Connector roads ease traffic in Eatontown
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Former Eatontown Mayor Joseph Frankel poses with family members beneath a street sign bearing his name during a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the official opening of the new road connecting Route 35 and Industrial Way.

EATONTOWN - Former Mayor Joseph Frankel said it hasn't yet sunk in that his one-time colleagues in borough hall have named a new thoroughfare in his honor.

Nonetheless, Frankel, who began his 20-year tenure as Eatontown's mayor when President Gerald Ford occupied the White House, believes that once he drives on the newly opened Frankel Way a few times, he might get used to the idea.

On Friday morning, it was Frankel who unveiled the street marker sign along Route 35 north where the freshly paved borough thoroughfare meets the state roadway.

"I'll enjoy driving up and down this road and seeing that sign," Frankel told a contingent of local, county and state officials, as well as family members who attended a brief ceremony marking the official opening of the two-lane thoroughfare.

Within minutes, Frankel and several officials cut a red ribbon and the 1,300-foot-long road linking Industrial Way East with Route 35 northbound was open for traffic.

On the opposite, southbound side of the highway, a similar roadway, described as an extension of Meridian Way, was to open later in the day, according to Mayor Gerald Tarantolo, who led the proceedings.

Meridian Way will link Industrial Way West with Route 35 southbound.

Described as connector roads, the two new thoroughfares, designed by Borough Engineer Bob Stetz, are intended to help ease traffic backups where vehicles line up at signals along both Industrial Way east and west and Route 35.

"There was a problem with a queing of the traffic," Tarantolo said in his remarks. "This new construction I believe will relieve that problem."

Signage is now in place directing motorists traveling on both Industrial Way east and west to follow the connector roads to either Route 35 north or south, Tarantolo said.

A $650,000 grant from the state Department of Transportation (DOT) Trust Fund covered the bulk of the total $680,000 price tag to construct the two connector roads, Tarantolo said.

Eatontown property owners paid for the balance of $30,000 thanks to Stetz' successful negotiating with the DOT, he added.

"This might be a small sign and street, but we could not have done it without the money from the DOT Trust Fund," said Monmouth County Freeholder Director William Barham, who also spoke at the ceremony.

With the opening of Frankel Way, the freeholder board will soon take over maintenance of Industrial Way east from its terminus at Wall Street, an arrangement that the borough had been mapping out with the county officials, Tarantolo said.

Because it was Frankel who in the late 1970s and early 1980s sought to construct Industrial Way east to encourage businesses to locate in the town, borough officials believed it was only fitting that the connector road east of Route 35 be named in his honor.

Longtime council President Theodore F. Lewis Jr. helped bring Industrial Way east, now lined by various office buildings and hotels into existence, Frankel said.

"I remember when Ted Lewis and I were standing out here in the early 1980s opening Industrial Way east," Frankel said.

Frankel, who recently moved to Ocean Township after 40 years living in Eatontown, served as a councilman from 1970 to 1974, the year he was elected mayor.

From Jan. 1, 1975, to Dec. 31, 1994, Frankel stayed in the mayor's office, re-elected five times for a total of 20 consecutive years.

He retired in 2002 from his post as a vice president for government relations with Prudential Insurance.

The opening of the connector roads are part of an overall plan to reconstruct the intersection of Route 35 and Industrial Way east and west, Tarantolo said. That plan also ties into a forthcoming DOT plan to reconfigure the much larger interchange of Routes 35 and 36 farther north.