January 27,2016
Boyd A. Loving
Ridgewood NJ, For years now we’ve heard the Aronsohn administration’s head cheerleader, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, go on at nauseam about the importance of improving parking opportunities in the Village. We’ve listened to Ms. Sonenfeld, Mayor Paul Aronsohn and current Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce Presidnet Paul Vagianos proclaim at meeting after meeting why the availability of downtown parking is so crutial to the existence of RIdgewood’s business community. Nothing, they say, is more important to keeping existing Ridgewood businesses alive, and attracting new businesses to the Village, than maximizing parking opportunities. All of us have been led to believe that unless more parking opportunities are created, downtown Ridgewood will eventually become a ghost town.
So I ask, if the availability of parking is indeed so critical to the success of business in Ridgewood, why wasn’t snow cleared from every available parking space in the Central Business District prior to the start of business on Monday? The snow stopped falling at approximately 8 PM on Saturday – Portions of several municipal lots were still snow covered as of 3 PM on Tuesday. Metered parking spaces on Godwin Avenue and on Franklin Avenue were still inaccessible as of 6 PM on Monday. Metered parking spaces on Oak Street were still being cleared on Tuesday morning.
It is certainly understandable that the Village’s first priority was to clear traveled roadways, especially those near schools and medical facilities, and to ensure the safe egress of emergency vehicles in and out of their garages/headquarters locations. I also understand that there are a limited number of Village employees and limited pieces of Village owned snow removal equipment. But why where there no contractors called in to work exclusively on the removal of snow to facilitate downtown business operations, with a target of getting everything cleared out prior to the start of Monday morning business operations? And why weren’t contractor resources directed to remove snow from the Route 17 Park & Ride? Governor Chrisie encouraged commuters to leave their vehicles at home and take mass transit – that’s not easily accomplished if you can’t park your vehicle at a mass transit departure point.
Clearly, someone dropped the ball here. Contractors should have been placed on standby in the event the snowfall was too much for our own employees to handle. And I hope that Ms. Sonenfeld doesn’t use the lame excuse that contractors cost money – we’re prepared to spend over $12 million to improve parking opportunities, but won’t spend peanuts to remove snow from parking places? Give me a break!
I strongly encourage Village officials to be prepared for the next “big one.” Their lack of attention with respect to clearing snow from existing parking spaces suggests to me that all the talk about needing more parking is nothing more than a bunch of rhetoric.
Ridgewood Park & Ride finally plowed this morning.
Snow job.
Well Duh if we had a parking garage commuters and others could have parked in a covered garage that was free of snow and ice. The writer of this article just proved the business case for building a garage.
9:07 – WTF? You’re proposing that I’d park on Hudson St. to shop at Fox’s?
But 9:07 at shopping malls you often have to walk even more.
I thought walking was the “in” thing.
You always hear: Park away from your destination so you can get in a short walk. And: Several short walks a day are an easy and efficient way get in a healthy dose of exercise. Incorporate walking into your lifestyle.
So what’s wrong with walking Hudson to Fox’s. I mean not in a major snowstorm but hey…
Do you think someone is going to park in a multi-level garage and use an elevator in order to run into the bank or the post office? It’s counter-intuitive to park on Level Three just to go and get a cone at Haagen Dazs…
If a garage (in that spot) can’t sustain itself financially from daily commuter parking, it’s not a good plan nor will it be anywhere near fully utilized. It’s not going to help the shopping problems enough to justify the cost or the change to the streetscape.
Boyd answers his own question: “It is certainly understandable that the Village’s first priority was to clear traveled roadways, especially those near schools and medical facilities, and to ensure the safe egress of emergency vehicles in and out of their garages/headquarters locations. I also understand that there are a limited number of Village employees and limited pieces of Village owned snow removal equipment.”
This was a historically large snowstorm. In the immediate aftermath of a storm, there’s a “fixed” number of plows, dump trucks, etc. out there working in Bergen County. So I imagine that most contractors were off doing work for towns or business or houses that don’t have snow removal crews on staff.
40 years ago while going to school at night, I worked full time for the Paramus DPW. The Super was the father of current Freeholder James Tedesco. Before you were able to plow snow for Paramus you were given a training class. This class ensured that when plowing you did 2 things:
1) you plowed Curb to Curb. Not just 2 or 3 passes on each side of the road – but Curb to curb. The type and width of the road determined the number of passes, not the driver!. Look at sections of streets like N. Monroe, Godwin, Hillcrest, Prospect, Van Dien. The Village or its contractors plow 5 – 7 feet from the curb. This forces the homeowner to shovel or snowblow into the street.
2) you “Pack the corners”. When you come to a T intersection you don’t leave a right angle pile of snow. That’s because the curbs are rounded. Yes, as the plower, you have to backup and plow the pile of snow 1 or 2 times to make sure the corner is rounded, but you’re making it safer for drivers. When there’s a right angled plow job, drivers often can’t see around the pile of snow and have to enter the intersection to see if it’s safe to make a left hand turn. Apparently Ridgewood doesn’t care about this.
John V. – Money talks. A contractor would have been available if we’d paid for such a standby arrangement. It’s a standard business arrangement.
Boyd, you need to get out more. That was a big storm. There are only so many snow plows, employees, and hours in a day. Our Village crew and the contractors we used did heroic work, so your comment that “somebody dropped the ball here” sounds like continued sour grapes because you hate the garage idea.anyone who knows you or knows this blog knows that. This is just pure griping for the sake of nitpicking on anything you can, give it a rest
Whose responsible for park & ride snow removal, the Village or the bus company that makes money transporting commuters?
11:26 – Thanks for your comment Roberta.
Reads to me as if Boyd did acknowledge the storm’s magnitude and the fine work done by Village employees. The failure to adequately staff the task falls squarely on the shoulders of management, not the worker bees. When big snow is expected, plan accordingly.
11:26. Hi Roberta. Your vicious tongue is easily recognized. It is legend. The fact is, there were tons of unplowed parking spaces, we all saw this. And yet life went on in our little town. So if there are always available spaces per your important Wlaker study, and if there are fewer spaces after the storm but people are still able to park, the. What is the need for the parking garage?
11:26,
I love it. You are suggesting that Boyd get out more? Boyd is all over the place all the time. He is out more than anyone and he is very observant. He takes photos, he is around town with his dogs, with his grandchildren. Everyone in town knows Boyd. How much more should he “get out???”
Tim Grip. Were plow operators told to pile snow at the corners? In Ridgewood operators push snow past an intersection and push all the collected snow into the curout of the sidewalk.
Homeowners have to clear 4 foot compacted snow piles at the corner! The plows work against the homeowners.
Roberta – “the village crew and contractors did HEROIC work.” Get a reality check Mrs. Manager. They plowed snow. They did their jobs. They are paid to do so. No HEROISM was involved. I do my job every day, too. And I do it well. That does not make me a hero. I mean, really, patting contract workers and village employees on the back is fine, we all like some adulation, but you are ridiculous here. The plowing done for this storm was moderately successful. There are many many streets that are down to one or one and a half lanes due to sloppy plowing. Multitudes of corners are piled so high that homeowners had to struggle to cut a walkway through. Tons of parking spaces in your precious CBD were unplowed even by late on Tuesday. I went to the library on Tuesday morning. Half the lot was unplowed. The snow stopped on Saturday night. It was sunny and clear all day every day since. This looks like MISMAGNAGEMENT to me. Kudos to Boyd for pointing this out, and not anonymously like your chicken-sh*t posting.
This was one storm on a weekend. No snow on the ground beforehand. No snow subsequently. Could have been cleaned up much better Roberta. Quite a few balls dropped here.
oh stop it,s snow. it is half melted, ridgewood did a great job. some other towns look a mess.