Village Improving Grove St. Road Conditions

As part of its initiation to the , the village has begun construction work to improve conditions on arguably its worst road – the pot hole-pocketed, speeder-heavy Grove Street. 

, around the Christmas lull the village began constructing a large traffic island on Grove St. near Paramus Rd. to reduce speeding.

"Whenever you build a road or start major construction, you take into consideration the safety of pedestrians and traffic flow," Killion said of the Complete Streets Project, a state initiative the village agreed to take part of in 2011.

The island, a few hundred feet long, is slated to have grass and small trees to fill the space when it's complete, likely within the month.

Those that travel Grove St. are likely less concerned with the speeding issue than they are with the quality of the road itself, which can bottom out cars due to massive potholes.

"We're trying to see if the weather holds up we can pave it," Killion said in an interview, adding that curb cut completion is still about three weeks out and the village may have to employ the "hot patching" method of filling pot holes over the winter.

"I've asked the Village Manager [Ken Gabbert] to try to clean up the road as well as possible, take care of as many of those potholes as possible and we'll begin paving in March if we can't get it done now."

The paving was originally projected to be completed in October, but storm recovery work from and the subsequent delayed efforts. [Editor's note – update on Friday, Jan. 6: the total project cost, including the island, is $258,900.]

"Unfortunately we would have liked to see projects like this done earlier but there have been a whole bunch of other things that sprung up this year," Killion said, stating that he understands commuters' frustrations.

"I live right off of Grove St. and travel it every day. My car is getting bumped up just as much as theirs. I want to get it done as fast as everyone else does."