Have you experienced or observed any issues, or had difficulties traveling by bike, scooter, or walking on Asbury Avenue?
Whether you walk, bike, scooter, or drive … beginning at Rt 35, what’s your experience? Are you commuting the whole distance? Are you walking or riding a bike from home to the beach and back? If part of your travel is on Asbury Ave., are you getting around the city safely?
Everyone in Asbury Park, Neptune Township, and Ocean Township is invited to attend an open house to discuss the need for mobility improvements on Asbury Ave.
Asbury Ave
You’re invited to attend the open house on Feb 15th 4:30-7pm focusing on conditions Asbury Ave. Monmouth County, in cooperation with the City of Asbury Park, will be hosting a Public Information Center for local residents, officials, businesses, and the general public to discuss the need for roadway safety improvements along County Route 16 (Asbury Avenue) from Ocean Avenue to Route 35 in the City of Asbury Park, Neptune Township, and Ocean Township.
Public Information Meeting Details The Public Information Center meeting is being conducted in conformance with State regulations and is open to all members of the public. Attendees may arrive anytime during the meeting to discuss their concerns regarding the safety of the corridor, ask questions and to provide comments. A formal presentation will not be made, allowing the public to speak one-on-one with the County’s representatives anytime between the hours of 4:30 to 7:00 PM.
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024
Arrive Anytime: 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM Questions & Comments
Place: City of Asbury Park City Hall- Council Chambers
The Monmouth Paths: Access for All study, a transportation planning study that will identify and develop measures to reduce or eliminate mobility barriers for Monmouth County residents. The study seeks to identify and develop measures to mitigate barriers to mobility of all types including but not limited to improving public awareness of travel options, infrastructure improvements, and policy changes within Monmouth County. The study will provide guidance and countermeasures for local jurisdictions that reduce, overcome and/or prevent barriers to mobility,
Provide your input to help understand the mobility barriers you face when heading to work, school, medical appointments, shopping, and recreation destinations.
Hello friends of Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition,
Hoping that you’ve all been safe and healthy during these winter months.
In a communication today with The City Of Asbury Park administration we discussed the removal of bollards during the recent mini, almost non-snow storm, and the delay of DPW putting them back because of the threat of another (zero) snow event. Instead of being taken away with the first forecast of snow and stored for the entire winter (snow or not) as in previous years, they were moved to the side of the roads, But it’s taken time to get them back in place where they do a critical service making streets safer for people walking and rolling. Essentially putting peoples’ safety at risk while protecting plows and bollards.
City officials too often neglect to improve road infrastructure, using snow plowing as the excuse that mini-roundabouts, curb extensions, (aka “bulb outs), speed bumps, pedestrian islands will impede plows.
First, safety road improvements can easily be designed not to interfere with plowing.
Second, the snow in our area is negligible, but even in cities where there is snowfall, it can be beneficial to safety with the snow itself creating a road narrowing effect, called a “sneckdown”,
The “portmanteau mashes up “snow” and “neckdown,” an engineering term for a sidewalk extension or street island designed to damper drivers.”
This is what happened in Asbury Park when one bollard was not removed during a snowfall. It’s a snowy mini-roundabout, creating a road-narrowing, traffic calming effect.
In addition to being a snowy safety measure, DPW wouldn’t have to spend time picking bollards up and putting them back.
Recently across the US there have been advocate and administrative meetings, and articles published about how to quickly implement measures to make our streets safer.
Crashes occur regularly in the city, especially during the tourist season. I’ve seen the aftermath on multiple occasions, and I’ll be some of you readers have too.
We don’t know current crash data in Asbury Park, or numbers of injuries or deaths.
We do know that there’s a terrible speeding problem in Asbury Park.
Some residents have protested traffic calming measures like speed bumps and mini traffic circles with the mistaken belief that they’ll lose street parking. So far no other prescribed solutions have been installed, and we don’t know of projects slated for implementation. (Not for lack of inquiring, so we’ll let you know when we find out.)
We know that “Quick Build” tactical urbanism projects work to make streets safer.
Pedestrian Safety Demonstration Project Borough of Red Bank, Monmouth County, NJ
The NJBWC meeting was right in line with an opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday, by Janette Sadik-Khan, former Transportation Director on NYC, and Kate D. Levin.
As I noted above, we don’t know whether there have been recent injuries or deaths on Asbury Park streets.
Many streets are poorly lit, like intersections on Memorial Drive and other streets are wide and invite speeding.
Do any of the city leaders walk or ride a bike throughout the city day or night, and have a true sense of this reality that many people face every day?
This dark intersection looks exactly like many in Asbury Park.
Here’s a great example taken from the Strong Towns article showing before and after, how a simple paint project can make an intersection safer.
We do have the power to make our streets safer, and in doing so save the lives of people in our communities.
It had been true for many years, according to the previous traffic engineering guide, that cities had to adhere to specific standards in street design to allow for the movement of vehicles over the safety of people, including requiring a certain number of fatalities in order for infrastructure to be built.
There is grant money available to do Quick Build projects, and the projects themselves are not costly – usually only paint, then easy next steps as described in the featured articles.
We just spent a few days visiting Barcelona, riding bikes, walking, exploring neighborhoods, and experiencing the expanding development of superblocks.
Barcelona has been a wonderful bicycling and walking city each time we’ve been there, and it’s even more so now with the expansion of superblocks, including the elimination of cars on main arteries and side streets.
Superblocks are at the heart of a concept for sustainable mobility developed by the city administration in 2016. Initially some businesses and drivers were opposed, but residents have embraced the transformation, and business has shown improvement, and grown 30%.
Car clogged streets have been replaced by planted beds, flower pots and trees. Car traffic is only allowed on the remaining one-way streets – if at all – at 5-10mph. Families gather, children play, noise and air pollution is gone, and people are healthier.
Childrens’ garden in a superblock in Barcelona.
The World Health Organization evaluation reports “a gain in well-being, tranquility and quality of sleep; a reduction in noise and pollution, and an increase in social interaction. The built environment of the Superblocks clearly influences walkability and creates more opportunities for physical activity. The reduced vehicle traffic has led to improved air quality measures in these zones.”
A playground (one of so many!) in a superblock in Barcelona
The design works best in “15 minute” cities where people can access destinations within a short walk, and neighborhoods with density, and some form of public transit so that residents can leave cars at home, or visitors can park off-site, and use transit.
A playground and gathering place in a superblock in Barcelona.
The superblock model strives for a combined approach to multiple challenges neighborhoods and cities are faced with—mobility, noise, walkability, urban green space—and that it is a model which envisions city-scale wide and broad transformation, going beyond single street transformation.
We too often hear, “It can’t work in Asbury Park.”
But we believe that it can.
Asbury Park can be a model for a people-oriented, healthy city. We can learn from other cities, and with strategic planning we can take bold steps to reduce, and even eliminate cars and traffic.
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition will host a League Of American Bicyclists Cycling Instructor seminar on November 3rd, 4th, and 5th at The Boys And Girls Club.
Bicycling in Asbury Park has been transforming over the 8 years years that APCSC has been in existence.
When APCSC was founded there was only one (very worn) bike lane in the city.
People were riding bikes for daily transportation or recreation with zero awareness of the need for safe infrastructure. Main Street was a speeding 4 lane highway, many businesses had been abandoned, and drivers ruled city streets.
Locals began advocating with us and learning how we can #slowthecars with traffic calming measures like bike lanes, bumpouts, mini traffic circles, raised crosswalks, and speed bumps. The Main Street road diet was implemented after an energetic 18 months APCSC campaign.
Streets that are safe for anyone at any age to ride a bike will encourage people to ride bikes.
Residents and visitors now are beginning to understand the need for safe bike riding infrastructure – for health, economic, and social benefits.
We still have a long way to go, but improvements are being made all over the city. During these years people have become aware of the need for equitable mobility for the most vulnerable road users – which is everyone outside of a vehicle.
Our hope is that we might be able to encourage parents, teachers, and residents to be a part of a “Bike Bus” – a global movement in which adults on bikes pick up kids on bikes at “bus stops” all over town and guide them to school.
And in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: Make Way for the Bike Bus. For the school commute, families are taking to the streets with two wheels. Some have termed the movement “kidical mass.”
This is where League of American Bicyclist Instructor training comes in!
The League Seminar will equip instructors to educate members of the community, particularly parents and school kids to ride bikes confidently and safely.
Certified LCIs are empowered to teach courses that cover youth riding, how to ride confidently and legally with traffic, how to share paths and trails, motorist education, bike handling, group riding, and more.
Since we recently learned of the slated closure of the 6th Ave grade crossing closure (and the proposed closures at 5th Ave, and 1st Ave) we have received over 60 opposition emails, which will be compiled in a document to DOT.
The city officially and adamantly opposes the closure.
Asbury Park Complete Streets is sounding the alarm, educating people about what is being proposed and asking community members to join with the organization to oppose the closures.
NJDOT – NJTransit Sewall Ave. closure
Overview:
Asbury Park’s Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue and First Avenue Railroad Crossings are all proposed to be closed by the NJDOT. Asbury Park’s Complete Streets Coalition says, “not so fast,” and claims the closures will not meet any one of those goals.
The study cites safety as the reason for closing grade crossings. We believe that safety would be better served if the crossings were brightly lit, with upgraded gates, and flat surfaces for bike riders, walkers, and strollers.
Polli Schildge
Asbury Park was developed as a racially segregated community, and the railroad tracks were the border. Today, this division is still present, and closing west-to-east crossings in Asbury Park will not be well-received here.
Kathleen Mumma
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition is committed to equitable access across the city, east to west, and north to south. for everyone.
Let’s work together to prevent any further grade crossing closures.
Daniel Knowles’s “Carmageddon” is a serious argument against cars. Henry Grabar’s “Paved Paradise” is an anti-parking with an entertaining tilt. Both books make an argument for alternative like rapid transit, trains and trolleys, bicycles, but they mostly criticise the current systems.
“We pay an enormous price for our automotive addiction—in congestion, time wasted, neighborhoods destroyed, emissions pumped out, pleasant streets subordinated to brutal expressways—but telling the addict that the drug isn’t actually pleasurable is a losing game. There is some slight hope in saying that it isn’t healthy, and that the replacement for the drug is about as good. But understanding this emotional infrastructure in favor of cars is vital to imagining their possible replacement.
The grip of the car as a metaphor for liberty is as firm as that of guns, if perhaps with similarly destructive results.”
Any thoughts about parking? It’s the most contentious issue in many US cities. Gopnik references Donald Shoup’s 2005“The High Cost of Free Parking,”
Americans have been brainwashed to believe that they’re entitled to parking. Bitter battles about storing cars, and mis-belief that more cars = more business leads city leaders to backtrack on beneficial community projects like Open Street on Cookman Ave.
Cookman while it was open to people, and car-free.Cookman after the brief single season of being open to people is again a car sewer.
Parking has its very own official committee in Asbury Park, with enough stuff about car storage to discuss in lengthy monthly meetings. We propose a Transportation Equity Committee, but that’s another story.
Parking minimums were established by The Institute of Transportation Engineers, (which still exist in Asbury Park) whereby builders have to provide x-number of spaces for residences, and businesses, leading to cities’ swaths of asphalt dedicated to car storage, contributing in part to a housing shortage, suburban sprawl, and the development of neighborhoods where you can’t get anywhere to do or buy anything without a car.
Asbury Park is a “15 minute city”, as the now contentious concept is described in the article. It’s a walkable, rollable city, but private cars still rule. We propose on-demand transit to reduce car dependency, mitigate the parking problem, and to make our streets safer. Yes, that’s another story.
Now that parking minimums are being abolished in many cities, car owners are angry that they have to pay for it themselves. Oh the inequity of it.
What if we had reliable, affordable, convenient transit options? What if we didn’t need cars?
The event will be moderated by the League of Women Voters as well as Asbury Park reporter for The Coaster, Carol Gorga Williams; District 3 Representative, Dan Harris; and President of West Side Citizens United, Nina Summerlin.
The candidates are:
For Mayor:
John Moor
Sonja Mack
Felicia Simmons
For City Council:
Jesse Kendle
Angela Ahbez-Anderson
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition is dedicated to its mission of transportation equity in Asbury Park including equitable access and safety for all users of Asbury Park streets.
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
We recently had a meeting in Asbury Park about the problem of speeding, and slowing drivers on our streets, a proposed traffic calming measure, specifically mini roundabouts, and how speed limits are determined.
Our Transportation Manager attempted to explain to the attendees what the 85th Percentile Rule is as they questioned why we can’t change speed limit signs. We just can’t. Or at least not without great difficulty.
In simple terms it’s an engineering calculation that the speed limit is determined by the actual speed that people drive. It’s hopefully soon-to-be edited Manual For Urban Traffic Control Devices, MUCTD.
The 85th Percentile Rule is horrible. It’s not about safety.
Hear me? IT’S NOT ABOUT SAFETY. IT’S NOT ABOUT SLOWING DRIVERS.
It’s about expediting the movement of vehicles.
Here’s a simple, short video with great graphics with Transportation 4 America director Beth Osborne, who joined Wall Street Journal correspondent George Downs to explain why one controversial method for setting speed limits results in higher and higher speeds.
The crazy thing is that traffic engineers and planning people don’t seem to speak the same language.
We have city planners who are hamstrung by these regulations, but we can get around them with creative solutions to #slowthecars like mini-roundabouts, speed humps, street narrowing…and we have the grant money do do it.
Let’s get on the same page about saving lives and saving the planet.
THE CITY OF ASBURY PARK AWARDED $1,135,000 from NJ Department of Transportation through Bikeway Grant and Safe Streets to Transit Grant Programs.
The City will begin the Asbury Avenue Bikeway project and upgrade the intersection at Bangs and Prospect Avenues.
The Asbury Avenue Bikeway project will include upgrading the traffic signal at Asbury and Grand Avenues and bike infrastructure improvements to benefit cyclists and pedestrians.
Safe Streets to Transit projects facilitate the implementation of projects and activities that will improve pedestrian conditions within a 1-mile radius of a transit facility or station.
The grant funded by this program will be used to install a new traffic signal at Bangs and Prospect Avenues as well as to make necessary safety upgrades to the intersection.
“We’re thrilled to be awarded these NJDOT grants and look forward making much-needed improvements to Asbury Avenue and the Bangs Avenue/Prospect Avenue intersection,” said Mayor John Moor, “Funding like this allows us improve overall safety for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists in Asbury Park without burdening local taxpayers.”
