New business looking to open at already crowded Flemington Circle

There are traffic circles and then there are traffic circles you see in your nightmares. I live in Flemington. And honestly? I would rather drive the notorious Somerville Circle than the Flemington Circle.

I can’t even remember what sort of cluster-you-know-what the Flemington Circle had been before they redid it a few years ago. All I know is state highways 31 and 202 come together there and both feed separately into a double lane, inner and outer, traffic circle that has short sections of solid lines where you can’t change lanes then brief stretches of dotted lines allowing it.

So you could be trying to continue down 202 South in the inner lane, which will feed smoothly, into the left lane coming out of the circle, but you have to be white-knuckle aware that someone in the outer lane can careen right into you simply by maintaining their lane and staying within the circle. You have to cross their path to continue on your own, in other words.

You’d kind of have to see it to get it. But there are several sections like this.

Add to that mess the people looking for businesses next to the Flemington Circle while trying to negotiate it. My kids learned to drive here and will go almost anywhere including down the shore on a Friday afternoon in rush hour on the Garden State Parkway but they avoid that circle like the plague.

All that being said, there’s a new business looking to open on the Flemington Circle where the Red Crab Seafood and TGI Fridays used to be. 

Developers want to tear that old building down (Oh, good, the Flemington Circle with construction vehicles coming in and out!) and put up a 4,907-square-foot car wash with 28 vacuum stalls and a pay station kiosk.

Spark Car Wash of Summit is the business interested in coming to Flemington. They have seven New Jersey locations. They’re also looking to open more in North Brunswick, Linden and Piscataway.

Spark will need to plead its case before the Flemington Planning Board. I truly don’t know if I’m alone in having questions about the added traffic flow or if there will be some opposition.

Hey, at least it’s a car wash and not an auto body shop. I feel like that would be some bad karma.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.