“Franklin Avenue is a death trap already. Do you remember the priest pedestrian in the crosswalk trying to cross Franklin Avenue at Oak Street who was killed by an impatient woman (who was apparently immune from County prosecution) who admittedly had the green light but became impatient waiting to make the left turn onto Franklin Avenue who punched the accelerator, zoomed around THE LEFT HAND SIDE of the car in front of her which was waiting to do the same thing (but that had appropriately stopped to let the poor priest cross the street) and brutally hit and killed the pedestrian priest in the crosswalk?”
“Franklin Avenue is in general a rear-end-smashing accident paradise and is threatening to become worse, what with its intersection with Broad Street now becoming a bona fide 4-way intersection with the recent construction of the new apartment building “The Benjamin” and the traffic into and out of The Benjamin’s sizable (hidden) parking lot, and what with its drastic and in close succession up and down slope near Broad Street, and what with all the Woke motorists now in Priuses and other zero-muscle cars powered by thousands of 1.5 volt batteries bundled together in huge boxes who have made a fetish out of stomping on their brakes and stopping their pathetic lady cars dead in traffic on major thoroughfares all over the state, at crucial moments and at 30-35 MPH or more when they clearly have the right of way, for no other reason than to virtue signal and faux-philanthropically and lamely give up their right of way up to every Tom, Dick and Harry in their car waiting in a driveway or on a po-dunk side street who was not looking to receive a generous gift thank you very much, or to every pedestrian on feet yapping with a friend and only just beginning to think about entering the roadway two crosswalks away, or to every squirrel on paws only threatening to dart out into traffic.
Ridgewood residents who have had enough practice and have learned the right way or ways to accommodate pedestrians in crosswalks (neither being too aggressive and violating the law requiring motorists to yield, nor too rigid with the law or too trigger happy with the brake pedal such that they tend to unnecessarily surprise motorists behind them) and who tend to use Ridgewood Avenue to avoid that chaotic stretch of road on Franklin between Broad and Maple will need Ridgewood to keep Ridgewood Avenue as a automobile thoroughfare more than ever, and for the next 5-10 years at least until traffic patterns mature, new businesses have had a chance to grow, old businesses to recover, and we figure out whether our new parking garage was worth the trouble to build and maintain.”
That building at the old Ken Smith site has to be the ugliest imposing structure ever built in town. When observing it from the west side of the town driving towards the station, all of the HVAC on the roof looks like shit. Why can’t the planning board require a parapet to disguise that to minimize the visual impact of that monster structure.
That’s a long, run-on sentence if I ever saw one.
Some of the language in the post is a bit of speaking in extremes, but I agree that it just makes traffic that much worse and more dangerous if people don’t follow the normal right of way. Some of the people who will stop when they have the right of way are the first ones to erratically cut you off turning into the right of way, or randomly turning without a signal. When I was working in Woodcliff Lake I preferred to take GSP to the office. Driving up there on local roads was just mind numbing due to all the bad drivers. Yes folks, when you don’t follow the rules of the road and normal right of way, 9 times out of 10 you are not kind you are just a bad driver.
Ridgewood avenue from the drug store old rite aid up to the US post office on the right side should be No street parking
It is too narrow and buses are zooming up and down main street .
It was layed out 90 years ago for single horse hay and milk wagons
They can park in the new garage and walk to their hair salon jobs.
Shut down the main Avenue, keep it close for the summer, It’s great for business people are enjoying it.
With the new garage and more than enough parking spots in town now, large parts of downtown should become a pedestrian zone. Close the roads and have people walk to stores, have restaurants expand their outdoor seating on the street permanently. Make this downtown attractive! I have seen this all over Europe. Why can’t we do this here? Because people would prefer to drive their cars into a store if they could?
It’s amazing how lazy people are. And for Ridgewood Avenue that should be a 10 mph zone. They do that at other locations in other towns why not in Ridgewood. People drive way too fast in the CBD. Especially New Jersey transit. Bouncing off everyone’s mirrors. Cutting you off, talk about Bully drivers. They take the cake for it.