{"id":19798,"date":"2022-04-08T01:29:46","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T05:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=19798"},"modified":"2022-04-08T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T18:30:08","slug":"wawa-turning-woes-linger-in-brick-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2022\/04\/wawa-turning-woes-linger-in-brick-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Wawa Turning Woes Linger in Brick: Here’s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vehicles<\/a>

Vehicles jockey for position making turns into and out of the Wawa on Route 88 in Brick, Nov. 2021. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brick Township\u2019s newest Wawa store, which opened in November 2021 at the busy intersection of Route 88 and Jack Martin Boulevard, quickly drew the ire of residents and motorists<\/a> after it became apparent that left turns onto and off of the state highway were allowed.<\/p>\n

After the store opened, complaints over gridlock began immediately. Vehicles turning left in order to enter and exit the Wawa have led to backups, which at times also stymied traffic on Jack Martin Boulevard, which is a county road. Brick officials, with no jurisdiction over the state-controlled Route 88, began lobbying the Department of Transportation to create a \u201cno left turn\u201d rule at the intersection \u2013 and the request was granted by December<\/a>. To date, however, there has never been any signage installed indicating left turns had ever been prohibited. The simple answer: they aren\u2019t, yet.<\/p>\n

Mayor John Ducey addressed the concern Thursday during an online town hall meeting following a question from a resident.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for the state,\u201d Ducey said. \u201cUnfortunately we\u2019re not allowed to [place] the sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the state agreed to Brick\u2019s request, what many believed would be a simple traffic rule notation has turned into a larger matter with the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re having their legal department go through it because there is already a legal contract in place where lefts are allowed,\u201d said Ducey. \u201cThey\u2019re working with Wawa to write a new access agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vehicles<\/a>

Vehicles jockey for position making turns into and out of the Wawa on Route 88 in Brick, Nov. 2021. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Jack<\/a>

Jack Martin Boulevard, Brick, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

There was no timeline as to when that agreement would be worked out, or if Wawa is willing to comply with the state\u2019s left-turn prohibition. Brick officials are powerless in the matter. Since the Wawa complex is located on a state highway, the local planning board did not have jurisdiction over traffic patterns and could not have ordered the store to prohibit left turns out of the parking lot (or into the store from Route 88).<\/p>\n

Left turns are banned on several other properties along Route 88, which carries one lane in each direction and is often subject to backups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Exxon and Conoco, you can\u2019t make a left there \u2013 you have to go to the traffic light and make a left \u2013 which makes sense,\u201d Ducey said after the store first opened. \u201cUnfortunately they didn\u2019t do that with this location. If they wouldn\u2019t have allowed them, we could\u2019ve put up a sign and the police could have written tickets, but unfortunately they didn\u2019t go that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brick officials have strongly urged residents and visitors to use the large driveways on Jack Martin Boulevard to access and egress the Wawa store.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick Township\u2019s newest Wawa store, which opened in November 2021 at the busy intersection of Route 88 and Jack Martin Boulevard, quickly drew the ire of residents and motorists after it became apparent that left turns onto and off of the state highway were allowed. After the store opened, complaints over gridlock began immediately. Vehicles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,4484,626,702,625,272],"class_list":["post-19798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-featured","tag-jack-martin-boulevard","tag-left-turn","tag-route-88","tag-wawa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/brick_wawa_route_88_turn_166-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-59k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}