One size does not fit all: Moorestown agrees to adjust plans to reconstruct McElwee Road.

Not all road projects are created equal.

That's the lesson the Moorestown Town Council and its engineering consultant came away with on Monday night when a new plan for reconstructing historic McElwee Road was presented after extensive meetings with the road's residents.

Since early this year, some of the neighbors have complained a widening project for the relatively narrow country road would ruin its charm.

"Sometimes you do a road and you think it’s just any other road," a representative of Philadelphia-based Pennoni Associates told Council members during a presentation of a revised McElwee Road project, which Moorestown expects the state Department of Transportation to fund.

» READ MORE: Some Moorestown residents plea with town to forget improving their road, fearing 'charm' would be lost.

Revised plans include widening part of the road to 18 feet from its current 15 feet. NJDOT prefers a 20-foot-wide road, according to the Pennoni report. NJDOT is expected to approve 18 feet.

Unlike other roads in town that have been reconstructed and have reflective markings, McElwee will have none and only new asphalt will be apparent.

Although up to three trees would be removed under the plan, William Parkhill, who lives on the road, said two of the trees would be 60-foot hickory trees on his property that cannot be replaced. He was told the engineering firm will take another look at the plan to see if the trees can be saved.

"I think that we've made tremendous progress from where we feared we were going," Parkhill told Council.

Speaking to Council in March, Parkhill urged: "Don't compromise this scenic resource."

Although metal guiderails would go over a culvert, the project's engineers will look into wooden guiderails after requested to do so.

One factor in McElwee's favor was its history. Part of the road once was part of the Old Salem Road that connected Burlington City in the north to Salem in the south.

If all approvals come through, construction would begin in the spring of next year.