Upper Mountain Avenue's New Curves Have Been Measured in a Few Spots. Highland Avenue Will Show the Rest.

"The majority of drivers do not drive 25 on this road," an Upper Mountain Avenue resident told Montclair Local. "If I had to guess, I'd say they go between 35 and up to 45 mph."

The posted limit there is 25 mph, the same as on Valley Road. So the new curves striped into the road this month are trying to close a gap of 10 to 20 mph between the limit and how people actually drive. The township's early numbers suggest the gap is getting smaller where the speed humps are. Whether the project works for Upper Montclair as a whole is a bigger question. The answer depends on the half of the road that hasn't been measured yet and on a street the project never touched.

What changed between Watchung Avenue and the county line

If you've driven Upper Mountain recently, you've already felt it. The road no longer runs straight. Painted chicanes bend the travel lane from side to side. Speed humps sit at intervals. As of Tuesday, October 13, flexible plastic delineators stand along the curves so drivers can't just roll over the new lines.

The same resident told the paper that before the posts went in, many drivers rode over the new lines. "It forces people to follow the contours of the road," he said.

All of this is the visible end of a larger job. The township's May 2026 road work notice describes a project paid for with NJDOT Municipal Aid Grants. It runs from Watchung Avenue to the county limit, which falls between Seneca Place/Jerome Place and Mountain Terrace. The scope covered:

• Asphalt milling and resurfacing
• Drainage improvements
• Concrete curb reconstruction
• ADA curb ramp upgrades
• Speed humps, chicanes, and shared bicycle lane markings

So the curves aren't a stand-alone experiment painted onto old pavement. They come at the end of a full rebuild of the road surface. That also means smoother asphalt, which on its own tends to invite faster driving.

The early numbers cover only part of the road

Complete Streets Director Jacob Nieman gave the Complete Streets Oversight Board the first results in early October. They're specific, and they're limited.

Set those figures against the resident's estimate. A 4 or 5 mph drop at the humps is real progress, but it doesn't bring a 35-to-45 mph road down to 25. Nieman's case for why the chicanes should add to the effect is about attention, not physical barriers. "By causing people to no longer drive straight on a long stretch of roadway, you slow them down," he said. "You force them to stay engaged and to pay attention to the roadway."

Mayor Dr. Renee Baskerville, who also sits on the oversight board, said she drives the road two or three times a week on her way to Montclair State and that "the traffic has really calmed down." She also raised the question that matters most for anyone living along the route: whether the effect will wear off once drivers get used to it. "But for now, it seems like it's very effective," she told Montclair Local.

That makes timing the key variable. A design that slows drivers in October because it's new needs to keep slowing them in February, when the curves are just part of the commute.

A shoulder traded for a slower lane

Bike riders on Upper Mountain gave something up. According to Paul Mickiewicz, president of the advocacy group Bike & Walk Montclair, the chicanes take away some shoulder space on the northbound side. Signs along the road now say bicyclists may use the full lane.

Nieman points out that the road only had a shoulder on one side to begin with. In his view, fast cars are a bigger danger to riders than sharing the travel lane. "You may feel a bit safer having that shoulder there. But if cars are going that quickly, you're at a significant risk," he said, and added that a 4 or 5 mph reduction "can have a significant impact on diminishing the severity of pedestrian crashes."

Mickiewicz, who teaches cycling safety, described what taking the lane does from a driver's point of view. "It communicates to people from a distance that 'OK, I need to get into the other lane to pass. I can't squeeze past in the same lane,'" he told Montclair Local. He expects the chicane pattern to take some getting used to and said he was glad the plastic delineators were going in.

The bike trade-off works the same way as the driving one. Riders gave up a strip of pavement in exchange for slower traffic beside them. If speeds creep back up, they end up with neither.

Highland Avenue was never part of the project

A Highland Avenue resident out for a run on Upper Mountain told Montclair Local she had seen traffic there slow down noticeably. She called it "fabulous."

Then she described what she's seeing one street over. "Now that everyone's slowed down here, which I think is fabulous, everyone's speeding up on Highland Avenue," she said. "And your Waze will tell you, 'Go on Highland now.'" She noted that Highland has only one stop sign between Normal Avenue and Claremont Avenue and has no sidewalks.

By her account, the shift to Highland didn't start with the chicanes. It began when new stop signs went up on Upper Mountain. Those stop signs are part of a longer effort. The township's Vision Zero recap for 2024 lists the Bellevue Avenue and Upper Mountain Avenue intersection among its four-way stop installations.

This is one resident's observation, not a traffic count. No published Highland Avenue data exists yet. But it explains why the speed-hump numbers alone can't settle whether the project worked. If northbound and southbound through-traffic moves to the next parallel street with no sidewalks and one stop sign in that stretch, Upper Montclair as a whole hasn't gotten slower. The fast traffic has just moved. Highland is the unmeasured half of the test.

Where the next results show up

Upper Mountain is one piece of the township's Vision Zero Montclair effort, which aims to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2028. A federal grant pays for safety action plans and short-term demonstration projects. Several dates on that calendar matter for Upper Montclair:

1. The Park Street demonstration. The township's September 2026 newsletter scheduled a temporary bike-lane test using paint and cones on Park Street from Gordonhurst Avenue to Bellevue Avenue. It was set for October 16 to 18, with October 22 to 24 as the rain-date window. If weather pushed it back, the rain-date window runs from today through Saturday. Residents are invited to try the layout and share feedback. Bike & Walk Montclair scheduled guided rides with Nieman for October 17 and 18, starting at Watchung Plaza, with both the Park Street lane and the Upper Mountain chicanes on the route.
2. November 12, Complete Streets Oversight Board. The board usually meets at noon in the second-floor conference room of the Municipal Building at 205 Claremont Avenue. Its October 8 agenda included an update on the Upper Mountain improvements. That makes a follow-up likely once the data from south of Bellevue comes in.
3. December 10, Complete Streets Oversight Board. This is the board's last scheduled meeting of 2026, at the same place and time.

The Park Street flyer describes each demonstration as a five-step process: plan and design, quick installation, test and observe, gather feedback, and decide next steps. Upper Mountain is now at the test-and-observe stage. The feedback that will shape the next step includes measured speeds south of Bellevue, whether the 4 mph drop holds through winter, and whether anyone counts cars on Highland Avenue.

If you live along Upper Mountain or Highland and want to talk through how street changes like these are playing out on your block, I'm glad to compare notes. Chris Crawford Homes follows Upper Montclair one street at a time. Request your free market consultation and we'll start with yours.