We re in the process of doubling our goal for farmland preservation, as well. The new Agriculture Master Plan, which will be adopted by the Ag Development Board and the Planning Board next month, calls for 16,000 acres of farmland to be preserved in the next decade. Ultimately, a trail system paralleling the Raritan River will run from Duke Island Park in Bridgewater to the Basilone Statue in Raritan, and then continue on through Manville and Finderne and tie into this new athletic complex. The trail system and athletic complex are both direct outgrowths of the Regional Center Vision Plan for the central part of the county. Another part of the open space trust fund I mentioned a couple of minutes ago is historic preservation .
Somerset County continues to lead the state in regional planning .
The Regional Center Partnership is following through on a number of recommendations that came out of its Vision Initiative in 1999, including a traffic-calming proposal for the Route 22 corridor . A traffic analysis of this area is currently under way, thanks to a grant from the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. The entire study of the Route 22 corridor proposal will be completed by June of this year. In another regional-planning effort, the Freeholders and the County Planning Board are continuing to work on legislation that will give counties greater land use planning authority. The Board would like to thank Kip Bateman and Pete Biondi for their support of this important legislation.