What It Takes to Get a Road Diet Done

Earlier this month, I wrote about New Brunswick’s inability to complete a road diet on Livingston Avenue. The report that served as the basis for that piece concluded that city officials should be “less timid” about such projects in the future. In a formal letter responding to the CityLab post, sent via email, Glenn Patterson, New Brunswick’s director of planning and community development, says that’s true in general—but doesn’t apply to his particular city in this particular case:

Patterson explained that New Brunswick has been encouraging Middlesex County, New Jersey, to consider a road diet on Livingston since 2008. That effort gained focus in 2012 when the city partnered with the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers to study the situation more closely. The partnership produced a 2014 report touting the benefits of a road diet, as well as the new research study highlighted in the CityLab post.