The online retailer has agreed to stagger shifts to help spread out the traffic flow
ROBBINSVILLE -- Traffic woes, be gone. A day after Robbinsville threatened to sue Amazon over the worsening congestion outside its 1.2 million-square-foot fulfillment center, the online retailer has agreed to stagger the shifts of its 4,000-plus employees there to help spread out the traffic flow.
The four shifts -- two new start times in the morning and two in the evening -- will be staggered over a 90-minute period as opposed to 30 minutes.
Officials began phasing in the new plan Thursday, but anticipate that it will be fully in place by Monday.
"We are incredibly grateful that they were able to come and we were able to work something out," Mayor Dave Fried said. "This is a good thing for Upper Freehold, a good thing for Robbinsville and a good thing for Amazon."
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The plan was announced Thursday afternoon following a meeting of Amazon, township officials and Upper Freehold's mayor, but Amazon said in a letter to the mayor that the rescheduling had already been in the works and it had begun telling employees earlier this week.
"We apologize for any misunderstanding if these efforts were not clearly communicated with you and your office while we were working quickly to put them in place," Tim Hall, regional director of operations, wrote.
Fried said the staggered shifts would bring the number of cars arriving and leaving below the approved peak traffic counts and help ease the bumper-to-bumper traffic inside and outside the warehouse park.
"Altering operations at the busiest time of the year is not a simple task," Hall said. "Many of our associates have families with children in school or child care concerns. We must continue to balance our associates' needs with those outside of our fulfillment center and believe that this plan provides an appropriate balance."
Hall said that Amazon would continue to keep an eye on the traffic and work with the township to make any changes, if necessary.
Traffic is expected to return to normal after Dec. 23.
The officials plan on having a follow-up meeting Dec. 16 in Upper Freehold to discuss long-term solutions as well as infrastructure improvements that would need to be made to the internal and external roads. They will be joined by other businesses in Matrix Business Park, engineers from Mercer and Monmouth counties and the state Department of Transportation.
"The senior members of Amazon were very good and are willing to start working on things for next year so we don't have these problems again," Fried said.
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.