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

Drive down part of mile-long McElwee Road in Moorestown and the ride is more like negotiating a country lane than a suburban road.

As 70and73.com on Wednesday drove the scenic road from the Creek Road end, a box truck and a smaller service truck each pulled to the side of the road to let our SUV pass. The larger truck knocked over an empty blue recycling container as it yielded.

This part of the road is bumpy, with lush, green country views and older, smaller homes. At the wider part of the road near the other end, at Hartford Road, mini-mansions sitting far back on lush lawns dominate both sides of the street.

Until Monday night, the Township planned to seek a state Department of Transportation grant to resurface the full road and widen it at the Creek Road end.

But some of those who live on this road in the northeast part of Moorestown showed up at Monday's Town Council meeting and implored members to scale back road improvements. They said they fear McElwee alterations will forever change its character.

"I'm here to make a plea to keep McElwee Road as is, to not spoil the charm by widening it," Trish Radey, whose family has lived on the road for decades, told Council members.

Added Jonathan Simpson, also of McElwee Road: "I think that we should listen to what they say and embrace their passion and feelings about our neighborhood."

"We like it the way it is," Simpson told Council. "We don't want to see it change."

Council members listened — some residents said a better road meant speeding — and then asked questions of their own about what otherwise would have been a routine resolution to approve using a state grant to repave and widen the road that runs for one mile between Hartford and Creek roads.

They voted unanimously to, in essence, table the resolution by extending public testimony to the April 11 Council meeting.

A 70and73.com video of the narrow part of McElwee Road in Moorestown, driving south from Creek Road. The one-mile-long road widens as it reaches the stretch with mini-mansions. 

Neill Borowski | © 70and73.com | March 30, 2022 and Music by lesfm at pixabay.com

"If you could ask (Township consulting engineers) to at least produce something that shows the spots that they believe need widening," Mayor Nicole Gillespie told Township Manager Kevin E. Aberant at the meeting. "And if they could come with ideas, if not exactly plans, for what they could do to mitigate traffic and speeding from the get-go."

Four roads in Moorestown have been formally designated "Scenic Roads" and McElwee Road is one of them. The other three cited in the Circulation Plan Element of the Master Plan are Garwood and Cox roads and Haines Drive along Strawbridge Lake.

"Garwood, Cox and McElwee Roads represent a pastoral era when agriculture was the mainstay of the economy," according to the Master Plan. "Public perception of the community character of Moorestown places great emphasis on streetscapes that combine history and scenic beauty."

The Master Plan acknowledges that edge clearance, the distance from driving lanes to shoulder obstacles, "was not a consideration when people traveled at 8 or 10 mph. Nowadays, greater edge clearance is necessary to allow motorists to correct driving errors." Some upgrading on the scenic roads may be needed, the plan notes.

Garwood Road was upgraded with a state DOT grant in 2019-2020, Aberant told 70and73.com in an email.

"We saw what happened to Garwood," William Parkhill of McElwee Road told Council members. Slow this down, he said of the plan for McElwee, and "don't compromise this scenic resource."

Parkhill said he was concerned about McElwee improvements being the same as those on Garwood, including new guardrails and reflectors.

"We have witnessed what has happened on Garwood," McElwee resident Peter Cronk said at the Council meeting. "It was also very a scenic place with a lot of open spaces."

Cronk talked about having bald eagles and roaming turkey flocks as neighbors on McElwee Road. 

"We love being in the quiet part of Moorestown," he said.