What Is Asbury Park Waiting For? Advocating for Quick Build. And what the heck is a “sneckdown”?

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-roundaboutscurb 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.

On Jan. 25th I attended a great meeting with the NJ Bike & Walk Coalition SAFE Network “Streets Are For Everyone”.

The topic of the SAFE Network meeting was Quick Build Demonstration Projects.

Advocates from several municipalities shared projects they’ve completed, most with with help from technical assistance grants.

This Free Complete Streets Technical Assistance grant expires Feb. 2nd. We do not know at this time whether Asbury Park has submitted an application.

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.

Take a look at Red Bank’s report on their project.

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.

Gift article: Washington Post: Want safer streets? Paint them.

Opinion Want safer streets? Paint them. By Janette Sadik-Khan and Kate D. Levin January 29, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. EST

Lastly, a piece was published today in Strong Towns:

No One Should Be the Second Person To Die on a Dangerous Street

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.

This guide, the Manual Of Uniform Traffic Control Devices has been updated, allowing municipalities much more leeway in making changes for safety.

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.

What is Asbury Park Waiting for?

Onward.

Polli Schildge, Editor

 

Creating a Walking Plaza on Asbury Park’s Ocean Avenue

We have an idea…

Vehicles have taken over our waterfront landscape, and we believe that people can take the space back. One way that people are succeeding in creating places for people on city streets is tactical urbanism.

That’s the message of “The quick way to make pedestrian plazas,” a new video by City Beautiful, a YouTube channel that features the strategies of tactical urbanism for the edification of city planners and livable-streets advocates. It mixes boosterism with some helpful pointers, such as best practices for dealing with Americans With Disability Act requirements and businesses that need freight loading zones.

There was a time in the early years of Asbury Park before cars were prioritized, that our waterfront was for people. Imagine restaurants and cafes, musicians, activities, and people strolling, bicycling and scootering along a car-free Ocean Avenue. Some have cited possible difficulty getting trash pickup and deliveries, and inconvenience to customers if they have to walk to their establishments. We know that businesses thrive all over the world where traffic is eliminated or reduced.

There are a (limited) number parking spaces on our waterfront, causing a continuous flow of vehicles all season with drivers  circling, looking to snag an empty space.  This constant (often torturously slow) movement of vehicles is the definition of traffic. The effect of traffic everywhere is environmentally disastrous, leading to disease, and catastrophic numbers of injuries and deaths yearly to people outside and inside vehicles.

We believe that city leaders get that we need to do something about traffic and we’re working on a solution to create a safe, inviting car-free,  or much more people-centric Ocean Avenue. We’re looking for ideas for jitneys, pedicabs, other ways to get people to their beach destinations. Help us reimagine Asbury’s waterfront. We might also want to consider some tactical urbanism!

 

 

Getting Rid of Cars in City Center

Idea for Asbury Park’s Business District? Tactical Urbanism taken to a new level.  It won’t happen easily, but we’re on the way to reducing parking congestion and building infrastructure and options for reducing cars.

BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI

Sneaky.  If You Can’t Ban Cars–Take Away Parking Spaces

Oslo had a plan to lower its emissions by drastically limit car travel in its center. Now you can drive, but it might not be worth it.

Instead of an outright car ban, Oslo has now announced a tactical-urbanism approach to limiting vehicle movement through the city center. [Photo: Nanisimova/iStock]

For those businesses owners concerned that the lack of parking in the central district will hamper their sales, a study of a Toronto neighborhood, previously covered by Fast Company, should give them some peace of mind. The study found that business owners drastically overestimated the percentage of their customers who arrived by car, and as such, voiced opposition to eliminating street parking in favor of more pedestrian routes and bike lanes. Visitors to the shops, on the other hand, far preferred the more humanized streets, and pedestrians and cyclists, as it turns out, were far more loyal customers, lingering longer in the shops, buying more, and exploring more outlets in the district instead of beelining back to their cars.

Read more…

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