive drivers slows things down even more. It is easy to blame construction but the construction is not the sole cause of the backups. I have watched police officers ignored by drivers when told not to make a left turn from Essex to Main- which majorly hinders traffic flow - and the drivers do it anyway only to receive a ticket for their own nonsense.

Not saying the construction backups are not time consuming as a driver. I live here and have to deal with it too, but similar backups existed long before the construction project in progress.

For 12/8

Here is an update from twitter for anyone who drives on Lackawanna...

Lackawanna Pl CLOSED TO ALL TRAFFIC between Millburn Ave and Essex St until about 4:00pm for milling and paving.

I suspect you work for the town

Would it make any sense to park cars out of the affected zone and walk to and from the cars (and trucks)? How big is the affected zone?

If the police blocked off traffic in the construction zone, it could even improve overall throughput.

Just some thoughts from someone far away and unable to observe.

I agree that careless and impatient drivers are a huge issue, including the genius who flipped a four-lane U-turn in the middle of Millburn Avenue this morning to park in front of Jose Eber.

The worst of the downtown zone is several blocks long; the trouble is there are no alternate routes without detouring through residential neighborhoods and, often, encountering additional road closings. My heart goes out to the merchants, at what should be their busiest time of year.

Wyoming between Glen and Millburn was closed again today (supposed to be finished two weeks ago), adding an additional layer of difficulty.

Today, coming back to the Wyoming neighborhood from an appointment out past Livingston Mall, I took Parsonage Hill Road. Except Parsonage Hill was closed at Passaic. No warning sign, no chance to turn around, just a detour. A detour all the way through downtown Chatham.

This is not well managed. The crews appear to be doing very nice work; I am sure they would have an easier time of it if traffic were appropriately diverted by the town, and if drivers had any way to know which main routes are actually passable on which weeks.

Woot said:

I suspect you work for the town

I do not work for any town, and I absolutely do not work for Millburn. My comments are simply my observations living downtown. If you like, I can start taking videos and pictures to back it up, however I suspect you would most dislike the results as would many of the residents.

On Tuesday, the cars were backed up from Parsonage Hill Road to Main Street in Chatham (well over a mile). I was going in opposite direction and was resigned to going to South Orange Ave to continue home. Just as the light changed, the removed the cones blocking the right-turn and I was happily on my way.

But I agree - horrible planning,

elsie said:

Today, coming back to the Wyoming neighborhood from an appointment out past Livingston Mall, I took Parsonage Hill Road. Except Parsonage Hill was closed at Passaic. No warning sign, no chance to turn around, just a detour. A detour all the way through downtown Chatham.

elsie said:

I agree that careless and impatient drivers are a huge issue, including the genius who flipped a four-lane U-turn in the middle of Millburn Avenue this morning to park in front of Jose Eber.

The worst of the downtown zone is several blocks long; the trouble is there are no alternate routes without detouring through residential neighborhoods and, often, encountering additional road closings. My heart goes out to the merchants, at what should be their busiest time of year.

Wyoming between Glen and Millburn was closed again today (supposed to be finished two weeks ago), adding an additional layer of difficulty.

Today, coming back to the Wyoming neighborhood from an appointment out past Livingston Mall, I took Parsonage Hill Road. Except Parsonage Hill was closed at Passaic. No warning sign, no chance to turn around, just a detour. A detour all the way through downtown Chatham.

This is not well managed. The crews appear to be doing very nice work; I am sure they would have an easier time of it if traffic were appropriately diverted by the town, and if drivers had any way to know which main routes are actually passable on which weeks.

Agreed. I have tried to watch the Twitter posts and when they happen, they are helpful, and when they don't, traffic snarls ensue. I can't help but wonder if things are moving and happening so quickly the traffic posts can't keep up. I use Waze, but even Waze was behind the issues at hand. I spent almost a week getting them to understand that there were no longer left turns from Essex to Main and from Main to Essex.

Tom_Reingold said:

Would it make any sense to park cars out of the affected zone and walk to and from the cars (and trucks)? How big is the affected zone?

If the police blocked off traffic in the construction zone, it could even improve overall throughput.

Just some thoughts from someone far away and unable to observe.

This is exactly what has helped.

Does anyone know what/how long this Parsonage Hill Road/Passaic Avenue BS will continue? Got caught in it again last night except this time they had Passaic Avenue down to one lane and Parsonage Hill closed. A normal 30-minute commute took longer than 60 minutes. What are they doing there?

I’d like to know, too. It’s having a major spillover effect on my typical commute on South Orange Avenue.

Absolutely agree they should give you early warning at a point where you can take an alternate route that the road is closed ahead -- in this case near the Livingston mall signs could be posted. Agree it IS an unreasonably long detour to be diverted to Chatham! And Glen Ave is another one that is frequently closed where they could easily put up signs at multiple points alerting traffic before they turn and get caught up in a detour. Although I do agree traffic through town has been better last few weeks but I think it is because nobody is going there any more!

I had to look up Parsonage at Passaic. Is that part of Millburn too?

just a complete cluster****

just a complete cluster****

That is what I texted to a friend/colleague who works later hours but takes the same route. It wasn't any better when she left nearer to 6 p.m. WHAT are they doing and WHEN will it be over?

Woot said:

just a complete cluster****