Photo By Boyd Loving
As Expected Study says housing complexes would ease village traffic
Monday, February 18, 2013
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — A study commissioned by the village shows that four high-density, multifamily housing complexes proposed for downtown could alleviate traffic congestion and improve pedestrian safety.
A major concern for residents opposed to the developments is that they would bring more traffic to an already congested village.
But a traffic planner hired by Ridgewood disagrees.
John Jahr of Maser Consulting last week presented his findings from a traffic study focused on Ridgewood Station — a 114-unit luxury apartment and retail complex at the former Ken Smith Motors dealership.
“Three developers have come before us,” Jahr said. “All have generated traffic impact studies and they have all kindly understood these developments will have an impact on traffic. Ridgewood already has a significant traffic situation.”
Saying the village was a “victim of its own success,” Jahr said that Ridgewood has “over-capacity issues with traffic.” However, he noted the “developers have indicated that they will mitigate [their projects’] impact on traffic.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/191633721_Study_says_housing_complexes_would_ease_village_traffic.html
is this a joke? where do they find these clowns …this is pathetic
If you tell the same story over and over again people will believe it
this is comical.
This finding is about as believable as the guy that claims that he drives better when he’s drunk – It’s an insult to our collective intelligence.
Our village government now has no credibility whatsoever. This is a shame because one or two of our “public servants” may actually have some decent ideas of what might be good for Ridgewood. After this finding, however, any idea that anyone on the Village Council puts forward has to be looked at with skepticism. What is in it for this individual personally? What special interest has influenced this individual? What back room meetings have we missed this time?
At the root of all of the problems in Washington is the fact that the party in power regularly exercises its ability to shove its agenda down the throats of its opponents. Welcome to Ridgewood – Aronsohn, Pucciarelli and Hauck have brought this style of government home.
The traffic guys conceded at the recent meeting that the town was over-built and had too much traffic. All they were saying was that the developers were willing to contribute to fixes around the new construction that would ease the flow of traffic in and out of the facility. The traffic would then be pushed to other areas of town.
East and West Ridgewood Ave, Prospect, Glen etc — all these would get another 1,000 cars leaving the projects in the morning and returning to the projects at night. The traffic people admitted that something might have to give elsewhere in the Village. Presumably, as noted elsewhere in the article referenced in the post, this means increased traffic in more residential areas and near our schools at peak times when we would like our children out walking.
Just say no since this involves zoning and variances!
May we hear a reliable presentation at the next planning board meeting by both parties to this discussion?
That would be very helpful thanks.
What are these idiots smoking?
#8 they are smoking “Paul Aronsohn Gold” conveniently wrapped in Pucci wrapping papers
I read the article in The Record. They did not explain how adding high density housing would reduce congestion.
They did say that they were willing to do a private/public partnership to work on the traffic problems. Is that the reduction – they have a plan to reduce traffic but we won’t know till they build.
My god thats embarassing absolutly embarassing, After a debacle like this how does our council expect us to belive any thing they say.
For details on how this conclusion was reached and more importantly on how this conclusion will be accepted by many, see:
“Leading Geneticist: Human Intelligence is Slowly Declining”
This reminds of Valley’s traffic expert who claimed that 1000 additional parking spaces would result in less traffic.
Let the developer put some skin in the game make them post a performance bond detailing how it will be done and if it doesn’t work they don’t get the money back. Just make sure that the bond is large enough to pay for themodifications that are really needed so the tax payer doesn’t get stuck payin for it.
In the words of Groucho Marx: “Who are you going to believe, me, or your own eyes?”
Isn’t ‘Mr. Jahr usually hired by developers? If so, there is the root of this report.
This disingenuous post is not worthy of a blog purporting to address issues in town. Whether there is any reality to what the consultants said or not, the whole article would have made more sense of the statements. Not sure whether I believe the conclusion, but the explanation of their reasoning was in the part of the article not included in this post.
Four developments are being considered by the Planning Board simultaneously: The Enclave, a 52-unit, four-story building on East Ridgewood Avenue; the Dayton, a 106-unit apartment building proposed for South Broad Street; the 50-unit Chestnut Village on Chestnut Street, and Ridgewood Station. Meanwhile, the Planning Board is mulling a change to the master plan that would permit these developments.
Jahr said all four developers have said they would be willing to enter into a public-private partnership, and that they would fund intersection improvements including new signage, sidewalks, traffic lights and curbing. These upgrades would improve traffic flow for vehicles and pedestrians, he said.
It would be “a way to address persistent traffic problems,” Jahr said, noting that if the lots remain undeveloped no changes would occur.
“Business would create more traffic over the residential use,” Jahr noted, before outlining proposed improvements to a number of intersections surrounding the Ridgewood Station site.
# 17 — you are doing an even more selective and disingenous selection of what the so-called experts had to say.
The Developers are willing to deal with the immediate surrounding problem of getting in and out of the projects. The point is that the 1000 potential cars could be leaving and coming home at the same time and adding to our already over crowded streets. The traffic “expert” was not saying that there would be no increased problems. Only that the increased problems could be dealt with in the immediate area of the projects — of course that makes sense, traffic signs or lights will be installed at the entrance to the projects. But the problems created for the rest of the town will have to be dealt with by the taxpayers.
As for Jahr’s statement about business use generating more traffic, it was completely unfounded. The existing use would not generate the same number of cars at the same time as the projects potentially will. The Village engineer was asked to assess the current zoned use and estimate the number of car trips involved. Jahr was quick to volunteer to help so it will be interested to see what kind of a lopsided view comes back in favor of development.
#18 – I merely cut and pasted the substantive part of the article that was omitted from the original post. I did not support the content of the article in any way. In fact I tend to think it is based on faulty reasoning. I merely suggested that poor reporting was being used to manipulate responses. Perhaps that sort of partial (and intentionally misleading) journalism is the way you like to see things done, but I found it to be below a blog that — USED to have standards.
Check out the Ridgewood Patch for partial reporting and bias on municipal issues. The Editor there is a complete apologist for Aronsohn and his posse.
You got that right #20