By Barbara A. Preston for The Montgomery News | August 20, 2026
For the residents of Rocky Hill, a borough of about 700 people, the struggle to maintain a small-town atmosphere in the face of regional growth is often measured in miles per hour.
The latest front in this ongoing battle opened Thursday night, when Rocky Hill Council President Richard Novak traveled to a meeting of the Montgomery Township Committee to make a direct appeal for help. Novak, a consistent voice for traffic calming in the borough, sought the committee's support for a long-held local goal: reducing the speed limit on a critical stretch of Princeton Avenue to 25 miles per hour.
The request, while seemingly modest, highlights the intensifying friction between small, historic boroughs and the larger, rapidly developing townships that surround them. For Rocky Hill, a community that prizes its narrow, residential streets and historic preservation, the increase in through-traffic has become an existential quality-of-life issue. For Montgomery, however, the road is viewed differently—designated as a "collector roadway," it is tasked with the regional mandate of moving people efficiently between commercial zones and commuter hubs.
“It doesn’t matter if you represent a borough of 700 or a city of 100,000,” Novak told the Montgomery committee. “We need to work together.”
The proposal focuses on a specific segment of Princeton Avenue, running from Blue Spruce Road to the Rocky Hill border. Novak argued that the road, which borders Van Horn Park, is functionally residential, lined with houses, and frequently used by pedestrians despite a lack of sidewalks. He warned that the road’s current configuration—including a slight decline that encourages drivers to accelerate—creates a dangerous environment that the borough is desperate to fix before an accident occurs.
“We don’t want to wait until somebody gets hit,” Novak said.
The reception from the neighboring township was cool, underscoring the bureaucratic hurdles that often stymie local safety initiatives. Montgomery officials previously indicated that their Transportation Advisory Committee does not support a speed limit reduction, suggesting instead that Rocky Hill Borough rely on targeted police enforcement. They have also signaled a reluctance to fund municipal sidewalk projects outside of their own ongoing work on Route 206, pointing Rocky Hill toward the possibility of funding improvements through its own grants.
For Novak, that solution is a non-starter. Grant funding, he explained, is tied to specific municipal boundaries, making it legally impossible for Rocky Hill to apply its state resources to road segments within Montgomery.
Advertisement
This recent exchange is merely the latest chapter in a multi-year campaign by Rocky Hill to impose order on its chaotic streets. The borough has, at times, faced frustration in navigating the complex web of state, county, and inter-municipal oversight required to install basic safety features. Previous efforts to install speed humps on Princeton Avenue, for example, were initially stymied by state regulations that prohibited them on roads with 35 mph speed limits, forcing the borough into a years-long, technical negotiation to prove that lower speeds were both safe and necessary.
Despite these challenges, Rocky Hill has notched quiet victories. The borough recently succeeded in working with Somerset County to lower the speed limit to 25 mph on a stretch of Washington Street (Route 518), and officials are pushing forward with plans for rapid-flashing beacons and radar feedback signs. These efforts reflect a philosophy that small, incremental changes—a sign here, a beacon there—are the only way to achieve long-lasting improvements in pedestrian safety.
As Rocky Hill continues to advocate for its residential character, the divide remains clear. On one side are the larger municipalities managing the mounting pressures of regional congestion; on the other is a community intent on ensuring that its history and safety are not sacrificed to the efficiency of the commute.
For now, the proposal for Princeton Avenue remains in limbo, a reminder that in the densely populated landscape of New Jersey, the path to a safer street is often long, winding, and heavily regulated.
