LAKEWOOD, NJ – Just days after promising to pay more attention to roadway and traffic issues in Lakewood and Jackson, Ocean County Commissioner Jack Kelly announced a major upgrade to a once sleepy country road.
Just ten years ago, Cross Street was peppered with horse farms, tree farms and agriculture, with a few industrial and commercial sites mixed in.
Today, most of those farms have been sold and in their place, large private schools have been built. The narrow two-lane road was never improved.
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These days, depending upon the time of day, Cross Street is gridlocked from end to end, especially during school drop-off and pickup hours.
Commissioner Kelly said approval to turn the road into a five-lane highway will soon be approved.
Kelly said in an interview, “If all goes well, the bid for the Cross Street widening project from Augusta to Route 9 should be awarded next week.”
That would leave the northern part of the road bottlenecked in the area where the majority of the schools are, north of Agusta Boulevard.
The widening would create a wider thoroughfare to access the planned massive residential development at Eagle Ridge Golf Course but could make matters even worse for the private schools to the north. That project is expected to bring 1,100 more housing units.
In August, 2019, an elderly Lakewood couple who opposed the development were brutally beaten inside their home.
Police still have not made an arrest in the case. In the vicious attack, Frederick “Rob” Robison, 67, was thanked by his attacker for his military service. Robison served in the United States Marine Corps.
Robison claimed he asked his attacker why he was being beaten, alleging the attacker said, “So you don’t like duplexes in your neighborhood.”