The crosswalk where Spring Meadow, a 112-home senior community, meets Wyckoff Avenue is still closed, about five months after the township reported its lines had been painted.[1][2] Installation work is now on the calendar for this week. In an email to Wyckoff News on Tuesday, Township Administrator Matt Cavallo said he had been notified late last week that the pedestal foundations are scheduled to be installed Thursday, Oct. 15, with the signs scheduled for Friday, Oct. 16. Asked what had held up the crossing's pedestrian-activated flashing beacons, he said he wasn't sure what caused the delay, adding that "that is the latest installation schedule provided to me."[10]

At the Township Committee's Oct. 6 meeting, Cavallo said the contractor was "waiting on delivery of the crosswalk beacons at Spring Meadow Drive." Until that is completed, he said, "we're withholding contractor's retainage and some additional funds with regard to the Spring Meadow improvements."[3] Retainage, a routine feature of public construction contracts, is a portion of a contractor's payment held back until a job is finished.

The crossing was already closed in June. When Janet Toomey, the Spring Meadow Association's representative, spoke at the June 9 meeting, Mayor Roger Lane told her it was still closed and "very hazardous," and asked her to make sure residents did not use it "until it's properly taken care of." Toomey said residents had already been told.[4]

On Aug. 18, Toomey returned to the public comment podium to ask about progress. Cavallo answered that the township's engineering firm, Boswell, had reported the beacons were on order, and the contractor, Smith-Sondy, planned to install them as soon as it finished paving Lawlins Road. Cavallo said he had asked for the beacons to be in before school started. "I don't know if it's going to happen," he said.[5] Wyckoff Avenue is a county road, but the beacons are part of the township's own contract, bid together with the Lawlins Road paving.[6]

At the Sept. 15 meeting, the township said it had been told the flashing light on Wyckoff Avenue at Spring Meadow Drive "will be installed very soon."[7]

On Oct. 6, Cavallo called the Lawlins Road project "substantially complete," and the beacons still had not been delivered.[3] The township's weekly e-newsletter has run the same "Crosswalk Closed" notice in every issue since early July. As of the Oct. 8 edition, it was still "awaiting installation of a pedestrian activated crossing beacon and advance warning signs," with no date given.[8] When we visited on Oct. 10, barrels with "Sidewalk Closed" signs still blocked the new curb ramps at both ends of the crossing, and no flashing beacons had been mounted.[9]