A first glimpse at what the North Brunswick Train Station will look like
NORTH BRUNSWICK – The North Brunswick Train Station project has hit another milestone.
The Middlesex County Improvement Authority (MCIA), the project manager, has received formal approval from NJ Transit for 10% of the concept design, according to Middlesex County officials.
The project is expected to go out to bid for construction by fall 2025, MCIA Executive Director James Polos said during a presentation at Monday's North Brunswick Township Council meeting.
The MCIA also has unveiled a project webpage to update the progress of the development being built on NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor line.
The project is a joint effort of Middlesex County, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, NJ Transit, North Brunswick and the MCIA.
A former Johnson & Johnson property, the 212-acre site is evolving into a transit village on northbound Route 1 that includes retail, condominiums and townhomes to surround the station, which was proposed 15 years ago.
After years of planning and discussion, the state allocated $50 million in 2017 through the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund to kickstart the project.
“It’s the first time that the county’s had an opportunity to build and project manage such a site for NJ Transit,” Polos said. “We’re very proud of that opportunity, and we’re giving it our best to make sure that we do it right and as efficiently as we possibly can.”
The train station will be in the back of a Costco development, which is a township project, Polos said, and trains will be able to access the station along two tracks – Delco Lines 5 and 6.
“It’s about a 3 ½-mile stretch of track that needs to be refurbished and be able to brought up to code to accommodate passenger trains and passenger traffic,” Polos said. “What’s great about this project is that we’ve been able to dovetail the design and future construction of the station with work that NJ Transit has underway.”
Polos explained NJ Transit applied for a federal grant, as part of a resiliency program after Superstorm Sandy, to refurbish those lines for long-term storage of their trains which were flooded during the storm.
“The work that they are doing is a precursor and a necessary building block for the project that we’re putting forth and moving ahead with,” he said.
The recent approval allows the MCIA to move ahead with 30% of the design, which the MCIA anticipates being completed sometime next month, Polos said.
He added approval is needed from all partners in every step of the process.
"Both Amtrak and NJ Transit obviously have a stake in the ground with respect to what goes on on these tracks, and they need to go through a very detailed vetting and approval process at each of those different benchmarks in time so that we make sure we are covering all the technical aspects," Polos said.
Polos said the station platform will sit between Northeast Corridor Line 4 and Delco Line 5.
Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com
Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: North Brunswick NJ Transit train station project designs unveiled
