“Ever wonder what folks working for sustainable transportation at the federal level are up against on K Street? For this Streetfilms exclusive event, we were granted unfettered access to Veronica Moss, lobbyist for Automobile Users Trade Organization (AUTO). Veronica gave us a few precious moments inside her SUV to talk about roads, traffic, cyclists, and big cities. After instructing us on proper honking techniques for “old people” and children, she also offered up some choice bons mots. Here’s a sample: “There are not enough roads.” “
Veronica Moss, “We need more roads!”
Do we need more roads in Asbury Park? We welcome comments!
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition is happy to report that there are upcoming improvements to two major city thoroughfares: 3rd and 4th Ave (school zones), and First Avenue!
Safe Routes To School traffic calming measures around our school zones are finally going to be a reality! APCSC has been advocating, and waiting to see the implementation of measures to slow drivers and make streets around schools safer. Children are the most vulnerable road users.
AP former Transportation Director had designed a plan with input from APCSC for traffic calming plans for school zones including mini roundabouts which were unfortunately shot down in response to outrage from certain city residents on 4th Ave complaining about losing parking – they were completely incorrect, no parking would have been lost – but it set the project back years.
The Safe Routes To School traffic calming plans literally went back to the drawing board, and the new plan was submitted by our current Transportation Director with raised crosswalks instead of mini roundabouts. It’s taken over 3 years to see the plan become a reality, and we believe that these traffic calming measures will be effective.
The final plan was presented at an open house on Thursday, 1/9/25.
Map of traffic calming measures in AP school zone.
First Avenue Improvements mark a response to APCSC advocacy, and show that we are working together to prioritize people walking and rolling. This is a welcome, serious commitment to make streets safe for the most vulnerable road users – anyone outside of cars, which will make streets safer for drivers too.
The Signage & Striping – FIRST AVENUE IMPROVEMENTS include implementation of curb extensions (bump outs) to make crossing distances shorter for walkers, and green markings on new bike lanes.
Have a look at the plans:
Onward!
As always we want to hear your comments and thoughts!
On Thursday, 2/15/24 I was honored to be among other equitable mobility advocates in NJ, all giving powerful testimony in favor of a strong Target Zero Commission, Bill Bill S361 sponsored by Senator Patrick Diegnan .
New Jersey is the most dangerous state for pedestrians, with almost double the national average of fatalities.
Vision Zero NJ was instrumental in making it happen.
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition, along with other advocacy groups and individuals across the state submitted a quote for the Governor’s Press Release:
“Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition applauds the signing of this bold legislation, which will bring about implementation of road safety measures to prevent crashes, injuries, and save the lives of vulnerable road users: anyone outside of a car, and ensure safety for drivers themselves. Crashes, injuries and fatalities are a human health crisis, disproportionately affecting communities like Asbury Park, where many residents of all ages must walk and roll for daily transportation.
The signing of the New Jersey Target Zero Bill signals a commitment to provide safe, equitable access for everyone on streets and roads in New Jersey.”
-Polli Schildge, founding member and director of Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition
To Asbury Park City leaders~
Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition welcomes the opportunity to work together with Asbury Park leadership to adopt a Vision Zero Policy, and help to enact a VZ ordinance to end crashes, injuries and deaths in the city.
Three recent tragic events inspire this newsletter today.
I’d truly prefer not to be writing about them.
Please share your thoughts after reading. At the start of the holiday season I know it’s a downer. but so important that we have these conversations.
First: Last week a child was struck and seriously injured by a driver in Asbury Park. I published the family’s GoFundMe on social media. They will need ongoing help, even though they only asked for funds to pay for a ramp for the child’s wheelchair.
The child who was struck by a driver after getting off his bus in Asbury Park.
A long Asbury Park Next Door thread ensued, in which people strayed way off the topic to mention annoyance of bicyclists riding on the sidewalk, revealing a total lack of understanding of the critical importance of improving infrastructure design so drivers cannot run into children as they get off the bus – the true dangers of drivers on our roads. And outrageously, one commenter stated, “Watch your kids.”, showing a stunning lack of empathy for the child with a broken pelvis, and his family with serious, ongoing financial needs.
Second:A tone deaf article in the NYTimes. The paper published an article on November 29th that’s unsurprisingly tone deaf citing an an incident of road rage in which a cycling advocate was killed. In twisted logic the writer blames the incident on The War On Cars. This (formerly) highly respected news outlet is not immune to the brainwashing of the auto industry, NYT editors are willfully ignorant, or else they just want to sell readership piling on with those who continue to bash bicycling advocacy in the US. Streetsblog called out the NYTimes in an article today.
The cyclist fatality in Paris was NOT caused by the “war on cars”.
It’s sadly unsurprising that American reporting would avoid applauding Paris Mayor Anne Hildago’s success in building more and more bicycling infrastructure, and vastly improving health and safety for everyone in the city.
Third:A bicyclist fatality in Long Branch. Can you spot what’s wrong, wrong, wrong with this reporting? Read the article in Patch.
Poor street lighting can be the cause of a fatal crash.
The “teen”driver is not held responsible because he “stayed at the scene”, and “it appears to be an accident”.
American crash reporting almost always absolves the driver unless they are intoxicated. The victim is often blamed for being on the road at all, or not wearing a helmet or bright clothing.
The driver should not always be blamed.
Journalists rarely mention the distractions of gigantic dashboard screens, the dangers of huge SUVs, the design of roads that allow, even seem to invite speeding, lack of adequate street lighting, or insufficient bicycling and walking infrastructure. All of which is truly to blame.
In the US drivers do terrible things because they can. Roads are dangerous by design, the industry is not regulated against selling excessively large vehicles, and the built environment prioritizes drivers above all other road users.
These, and almost all other CRASHES are preventable.
Airline crashes are treated as such – the plane is grounded, and every aspect of the crash is investigated to prevent it happening again. Not so with car crashes. 40,000 people are killed in traffic violence every year in the US.
Road violence is rarely an accident. It’s always a crash. #crashnotaccident
Our city leaders and traffic engineers ignore the needs of the large % of people in every community who do not or cannot drive, whether due to age, disability, or financial reasons.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Join the movement.
Email: apcompletestreets@gmail.com
Onward~
Polli Schildge
Editor APCSC
Postscript:
Without question every collision is a crash. Sadly some people still think crash and accident are interchangeable terms. The use of accident is no accident – the auto industry has made that term ubiquitous and it’s been adopted by police and journalists thereby taking the onus off drivers and systems that lead to crashes. Thankfully many police departments and journalists are switching to crash, but in some recent articles BOTH terms are used. It’s hard to break a habit…
Calling a crash an accident makes it seem pre-ordained or unavoidable.
Crashes take the lives of 40,000 people every year in the US and they’re treated like collateral damage because, oh well, we have to drive.
It’s criminal that traffic/road engineers and the auto industry have continued to fail people, to kill people – the vulnerable road users outside of cars, those within cars, and drivers themselves.
I’ve been saddened over the years about trunk or treat.
It’s a become a fun event for communities and families all over the US, so this isn’t a Halloween tradition bashing.
Trunk or treat
Wandering around in a parking lot collecting candy from the trunks of cars just doesn’t match the thrill of running around town getting a pillow case load of candy, peripherally supervised by parents, if at all.
*This is a postscript after a near tragic moment last evening after this article was published: A driver turned onto our street and ran over the “NJ Law Stop For Pedestrians” bollard, crushing it in the middle of the intersection, and drove off. It could have been a child.
Drivers might be distracted, intoxicated, or inattentive, so we advocate for streets that are designed to be safe on Halloween and every day in Asbury Park. Streets need better lighting, curb extensions and other traffic calming measures.
Drivers rule our roads, so it’s good that Halloween has evolved.
This afternoon there are many more families walking along the sidewalk in front of our house than on a normal day at 5pm. The littles are carefully supervised by adults. Even under a mom’s watchful eye, a little superman dashed into the street as a driver sped by. She grabbed him in time.
Our house is at a main intersection in a relatively quiet part of our city, and as we sit on our porch waiting for the trick-or-treaters, the kids eagerly looking toward the next house to get treats, we also see drivers zooming up to the stop signs and rolling right through.
Trunk-or-Treat will remain a part of American Halloween.
Automobiles are part of our culture, and our streets are not safe with drivers who behave as if roads belong to them.
Families and kids should have options to trick-or-treat in neighborhoods, and also trunk-or-treat with their school, town, or church community if they want to, not because they have to.
Loads of kids come to our neighborhood every Halloween, so we can see that families stillchoose to trick-or-treat in neighborhoods that they feel are safe.
We have to build cities that are truly safe for the most vulnerable, and not having to hang out in a parking lot on Halloween.
How safe do you feel on Asbury Park city streets? We’d love to hear from you. Email: apcompletestreets@gmail.com
We all walk sometimes. Some of us ride bikes, and many drive.
Are you ever fearful when you’re seeing a loved one off in a car, on a bike, or sending a child off walking to school?
What’s Asbury Park doing about safety on city streets?
There have been some efforts to implement measures to calm traffic, but bike lanes are not connected, curb extensions are not built into newly paved roads. School zones lack basic complete streets infrastructure.
Our streets are wide and seem to invite speeding, so that’s what drivers do. Drivers routinely ignore stop signs, and run through right turns on red without stopping.
Factors that worsen pedestrian safety include long crossing distances, intersections where right-on-red is allowed. More cities are banningright turn on red, and like in Hoboken redesigning streets to save lives. .
Meanwhile, there is also a sense of driver entitlement, and simmering anger at anyone using the roads other than drivers.
Road rage
Road rage leads to traffic violence.
Incidents of road rage escalate across the country. Anger triggered by stress leads to aggressive driving behavior, speeding, and crashes: “humans are just too overwhelmed with, just, everything.”
New Jersey has the distinction of being the most dangerous state in the country for pedestrians.
At some point in life, nearly everyone has been a pedestrian, whether out on an evening stroll, crossing a busy street in the center of town or walking home from school or the bus stop as a kid.
A study has found that the overall number of pedestrian fatalities has increased by 53.34% since 2012.
Kids riding bikes to school isn;t revolutionary. So why is it so hard in AP?
We’ve been working on launching Bike Bus since last November.
I’m a certified League of American Bicyclists Instructor and I can help set it up. APPD is supportive. So what’s the problem?
Bike Bus has been growing globally, where Sam Balto, a Phys Ed teacher in Portland launched it and it grew all over the US, and in NJ too. Kids riding bikes to school is not revolutionary, but you’d think it was in Asbury Park.
What’s making it so hard? I’ve done slide presentations and talked it up for almost a year.
Excuses, excuses… (*The “L Word” is a biggie. Scroll down.)
It’s way too similar to the ongoing excuses why we can’t open school playgrounds.
Excuses also abound why we can’t implement traffic calming measures in the city to make it safer, more accessible, and equitable for people walking and rolling. Even just with paint for starters. Especially on the southwest side where more kids walk.
Bike Bus is simply kids riding bikes together to school with a few parent volunteers, picking kids up along the way at “bus stops”.
I’m sure it’s obvious, and the article says it all, so I don’t need to provide the reasons why riding a bike to school with a bunch of friends (with a parent or teacher volunteer leader blasting tunes!) is a wonderful way for kids to start the day.
I hope you’ll read the article.
Love to know your thoughts.
*The “L Word”: “Liability” gets thrown around way too much.
This installment is from a self-described “Recumbent Racing Trike Adventurist”. He’s sharing a story from someone else with his own commentary.
(Emphasis in bold is from this editor. I might take the liberty of making small grammatical edits for clarity.)
Erskien Lenier’s recumbent bike.
This post is in response to someone else’s that posted a picture of someone in a car distracted by holding and looking at their cell phone instead of paying attention to surrounding traffic including possibly cyclists.
The over all impression I think the post was trying to convey was that you are powerless against negligent drivers, so therefore you don’t ride a bike or any human powered vehicle.
I disagree…
I wear a Gear 360 helmet camera and between high viz colored jerseys, my rig recumbent racing trike is painted neon yellow, my neon yellow helmet, rear facing Cateye Vizeo tail lights that have mode that is similar to what the rear of a police motorcycle uses for pulling someone over and the reality that my choice of human powered vehicle is a very unusual looking recumbent racing trike, rear approaching traffic tends to slow way down and go way wide out of curiosity to get a better grasp of what they are encountering.
I should also mention that I am within 50,000 miles of crossing the 1 million lifetime human powered mile mark.
If a driver is truly distracted by something, or even chemically compromised I rely upon a small helmet mounted rear view mirror to peripherally track the trajectory of approaching rear traffic so I can take evasive action if necessary.
In higher traffic areas where the bike lane is just lines in the gutter where debris accumulates, the road surface is bad, or cars are parked in the bike lane or non bike lane, I take a lane. And if a vehicle approaches from the rear too quickly I move to center, or slightly left of center to let them know that I am taking the lane as the law in my State of California mandates as I have the right to, and 99.9% of traffic will back down. Especially once they realize they are being filmed they go around without horns blaring, or raving engines, or blowing exhaust like the jacked up pickups tend to think is ok to do every now and then.
Never hug the curb, as you have no place to go if someone comes in too close – and curb hugging gives the message that you don’t belong on the road and don’t deserve respect.
Ride as if you own the space you occupy and also be responsive to the need to divert your path if necessary for those simply not attentive or being overlyaggressive or bullying.
Consider a Recumbent Trike – They generally don’t get treated like wall paper along the roads because they are do different.
Never allow your fears discourage you from enjoying the beauty and benefits to your body, mind and spirit, or stop you from going for a ride or commuting. Nothing is 100% safe even being in a car or even worse, sitting on the couch – which is lethal over time….
Life is for the Living and the Loving….
Take BOLD ACTION and build into those actions the steps you can, to make your journeys a “calculated risk” that leave you more confident that you can hold your own space, and deal with whatever life presents as you explore and enjoy the journey.
He or She who Risk Nothing Loses Everything that Makes Life Worth While.
The Gaudreau brothers were husbands, fathers, brothers, sons. Their wives and children are husband and fatherless. They were supposed to be groomsmen in their sister’s wedding the following day. Their families are devastated.
He was drunk and dangerous. He killed two people. But he is not ENTIRELY to blame…
The deaths of these two young men was preventable. We need much more than PSAs, signs, education and enforcement.
The only way to reduce the likelihood of deaths and serious injury on our streets and roads is changing the built environment for equitable access for all road users.
“This tragedy was avoidable on so many levels. We are not going to achieve zero traffic deaths with cute messaging. We need safer roads, safer drivers and safer vehicles. Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were killed cycling on Salem County Route 551, a rural road with no shoulders and a 50 mph speed limit by a drunk driver who passed another driver on the right who was safely passing them.”
John Boyle, Research Director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and the Vision Zero NJ Alliance.
Drivers are prioritized in the US over all other road users.
Roads are public space, but how many of us who walk and roll feel that we have equal right to access the streets in our city – are you fearful of riding a bike or walking in our city of Asbury Park? Why?
Drivers speed with impunity, run traffic signals and stop signs, and take turns on on red without pausing.
Drivers kill.
New Jersey 2023: There were 177 total pedestrian fatalities, and 24 people riding bikes were killed by drivers.
Whether you’re impressed by data or not…
How many people have to die – it could be YOU, your mother, father, son, daughter, friend.
Driving is a privilege, not a right.
Until we change the culture – the mindset that drivers rule our roads:
Local city leaders can commit to making design changes on streets and roads to keep vulnerable road users safe (that’s any road user outside a car!).
The system in the US prioritizes driving, and the auto industry has such influence that driving is considered a basic human right, but safety on our roads is not.
The bill will establish a comprehensive plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on New Jersey’s roads by employing proven strategies and countermeasures. We demand that our leaders act now to prevent further tragedies and make our streets safe for everyone.
It’s rare that a license is revoked at all, even if there’s a fatality, and almost never permanently.
That drunk driver taken off the road would be warranted, and prevent him from killing again.
But it’s only a matter of time that another fatality occurs on any road that is not designed for safety of all users.
This article in Jalopnik Magazine lists 18 ways drivers (and all people in cars) should behave. It’s a car magazine that actually gets it.
Here are the most important ones. Especially numbers 1, 2, and 3.
Now get in your car and behave. Or just get on a bike or walk.
1. Don’t Hit People With Your Car. You are the driver. Even if you gave Tesla $15,000 for its so-called “Full Self-Driving” software, you are still the driver. Your car weighs thousands of pounds. It’s your responsibility to avoid hitting people with your car. Yes, even if someone jaywalks wearing all black in the middle of a storm late at night. Don’t hit people with your car. If that means driving more slowly, then so be it. If that feels like too much responsibility, maybe you shouldn’t be driving.
2. Road rage. Other drivers are going to do things that annoy you. They’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes they might even do something reckless or stupid. Go ahead and honk at them, sure, but you’re never going to make the situation any better by escalating from there. Really? You want to fight someone in the middle of traffic? Grow up. Also, this is America, so they might have a gun. Don’t mess with people who might have guns.
3. Chill Out With The Speeding. If you’re on private property, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Want to get drunk and try to jump your dirtbike across the creek without a helmet? That’s dumb, but on private property, no one’s going to stop you. On public roads, though, you have to think about other people. It’s just part of living in a society. It isn’t the end of the world to do 70 mph in a 65 mph zone, but how about we don’t drive 71 in a 35? Deal?
4. Stop It With The Weaving. Sure, you’re in a hurry, but constantly changing lanes in an attempt to drive faster than traffic rarely saves you much time and could just as easily make you late. Not only do you risk being pulled over by a cop and given a ticket, which takes forever, but you could also cause a crash, which takes forever and can cost a ton of money. This goes double if all you ultimately end up doing is passing a single person in the HOV lane who was just giving the car in front of them a little space.
5. You Probably Deserved That Parking Ticket. There are always going to be exceptions, but let’s be real here. The people who complain the loudest about how unfair it was that they got a parking ticket are usually the people who deserve it the most. Oh, you just popped in for a minute? Would you like to show me on the parking meter where it says the first five minutes are free? No? Because you knew you were risking a ticket when you decided not to pay? OK then. Shut up and pay it.
6. Put Your Damn Phone Down. Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. is a uniquely dangerous place to drive — or not drive if we’re being honest. France, Germany and the UK all have cell phones, too, but Americans appear to be particularly committed to using their phones while driving. It’s illegal because it’s dangerous, and if you really need to check that Facebook message the moment it comes in, just pull over to check it. Let’s be real, though. It can wait.
7. Just Be Sober. If you have to drive, stay sober, and definitely don’t drink while you’re driving. Even if you’re in New Orleans, just don’t. Then again, while drunk driving is a huge problem, high driving has also become a much bigger concern in recent years. And for whatever reason, far too many people seem to think there’s nothing wrong with driving while high. It’s still illegal, makes you a danger to others, and if the cops catch you, that’s your own damn fault.
