About 100 residents packed into Stony Brook Elementary School Tuesday evening for a Mercer County listening session on proposed roundabouts in Hopewell Township, and by the end of the meeting, county officials said they had heard the message clearly.
Most of those who spoke opposed the proposals.
But the projects aren’t officially dead.
Mercer County is studying potential roundabouts at several intersections along county roads in the township as part of a broader roadway safety initiative. Advancing the projects would require support from the Hopewell Township Committee, which has not yet taken a position.
More information on the projects and a public comment form can be found on the county website here.
County Engineer Basit “Sunny” Muzaffar told the crowd that the county would not force the projects on a community that doesn’t want them.
“You have spoken,” Muzaffar said. “I don’t get a resolution of support from the town. I’ll go build somewhere else. End of conversation.”
Later, he said he was leaving the meeting with a clear impression.
“I’m walking away from this with a message that we do not want the roundabouts,” Muzaffar said.
He asked attendees to indicate their support or opposition on the meeting sign-in materials so the county could tally the response. An online survey also remains available.
Residents question the need
The evening was at times contentious, with residents repeatedly questioning whether the intersections have safety problems significant enough to justify replacing existing traffic signals with roundabouts.
Matthew Lawson, Mercer County’s assistant planning director, acknowledged that the crash history at some of the intersections is limited.
At the Stephenson Road and Blackwell Road intersections being studied, there were four crashes at each during the six-year period from 2018 through 2023, Lawson said.
“There were not many crashes,” he said.
But Lawson said the county is looking at preventing serious crashes rather than waiting for them to occur. Roundabouts reduce vehicle speeds and the number of points at which vehicles can collide, he said, while also shortening crossings for pedestrians.
The Federal Highway Administration says converting a signalized intersection to a roundabout can reduce fatal and injury crashes by 78%. Converting a two-way stop-controlled intersection can reduce them by 82%, according to materials distributed by the county at the meeting.
Several residents questioned applying those national safety statistics to intersections where serious crashes have been uncommon. Others raised concerns about whether drivers would yield to pedestrians and bicyclists at roundabouts, particularly at locations where sidewalks and other pedestrian connections are limited.
One resident who lives at the Blackwell Road intersection described using the existing traffic signal to safely cross the road to reach her mailbox. Others argued that the county should consider less extensive measures, including changes to signal timing, lower speeds or additional stop controls.
The county’s argument, however, extends beyond the intersections’ recent crash history.
Lawson said the existing traffic signals are approaching the point when they will need significant upgrades. Traffic signals generally require modernization about every 20 years, he said, including replacement of electrical equipment, lights and mast arms and installation of new underground conduit.
“We’re doing this project because we know we’re going to have to upgrade these signals,” Lawson said.
Roundabouts still require pavement maintenance, he said, but eliminate much of the electrical and signal infrastructure that the county must maintain over the long term.
Federal funding is also available for the work. When a resident characterized that money as a motivating factor, Lawson pushed back.
“Safety is my motivating factor, and found money is the vehicle,” he said.
Looking ahead as Hopewell grows
The discussion also repeatedly returned to development and changing traffic patterns in Hopewell Township.
Residents questioned whether current traffic studies adequately account for housing already approved or planned in the township and whether the county should wait until more of that development is built before redesigning the intersections.
Lawson said the current work is a planning study, not a final design, and that additional engineering would be required before anything could be constructed. If the county proceeds using the federal process, he said, construction would likely be at least six years away.
“If we move forward with this project,” Lawson said, “that depends on a council resolution of support.”
The process would include preliminary engineering, final design and eventually construction, with each stage potentially taking one or two years, he said.
That long timeline also means the county is considering how the roads may function years from now rather than solely how they operate today.
A roundabout isn’t the Pennington Circle
One point county officials repeatedly emphasized was that the proposed intersections would be modern roundabouts — not traffic circles like the nearby Pennington Circle at Route 31.
“The Pennington Circle is not a roundabout,” Lawson told residents.
The distinction matters because the two types of intersections operate differently.
Drivers entering a modern roundabout yield to traffic already circulating inside it. At traditional New Jersey traffic circles, traffic patterns can instead require vehicles already within the circle to yield to entering traffic.
The county even distributed an informational sheet contrasting the proposed roundabouts with the Pennington Circle.
Lawson later called the Pennington Circle “not a modern roundabout” and pointed to its yield pattern as one of the fundamental differences between the two designs.
Township decision still to come
Deputy Mayor Uma Purandare attended Tuesday’s session and told residents she had not formed an opinion on the proposals.
Purandare said the plans had been presented to the Township Committee in January but acknowledged that earlier public outreach had not reached many residents. She encouraged those at the meeting to continue bringing their concerns to the Township Committee.
“This will not go unless they get the approval letter from the township,” Purandare said.
Because the intersections are on county roads, Purandare said the Township Committee would not itself conduct the project’s formal approval process. But county officials have said they want a resolution of support from the township before moving forward.
For now, that leaves the proposals in an unusual position.
The county says modern roundabouts would improve safety, reduce long-term maintenance and prepare the intersections for the future. The residents who turned out Tuesday overwhelmingly told county officials they don’t want them.
