From Bike Lane Dream to Parking Nightmare: Ridgewood Residents Furious After Grant Money Kills Street Parking on South Pleasant
screen shots from original presentation May 2024
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
RIDGEWOOD, NJ — The Village of Ridgewood is once again embroiled in controversy over a new bicycle infrastructure project, sparking outrage among residents of the Pleasant Avenue neighborhood. This time, the issue isn’t a “bike lane to nowhere,” but a newly implemented restriction on street parking on South Pleasant Avenue that residents were explicitly told would not happen.
The latest project, spearheaded by Village Engineer Christopher Rutishauser, utilized grant money to create a new bike lane—but in a major development, the project has now effectively banned residents from parking in front of their own homes.
The Broken Promise on Parking
The roots of the current frustration trace back to the official presentation delivered to the Village Council members on May 22, 2024, regarding the bike lane proposal for both North & South Pleasant Avenues.
At the time the plan was introduced, residents were assured that street parking on South Pleasant would continue. This promise was central to gaining local support and mitigating concerns about street access.
However, the final implementation—tied to the requirements of the grant funding secured for the project—has led to the exact opposite outcome.
“The original proposal assured residents that street parking on South Pleasant would continue. Now, however, residents can not even park in front of their own homes,” noted one concerned local source.
The “Village Engineer Fiasco” and Grant Oversight
The consensus among critics is that this is a colossal error of oversight by the Village Engineer’s office. It appears that when the initial design was presented to the Council and the public:
- The project team was either not planning to apply for a specific grant, OR
- They failed to realize that the terms and conditions of the grant secured would legally preclude the Village from allowing vehicles to park in the dedicated bike lane space.
This apparent miscommunication between the design proposal, the grant application, and the final execution has left residents feeling misled and has created a significant parking hardship in the neighborhood. This latest issue is being widely dubbed another “Village Engineer fiasco” by frustrated community members.
Residents are demanding answers from the Village Council and the Engineer’s office on how such a critical detail—the loss of street parking—was overlooked after being explicitly promised to the community.
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Holy shit!
Someone’s head must surely roll for this mistake.
Bend over just once more. We assure you, it won’t hurt.
Map shows North Pleasant was included in the plan as well. Why didn’t they get screwed also? Something against the Hawes community?
Always! It’s only “The Lawns”.
Ran out of paint?
And in typical Ridgewood fashion, residents were not notified that this was going to happen.
lol “outrage”
Gonna need a picture from Boyd to better understand what we’re talking about here…
Lawsuit
Village “Engineer”…lol
The worst. When is he going?
Just wow.
Have your kids walk to school or take the bus. It’s free and wouldn’t hurt the environment not having your SUVs idling in line everyday. Bonus: you het more of your time back not having to sit in line.
That is not the point Ed Begley!
Yeah, remember walking to school? That’s one way for the kids to exercise. But you have to live outside the two-mile limit to get the bus.
Enough with the bike lanes already
Oh no! You can’t park in front of your house, you might have to walk a few steps! The horror!
I know that area. Don’t the houses have garages and driveways anymore?
Live by the High School if you want to have parking restrictions in front of your house.
A citizenry gets the government they deserve.
Sometimes they get it good and hard.
Maybe they can have lunch with the Schedler neighbors.
Stop with the bike lanes!
West Siders have suffered for years from the disastrous narrowing/removal of lanes under the underpass. What a terrible idea that was. The original setup wasn’t perfect, but it was a million times better. Put it back!
In all this time I have seen ZERO bicycle riders using it. All it does is mess up the traffic pattern. It could go into an engineering textbook as an example of expensive long-term mistakes and boondoggles.
Kind of like those “truncated domes and detectible warning pavers” installed on every sidewalk corner, all around the country, costing BILLIONS, that hardly ever get used?
Do you have blind rage?
Yep that your engineer people. Making it harder to be safe in Ridgewood with ridiculous plans
Siobhan was a big proponent of this nonsense. Of course
They told her less squirrels would get killed because they would use the bike lane rather than running down the middle of the road.
Another self inflicted wound by the Village. Sad to see what it has become.
Bait and switch is how Village leaders operate.