January 9,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The progress Ridgewood folks are back at it! Under the name say YES to the Ridgewood Parking garage Facebook page. A boosted Facebook page nonetheless!! Playing on the irritation residents feel at the new parking changes. And blocking anyone from seeing the page who have any opposing viewpoint.
Even if the new parking has some kinks that need to be worked out, this council has been more than open to resident input- at least 4 of them have. Its embarrassing that the same cast of characters (albeit a small, tiny little cast, in stature and in numbers) need to jump on any available topic to try to create divisiveness.
Its amazing any group who claims to want to PROGRESS the town, wants to do so by creating animosity.
Can’t people just solve their problems by coming to the council or reaching out and having a conversation? Now that we have a council who are willing to do that and do that transparently?? These people must have just gotten used to doing business this way. Sad. Another side effect of the Aronsohn era.
Anyway, here’s the post.
YES for Ridgewood Parking
Yesterday at 10:17pm ·
Friday January 6th, 12:00 noon. Driving into the Ridgewood Central Business District for a quick lunch. No spots. Circled a 3 block radius multiple times. 2 aggressive drivers cut me off to take open spots. Okay… be patient, no need for road rage. Drove around a larger circle of blocks. No spots. Well, one but it was a 15 minute spot which is no good for lunch. Thought about parking in a bank lot (as a customer). 10 minutes more driving around. Starting to think about going somewhere else, HoHoKus, Glen Rock, Paramus, but want to patronize a particular Ridgewood business. Total time circling and looking for a spot was 25 minutes. Parked 3 blocks away at the Hudson lot. Only one open spot. Feeling lucky. Then, I noticed the meter posts had stickers on them saying parking was for diners and shoppers only. Hmmm. Never noticed that. Then, over the weekend, a number of Ridgewood residents made FaceBook posts about their discontent as tax paying commuters, who went from an already outrageous $750 parking permit to a $1,000 permit and with fewer spots. Not cool. Sounds like our Village Council is addressing a parking shortage by reducing demand through price gouging. That’s not a solution, and quite frankly, it’s not working. Commuters who pay $1,000 need to park by 6:30 am or they can’t find a spot. So we just screwed commuters. And, even with the added spots for shoppers and diners, you still end up driving around at peak times for 20-30 minutes to find a spot. Some commuters have resorted to parking in HoHoKus where the cost to park is cheaper (for now). None of this is a solution to Ridgewood’s decades long parking shortage. And when the Ken Smith and Brogan properties are developed (and despite all the delay tactics they will be developed), those spots will be gone, further exacerbating our parking problem. Our current Village Council ran on a platform based largely on solving our parking dilemma, yet they killed the Hudson garage plans and their recent solutions have been a slap in the face for Ridgewood commuters. Please take a moment to write the Village Council in support of a better solution. Please attend the Village Council meeting this Wednesday January 11th to speak up about your discontent. We need more residents to get involved. https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/village-government.
