The temporary changes on Hall Avenue between West Side Avenue and Catherine Street were installed August 14 to 15 and were scheduled to stay "through October." No specific removal date has been posted, so the test is now in the last stretch of its scheduled run. The decisions that matter more come next. The project schedule lists neighborhood improvement recommendations for November 2026, a public open house in fall 2026, and a final plan in winter 2026.
Those recommendations will start from data the study team collected on Hall Avenue a year ago. That data shows Hall's busiest hour isn't the morning commute. It's a weekday early afternoon at Jacques Street.
What Went on the Street, and Why
The project goes by ¡Pa'lante Hall Avenue!, and the City of Perth Amboy announced the demonstration as a way "to evaluate potential future changes to improve safety and accessibility." The City presented it as a trial, not a finished design.
The demonstration page says the changes respond to community concerns about speeding, difficulty crossing the street, and congestion. It lists three goals:
- Narrow travel lanes to slow drivers
- Shorten the crossing distance for people walking
- Make people crossing the street more visible
The test is one piece of a larger study, the Hall Avenue Neighborhood Complete Streets Plan. Its study area takes in Hall Avenue plus the surrounding blocks bounded by Amboy Avenue, State Highway 440, State Street, and Washington Street. The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority sponsors and manages the plan in coordination with the City. IMEG leads the consultant team, with support from Streetplans and Radin Consulting. NJTPA says the study is funded through its Complete Streets Conceptualization Program. In July, NJTPA's chairman cited the Hall Avenue installation in his board remarks as an example of the agency's Demonstration Library at work, and listed Perth Amboy alongside Highland Park and Roselle Park.
So Hall Avenue's results will also feed a regional program. The project site says NJTPA "will use the lessons learned to bring Complete Streets initiatives to other municipalities across northern New Jersey."
The Baseline Peaks at Lunchtime, Not Rush Hour
Before anything was painted, the study team counted traffic on Thursday, October 23, 2025, and Saturday, October 25, 2025. These are the pre-test conditions that any proposal will be compared against.
Two findings stand out.
First, Hall Avenue is officially both a truck route and a bus route. During the weekday morning peak hour of 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., counters recorded up to 19 buses and 14 trucks on Hall Avenue. Narrower lanes have to leave room for those vehicles.
Second, foot traffic peaks in the early afternoon. The traffic appendix reports that pedestrian volumes "spike along Hall Avenue during the weekday AM and midday time periods when students would arrive to school, go to lunch, and exit school." The highest 15-minute count was 395 pedestrians at Hall Avenue and Jacques Street, between 1:00 and 1:15 p.m. The same report sets the weekday midday vehicle peak hour at 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Taken together, those counts mean Hall Avenue's heaviest foot traffic arrives in the early afternoon, close to when vehicle traffic builds toward its midday peak, on a street that also carries scheduled buses and trucks. The project's stated goals of slower drivers, shorter crossings, and more visible pedestrians respond directly to that overlap. Any recommendation published in November should be read against this afternoon window.
The Corridor by Name
The study's Existing Conditions and Needs Assessment memo, dated May 20, 2026, describes Hall Avenue's daily traffic in terms of specific places.
| Type | Named in the study |
|---|---|
| Parking that feeds Hall Avenue | Samuel E. Shull School's lot, St. Michael's Catholic Church, Iglesia Cristiana Betel, restaurants, a grocery store, Rosa's parking lot |
| Active driveways | Along Hall Avenue near Rita's Pizza, from the middle school lot to restaurants and a grocery store |
| Off-street path | The Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail, about 1,750 feet, from Hall Avenue north of the Casa de Frutas grocery store to Pulaski Avenue |
| Bus stops | NJ TRANSIT Route 815 at Jacques, Johnstone, Penn, Catherine, and Charles streets |
According to the memo, loading and unloading for Hall Avenue businesses happens "throughout the day." It also notes that commercial driveways in the study area are concentrated on Hall Avenue, Washington Street, State Street, and Amboy Avenue. Delivery stops and turning cars mix with bus stops and school-hour crossings on the same blocks, which is why a lane change here affects more than through traffic.
The memo calls the trail near Casa de Frutas "in good physical condition" but says it lacks wayfinding and pavement markings, is disconnected from the street network, and has no crosswalks, signage, or other guidance where it crosses streets such as Wayne and Pulaski. For anyone who uses the path, those crossings are a specific item to raise in the next round of comments.
The Schedule Has Already Moved Once
In February, TAPinto Raritan Bay's report on the study launch said an in-person workshop was expected in May and the demonstration in June. The demonstration was actually installed in mid-August, and the workshop took place Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. at the Raritan Bay YMCA, according to NJTPA's event listing.
Since the calendar has slipped before, the dates below are targets. This is the posted schedule alongside what has been published so far:
| Milestone | Posted timing | Published so far |
|---|---|---|
| Existing conditions review | July to December 2025 | Memo dated May 20, 2026 |
| Virtual mapping tool | Winter 2026 | Interactive map reported live by NJTPA |
| Demonstration project | August to October 2026 | Scheduled through October; no removal date posted |
| Public workshop | September 2026 | Held September 1 |
| Initial improvement concepts | Spring to fall 2026 | Scheduled |
| Neighborhood improvement recommendations | November 2026 | Upcoming |
| Public open house | Fall 2026 | Date and location not yet posted |
| Final plan | Winter 2026 | Upcoming |
The last row matters most. The project site says the plan "will be presented to the City for consideration and advancement." The final plan therefore doesn't build anything on its own. It hands the City a set of options, and the November recommendations and the open house are where the public can still shape what those options include.
Where Comments Go Now
The demonstration page has a comment form in English and Spanish that asks for a name, an email, and a written comment. Fact sheets are posted in English and Spanish. Earlier in the study, NJTPA reported that public input was being gathered through an interactive map on the project website, and the project's public input page still links to the survey. The City's earlier survey notice gave February 2026 as its window. That notice came out before the demonstration and doesn't set a deadline for the current comment form.
Comments are most useful when they're specific. Examples include the 1 p.m. crossing at Jacques Street, a bus stop at Penn or Catherine Street, a delivery stop near Rita's Pizza, or the unmarked trail crossings at Wayne and Pulaski. The study's baseline already covers these locations, so a resident's observation about any of them can be checked directly against the October 2025 counts.
Turnkey Tverdov follows corridor plans like Hall Avenue because changes to lanes, crossings, and curb space affect how a street works for everyone who lives on it, whether they rent or own. We'll update this when the November recommendations and the open house date are posted. Join the Turnkey Waitlist to get that update.
