What is wrong with this picture?!?!?!
Sorry for the late notice, but please consider coming to the City Council meeting this evening and share your thoughts during the public portion on the vertical stanchions / bollards that the City has recently installed at various intersections across the City – whether you support them, whether you oppose them or whether you have an idea on how to change them.
The intended purpose of these stanchions is to address safety concerns at intersections where illegally parked cars at corners are impeding the ability of pedestrians to be seen by traffic entering intersections. Recently we have heard complaints specifically about car sharing services (Uber, Lyft, etc…) being the biggest offenders. According to Hoboken’s Parking and Transportation Director Ryan Sharp:
“Complaints of vehicles parked within 25’ of crosswalks on inbound approaches are also one of most, if not the most, common complaints we receive from residents re: pedestrian safety. This is the reason for using vertical delineators to keep inbound approaches clear of vehicles.”
If you cannot make the meeting, then I encourage you to email or tweet your thoughts and any pictures you may have to:
I, along with Councilman Cunningham, Mayor Bhalla and Director Sharp (unsure about others), have received a number of complaints that the new stanchions as installed have actually created the unintended consequence of increasing safety hazards at many corners given vehicles now have no place to park on our streets even for a few minutes and are now parking in the crosswalk itself. As you can see by this picture (and thanks to those who have sent many others to me from across the city).
At a meeting on Monday where Mayor Bhalla invited 2nd Ward residents who recently expressed concerns to join he and Director Sharp at the corner of 13th and Garden, residents pointed this out and offered some compromise ideas that could be considered that focus on safety and quality of life for residents including, among others:
- revising the placement of the bollards (closer to the crosswalk and the curb)
- speed bumps before the intersection to slow traffic, and most importantly
- increasing enforcement of the intersections.
I was not at the meeting*, but I understand that the Mayor and Director Sharp highlighted the loading zone PILOT program (trial) championed by Councilwoman Giattino that is about to be undertaken as a potential longer term solution which would transform certain street parking spaces during the day to loading zones (maintaining resident parking at night). Additionally, residents in attendance felt as though Mayor Bhalla and Director Sharp went away with a better understanding of what the impact of the stanchions has been - not only on safety but on daily quality of life - and ideas to potentially improve these intersections.
Please share your thoughts as more voices and input is better to get the best outcome. Clearly safety is and should be paramount.
Thank you and please accept my apologies for sending this so late today – there is no deadline for this discussion other than that our City Council Meeting starts tonight at 7pm.
And as always, if you have any questions or want to discuss this or anything else, please feel free to call me at 201/208-1674.
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