Month: June 2022

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We Need Open Streets

Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition has always believed that this city could be a model of progressive development for people to live, and to move about the city safely with less dependence on cars.  As a 1.4mile square city, and mostly a grid design, we have great potential. We were so excited that the city adopted ReOPEN Asbury Park …

Remember this? Asbury Park’s Cookman Ave ReOPEN plan was busy even on damp, cloudy days.

We are disappointed that Asbury Park has decided not to keep the ReOPEN plan in place permanently, even a few blocks, or at all for this summer season.

Cookman Ave was an open street (not a closed street as some would say – focusing on restriction of cars rather than open to people) and it was successful and popular, with only a few businesses complaining about deliveries and parking.

Perhaps most surprising is Asbury Park in their nixing of extended outdoor dining is Asbury Park, the dining capital of the Jersey Shore.

Even more surprising to us is the quote from Asbury Park Deputy Mayor explaining away the fact that cars are now dominating the business district. “We created the ReOPEN Asbury Park program to support our local businesses when indoor dining restrictions were put in place,” Asbury Park Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn said. “While we are not currently closing the streets for dining this summer, we will continue to reevaluate the program should we see a surge in COVID-19 cases.”

Open streets are thriving all over the world in cities where leaders have realized the benefits of creating more spaces for people and less for automotive traffic.

Laura Brahn, co-owner of Asbury Park brunch destination Cardinal Provisions, says in the June 3rd NJ.com article that “the city underestimates customers’ appetite for outdoor dining”.

“Outdoor dining is still ‘the thing’ and will still be ‘the thing’ for a long while. It’s less dangerous for those still practicing caution and it just plain feels great,” Brahn said. 

Open streets are indeed “a thing”.

We had a great opportunity to visit Jersey City and see first hand how successful the new Newark Avenue Pedestrian Mall is. It began as a “quick build” with paint, and is now almost completed as a beautifully designed space, with businesses bustling and and restaurants thriving, a true destination in the city.

Jersey City “quick build” initial phase of the now almost completed Newark Ave Pedestrian Mall

Now renovations are almost finished along Jersey City’s Newark Avenue Pedestrian Plaza.

Benches awaiting installation in Jersey City’s Pedestrian Plaza

Jersey City’s Newark Avenue Pedestrian Plaza

Maybe there is still hope for Asbury Park. We believe that we can move past the objections of the minority of businesses who believe that vehicle traffic is more beneficial than foot traffic. We believe that city leaders can have the will to make decisions to make a more walkable, more bike-able, healthier, better city.

Polli Schildge ~Editor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Two Wheels Good

I’ve loved riding bikes for most of my life.

“What? I have to slow down?”
“Yay here I go!”

I rode my bike to elementary school, and through college. I rode my kids for errands and for fun on kid seats, and pulled them to preschool in a trailer. I ran beside them as they each learned to ride on their own.

Eventually they all became proficient, and some have competed on road and mountain bikes, one becoming a professional cyclist.

I ride my bike almost every day for errands, and for recreation and exercise too, and experience hair raising close calls on every ride.

We have all ridden bikes in cities all over the world, and in all of those cities it’s safer and more enjoyable than it is in the US.

I have a fear every time I’m on my bike that it might be my turn, or that one of my kids’ will be in a crash.

It’s taking a very long time for America to grasp the importance of prioritizing bicycle riding over driving. Bikes are 10x more effective than electric cars for the environment, and the benefits for human physical and mental health are well documented. But American progress is stymied by laws that have been created (invented), and infrastructure built to expedite the movement of vehicles over the safety of people on bikes, and other countries are far, far ahead of us in changing that culture.

Maybe we can change the culture in our tiny city of Asbury Park.

Here’s a a bit of the thoroughly enjoyable and informative article about the history of the bicycle, and bicycling law, and personal bike riding experiences of the author. I hope you’ll read it in its entirety, and love to know your thoughts.

Onward~

Polli Schildge Editor – Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition

Bicycles Have Evolved. Have We?

By Jill Lepore

The New Yorker

From the velocipede to the ten-speed, biking innovations brought riders freedom. But in a world built for cars, life behind handlebars is both charmed and dangerous.

Bicycles are the workhorses of the world’s transportation system. More people get places by bicycle than by any other means, unless you count walking, which is also good for you, and for the planet, but you can travel four times faster on a bicycle than on foot, using only a fifth the exertion.

 

To ride a bike, in her book Two Wheels Good THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF THE BICYCLE  Jody Rosen points out is to come as close to flying by your own power as humans ever will. No part of you touches the ground. You ride on air. Not for nothing were Orville and Wilbur Wright bicycle manufacturers when they first achieved flight, in Kitty Hawk, in 1903. Historically, that kind of freedom has been especially meaningful to girls and women. Bicycling, Susan B. Anthony said in 1896, “has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”