The village should not make commuter parking a profit center. People already live in town and pay taxes. Shouldn’t they get something in return?
And once they purchase an overpriced pass don’t play musical chairs with them. A pass should relate to an actual parking spot. Telling someone to leave home earlier just means that a different person will miss out on parking.
I don’t commute by train but it seems like the town is making an unpleasant commute even worse.
There has been a real focus on fees and petty ticketing in town. Are we that desperate for revenue that we go after the taxpayers? This is becoming a petty police state. Where is the quality of life?
Welcome to the Hotel California..you can check in but you can never leave {Eagles Glenn Frye et al} (without a summons)
Some vocal members of the coterie also keep (derisively) telling Ridgewood residents to just go an park at Hohokus. Hohokus charges its residents $350 for an annual parking permit.
However, the daily non-resident parking rate is $5.40 (including Mobilenow fee, $5 for cash). That would be about $1200 a year. Plus another $180 a year on the more expensive NJ transit monthly pass (or much more if buying weekly tickets).
Rest assured, once Hohokus sees its parking lot filling up, it will hike rates. Given that Hohokus does not have a ‘responsive caring’ council like Ridgewood does, my guess is that they will leave their residents unharmed and choose to shake down the out-of-towners.
So there you have it – the privilege of living in Rigdewood. Suck it up, pay the higher taxes, and also pay thousands extra to enjoy the privilege of a parking spot so that you can get to work.
I don’t get the stubbornness to just admit they made a mistake.
I know of no town in America where the purchase of a house comes with a parking spot for the train. You want parking solutions; at least the current council is looking for solutions that cost less than 10 million dollars. If there was an easy solution it would have been found long ago. If you think you can do better then run for office, and get criticized and second guessed by the community that elected you. Only in Russia can you make all of the people happy. (sarcasm)
By the way, the parking garage plan included substantial fee increases to pay for the deck. The previous council should have tested those fee increases to see the public reaction. I think I know what the reaction would have been.
Just stay at an AirBnB in HoHoKus and use that address for residency.
Problem Solved.
Next.
Someone on Facebook advocated patience as the council implements a multi-faceted approach.
Left unsaid – why is jacking up commuter parking permit fees and slashing parking spots phase 1? Will we ever be told the rationale behind these? What are phases 2, 3 and 4? Does anyone know? So far – the council has decided to stay mum.
Also – who planned holding the news till the last week of December? Sure, the mayor said ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ but who planned this out? Is doing something sneaky and then saying ‘sorry’ what goes for responsiveness these days?
@3:41 said “at least the current council is looking for solutions”
First, the council is trying to solve the parking ‘problems’ of downtown businesses, not commuters. They decided to shaft the commuters to help the businesses. Let me know which town in America guarantees businesses parking in excess of what they have when they set up shop.
Also, what are those ‘solutions’? So far, it seems like the only ‘solution’ is to run commuters out of town by jacking up permit prices to extortionate levels. May be they should have run on this campaign plank, if that was their ‘solution?’
When you live in Ridgewood and at the same time call a $250.00 increase “extortionate” I question your sanity.
Their platform was a multifaceted approach. They did discuss tiered parking prices for commuters, one way streets with diagonal parking, a garage, subsidizing Uber, parking apps, possibly using the Zabriskie lot, employee parking, etc. The council discussed the parking rates in October and November, before voting on it. I don’t believe any member of the public complained about the price being tiered higher as you got closer to the train. The Financial Advisory Committee suggested raising the commuter passes as well as the meters, especially the meters on the streets closer to the train station (75 cents and hour was suggested). The council chose to keep the meters the same, except to lower 60 meters at Cottage to 25 cents an hour for CBD employee parking. These were both done to try to entice more people to use the Cottage Street lot, which remains mostly empty all day.
When the previous council was planning a garage, they said the garage would be mostly for patrons of the CBD. They said commuter parking would be on the upper levels.
Say the garage was built at Hudson. If 2 cars started from the same location, one drove directly to the Cottage lot, parked, & walked to the train platform. The other car drove directly to a garage at Hudson Street, drove round and round to the 3rd level, parked, came down to street level, and walked to the train platform- my guess is that the timing would be pretty much the same.
4:44…and your point is.?….perhaps you might voluntarily shovel out an additional $250 per annum for every Ridgewood fee :service,,permit and other harassment fees..dog license..Imagine you might not be a parking dependent commuter, But I’d be first to assume you might just be Ok with that level of increase ..33 percent.
@5:00 – I checked the village ‘Parking’ website till the 26th of December. There was NOTHING on it. When an individual pointed this out on the Facebook group, the page went blank for a few days. This is how shady political outfits operate. People have their lives to deal with. They are not constantly monitoring village hall meetings.
Also, ‘tiered parking’ is not the same as ‘increase prices everywhere, more for commuters parking at the station.’ The latter is an attempt to drive people away from parking, which one would only do if there were a severe shortage of parking. Is the council owning up to this?
@4:44 – if the immediate neighboring towns on the same train line charge their residents $145 and $350, $1000 is indeed extortionate.
At least for regular people, not those who live in ‘Ridgewood’ solely to demonstrate how rich they are.
5:00 very informative..your comment quoted here “The council chose to keep the meters the same, except to lower 60 meters at Cottage to 25 cents an hour for CBD employee parking. These were both done to try to entice more people to use the Cottage Street lot, which remains mostly empty all day.”. Gas a ring to it..my family used to pay same 25 cents per hour with 12 hour max giving those taxpayers Not out of town Employee my former workable Rate and time duration.max 8 hours is a con driving you to pay 750 min at cottage for pass or spin the wheel on Parkmobile.max 8 hours..since when do town store employees get better deal than taxpayer..ill tell you since the sneaky VC SCREWED THIS WHOLE THING UP..and still cottage employee parking remains largely a failure..they are on the streets as usual feeding the meters..this is like Wack A mole
Management and town taxpayers are the beaten up moles.750 is a rip off too..I’ve payed this and former year one 625 or whatever it is the last 3 years including 2017.The VC wants us to roll over and go away..
People like 4:44 (When you live in Ridgewood and at the same time call a $250.00 increase “extortionate” I question your sanity) are reason we are in such a deep fiscal hole at the muni/state/federal level.
They focus on the amount of increase rather than the absolute level. These are the same people who get duped and pay “only $30 more a month’ on 7 year car loans.
The fact that the $1000 permit fee is multiples of what is charged in neighboring towns is inconsequential to them. So next year you have another ‘only’ $250 hike, then another and before you know it you are paying thousands for a parking permit.
4.47 Great Points. Jeff did a Heights demographic and wants some of that Wall Street Bonus Pool. Taking the wheels off the rest of the towns former residents commuter pricing and location availability Meantime the business owners can’t deliver those employees into the
exclusive excess cottage place employee only set asides(Monday to Saturday vacant) likely because they won’t subsidize those new permit fees. Resulting in residents getting the shaft again on all fronts.
It is actually sad to listen to the VC talking about making money from commuters. The commuters are desperate and they will take any spot, they will pay any fee. Increase the permit fees and take away their spots. Force them to park at further spots. The commuter will park anywhere. They are desperate. Good work on trying to push them out of town and make a commuter-free town.
Amazing that this blog actually is from a year . . . and another $300 hike in the yearly fee ago . . . and nothing has changed. Actually, there HAVE been changes, but they have all been to the detriment of commuters. The new passes are $1300 per year. Want a pass for the Hudson Street lot? That will get you a parking spot until the construction begins, and the pleasure of depending on Uber to get to the station to catch your morning ride to work after construction starts. Oh, and forget about parking anywhere on the weekend, because, of course, who works on Saturday or Sunday?
Want a pass for other lots? Well, don’t count on parking in the train station unless you have a compact car. The planned renovations add spots, but they are only for compact vehicles. Because, after all, almost everyone in Ridgewood drives a compact. Unable to find a spot at the station, maybe because you aren’t there before 6:30 in the morning? Enjoy a healthy hike from across town. Hopefully, the snow and rain won’t be a problem this winter.
This is just PATHETIC. This is a real problem for anyone trying to sell their home – NO ONE in their right mind would consider moving here who works in NYC. I know we certainly would not have moved here, even without knowing the truth about the fraud underlying the reputation enjoyed by Ridgewood’s school system. The only thing worse than the stress of uncertainty about finding a parking spot is the sanctimonious disingenuousness of residents and council members who insist that protecting the access of “diners and shoppers” to parking is key to Ridgewood’s welfare.
This town also has zero consideration for the people that work in the local shops. Making slightly more than minimum wage, the endless $25 parking tickets mean I’m essentially working for free. On top of the $25, I pay $12 for the day to “park by plate,” so every time I get a ticket, I have paid $37 for the privilege of working in one of the shops. I really hate this town,