Asbury Park Prepares For A New Normal

Asbury Park is known as a progressive city, meeting challenge, and welcoming diversity. AP is ready to be proactive, by creating streets that provide safe and equitable access during COVID-19, and onward.

Asbury Park is preparing to create a new normal. City leaders are discussing opening streets for people to walk, bike, and move about in the business district and at the waterfront. It’s good to know that we are not alone and that other cities in NJ, around the US, and around the world are taking strong measures to increase walking and bike ridership. The UK just announced a “once in a generation” £2 billion plan to boost cycling and walking both during and after the lockdown, and stressed that “business would be boosted by more people cycling and walking” Forbes.

Asbury Park is unique in that we have world-renown beaches, and a vibrant restaurant and music scene which make AP a destination that attracts visitors from everywhere. As the weather warms up we’ll see thousands of people flocking to our waterfront and into the city. This requires special consideration in allowing people more space to move about with social distancing on Ocean Ave. and Cookman Ave. This is a novel virus and an unprecedented situation for cities all over the world.

The question is whether we can resist the inclination to hop back into cars when we feel that the crisis has passed. Along with opening streets to people, driving even 10% less will make a difference. We need to maintain people-friendly streets and promote alternative transportation options to prevent the return of “car culture” Outside .

By preparing now our cities and suburbs will be more livable, and residents will be healthier while the viral pandemic persists, and will remain so afterward.

Traffic mixed with bike riders and parked cars on Ocean Ave. Asbury Park on a sunny Sunday during COVID-19

Traffic on Ocean Ave. on Sunday during the pandemic.

Visitors to Asbury Park 3rd Ave. Beach in early May, 2020

May 12, 2020

Advocacy In Action Panel Video: NJ Bike & Walk Coalition Summit 2020

Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition founding member, Polli Schildge was invited to lead a panel at the New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition Summit on March 7th, 2020. The panelists invited represented a swath of Jersey Shore towns, and each member of the panel shared experiences in their unique journeys to implement Complete Streets initiatives in their cities. The audience so had many questions for each panelist that we ran out of time to answer them all, indicating the need for us to stay connected so we can learn from one another. Thanks for another great NJBWC Summit!

The panelists included Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli, the 2016 NJBWC Advocate of the Year, and Eatontown Mayor Anthony Talerico, who advocates Complete Streets as a policy initiative. Nancy Blackwood, is chair of the Red Bank Environmental Commission and Green Team, and an advocate for Complete Streets. Rick Lambert is a Steering Committee member of Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition, and Doug McQueen is a founding Member of APCSC. Kenny Sorensen is a passionate advocate for safe streets in Neptune City, and Kathleen Ebert is founder of Point Pleasant Borough Complete Streets.

Watch the video here.

Complete Streets USDOT definition:

Complete Streets are streets designed and operated to enable safe use and support mobility for all users. Those include people of all ages and abilities, regardless of whether they are travelling as drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, or public transportation riders.

In short: Complete Streets are designed to enable safe access for all users, especially the most vulnerable.

Advocacy In Action: Initiative to Acceptance to Implementation

Attendees heard from a panel of activists, city leaders, and administrators about ways that they’re working within their communities on issues like speeding, bike lanes, road diets, scooters (and other micro-mobility), and parking.

They shared strategies that work (or don’t work!) in their efforts to enable their cities to provide ways for residents and visitors to get around safely without dependency on cars. We continued the discussion from a previous Summit panel about the possibility of establishing a Jersey Shore Complete Streets Coalition.

Left to Right: Polli Schildge, Rick Lambert, Nancy Blackwood, Ben Lucarelli, Anthony Talerico, Kathleen Ebert, Kenny Sorensen, Doug McQueen

Polli Schildge, Panel Moderator, Founding Member APCSC

Watch the video

May 2, 2020May 2, 2020

Covid-19 Recovery And Long-Lasting Change

City leaders all over the world are establishing measures to permanently maintain the improvements to the environment by creating ways for people to get around without cars. Asbury Park can do this.

“Action needs to be taken now which will help people move around without the congestion, pollution and ill-health that comes with car use now and after lockdown is lifted.”

“…the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis could be “a catalyst for long-lasting change in the way we live and travel, especially in towns and cities. What Covid-19 has also done is to highlight the crossovers between the quality of our places, public health, economy, transport, education, air quality and social justice.”

City leaders aim to shape green recovery from coronavirus crisis

Mayors coordinating efforts to support a low-carbon, sustainable path out of lockdowns

Matthew Taylorand Sandra Laville Fri 1 May 2020

Cities around the world are already planning for life after Covid-19, with a series of environmental initiatives being rolled out from Bogotá to Barcelona to ensure public safety and bolster the fight against climate breakdown.

Mayors from cities in Europe, the US and Africa held talks this week to coordinate their efforts to support a low-carbon, sustainable recovery from the crisis as national governments begin to implement huge economic stimulus packages.

Many cities have already announced measures, from hundreds of miles of new bike lanes in Milan and Mexico City to widening pavements and pedestrianising neighbourhoods in New York and Seattle.

Here’s a start Asbury Park!

Seven things city leaders can do to drive a green, fair recovery from Covid-19

Remove through motor traffic from residential streets and extend pavements near shops, schools and parks to make walking safe and enjoyable for transport and exercise.
Introduce safe access routes on foot, bike and scooter from homes to parks and green spaces and introduce automatic pedestrian lights at crossings so people do not have to push buttons and risk infection.
Establish safe cycle routes to and from work for key workers, especially hospital staff, by closing roads and carriageways where necessary so people have a safe alternative to private cars and public transport.
Create safe walking and cycling routes to and from schools, and close down streets around schools to motor vehicles at drop-off and pickup times.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/01/city-leaders-aim-to-shape-green-recovery-from-coronavirus-crisis

May 1, 2020May 1, 2020

This Is Our Future. The Birth Of A Healthy, Resilient City

Asbury Park is looking at a great opportunity to initiate progressive, and permanent change to prioritize people walking and people riding bikes, to offer alternative transportation, and to restrict the use of cars. We owe it to ourselves. This is our future, so let’s plan for it.

Since the beginning of the pandemic there have been countless articles about cities creating more space for people to protect the environment and to save lives. I’ve had so many in the queue I can barely keep up.

Read more here in this deep dive into what’s happening all over the world, followed by a great Twitter thread for more illumination.

Are we witnessing the death of the car?

“Cities around the world are seeing dwindling numbers of fossil-fuel powered cars on their streets, and many are planning to keep it that way after

lockdowns ease.”

To accommodate streets now busier with bikes, as well as facilitate social distancing, some places have installed temporary cycle lanes or closed streets to cars. Pop-up bike lanes have appeared in cities including Berlin, Budapest, Mexico City, New York, Dublin and Bogotá. Governments from New Zealand to Scotland have made funding available for temporary cycle lanes and walkways amid the pandemic. In Brussels, the entire city core will become a priority zone for cyclists and pedestrians from early May for the forseeable future. Meanwhile, temporary street closures to cars have taken place in Brighton, Bogotá, Cologne, Vancouver and Sydney as well as multiple US cities including Boston, Denver and Oakland. In England, restrictions have been lifted to enable and encourage councils to more quickly close streets to cars.

But these, of course, are temporary measures. What will happen when lockdowns are lifted?

Cities that seize this moment to make it easier for people to walk, bike and take public transport will prosper after this pandemic and not simply recover from it – Janette Sadik-Khan

This Twitter thread from @modacity, begins with a post from PhD candidate Brett Petzer.

“Cities across the globe are moving quickly and ambitiously to reclaim hundreds of kilometres of streets from the car monopoly and reallocate these public commons to people walking, cycling and rolling. It‘s like seeing decades of activism happen in a month.”

“The Great Reclamation: I am losing track of the number of cities that have moved suddenly and ambitiously to reclaim hundreds of kilometres of streets from the car monopoly and reallocate these public commons for people walking, cycling and using wheelchairs.”

@modacity began with a family’s move in 2010, and was the impetus to “educate people and cities about the inherent benefits of moving away from a car-centric transportation model, to a more inclusive one that is accessible to people of all ages, abilities, and economic means.”

“Using writing, photography, film, and the power of social media, we used this revelation to communicate a more human image of multi-modal transportation.”

“It is like watching decades of activism happen in a month. Like watching generations of ‘cycling and walking plans’ or ‘sustainable mobility plans’, which have always been aspirations, turn into facts (literally) overnight.

It has taken a crisis that is new, sudden, total and full of unknowns to break, albeit briefly, the car monopoly on urban space which has been in place for 70-100 years in the rich West…”

Read the tweet here.