RIDGEWOOD ZONING SHOCKER: New Bike Lane Bans Parking, Leaving Residents with Nowhere to Park!
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the Village of Ridgewood, is once again the center of a heated debate over bicycle infrastructure, proving that even seemingly small road changes can spark major controversy. This time, the outrage is focused on the Pleasant Avenue neighborhood, where a new bike lane project has unexpectedly resulted in a parking ban, infuriating residents who claim they were misled.
The Latest Infrastructure Fiasco in Ridgewood
The new infrastructure, championed by Village Engineer Christopher Rutishauser and funded by a state grant, was intended to improve connectivity for cyclists. However, the execution has created an immediate problem: the project has effectively banned residents from parking directly in front of their own homes on South Pleasant Avenue.
A Broken Promise? Residents Cry Foul
The core of the dispute lies in the fact that residents of South Pleasant Avenue were allegedly explicitly told that no parking restrictions would be implemented as part of the bike lane project. This breach of trust has fueled social media firestorms and driven local political tension.
While the Village Council initially moved to formally introduce the parking ban ordinance on South Pleasant Avenue, the significant backlash and “noise on social media” from concerned neighbors and residents reportedly forced the council to back off the measure, at least for the moment.
Why the Bike Lane Is Causing Parking Pain
This latest controversy follows previous Ridgewood infrastructure projects—sometimes dubbed “bike lanes to nowhere”—that drew public criticism. The current situation highlights a common conflict in suburban planning: balancing the desire for modern, green transportation infrastructure (like bike lanes) with the necessity of maintaining practical residential amenities (like street parking).
The outcome on South Pleasant Avenue illustrates the real-world consequence of this tension: a neighborhood amenity (parking) has been sacrificed for a new piece of infrastructure (a bike lane), leaving residents with limited or no legal street parking options.
The Road Ahead: Local Control and Community Input
The temporary retraction of the ban by the Village Council suggests that community input remains a powerful force in Ridgewood. The controversy will now likely pivot to questions of accountability, planning transparency, and how the Village will address the legitimate parking concerns of South Pleasant Avenue residents while maintaining the new bike lane.
Local residents and community watchdogs will be closely monitoring the Village Council’s next steps to ensure the initial promise—that parking would be preserved—is honored.
Stay updated on state and national news that affects you. From politics to policy, from culture to current affairs, our eBlast will keep you well-informed . http://eepurl.com/bgt6T #RidgewoodBlog #News #LocalNews #StateNews #NationalNews #Subscribe #StayInformed #Community
Idiotic…
The street is very narrow. There should be no parking with or without the bike lane.
Wrong. You’re thinking of Stevens, not South Pleasant.
Pleasant is narrow when you have cars parked on both sides. And it’s even worse when there also leaf piles 6 feet into the street.
Drive slow
Town is already behind with leaf picks, big piles throughout Hawes area . Delivery Vans all park far into the streets because of big leaf piles. Amazon big box delivery van parked right at Stop sign that has big leaf pile into street., making it a single road. Snows coming, plows will be pushing snow/leaf piles back onto properties. Why bother paying for leaf clean up and snow shoveling when VOR town doesn’t bother either??
they are doing a great job in area B.
Another bad decision that council was hoping to ram through without people realizing. Evan and Siobhan are up next year — time to get new folks in
This is why you live in a residential area to be able and park on the street or if have guest can park on the street. Must be the new woke Ridgewood.
You can’t park on the street at night so what is the difficulty?
You can park around the corner and walk.
This is my around the corner, and has been for over 30 years. If you don’t like it leave.
This stuff continues to happen because the people of this Village are very much asleep while the woke folks are creating chaos.
So to stay organized, town council has the following fires to put out:
Fields
Parking
Development
What else is missing? There’s a lot of lawn signs about to go up.
100% – time to take the town back…
Lawsuits galore! More tax dollars wasted because of mismanagement by Vagianos and his puppets (which includes keith Kazmark)
Leaf collection can be added to the list.
What an embarrassment. How many times does the engineer get to Fu before his gets fired
sadly no one ever talked to the crossing guard who has worked the corner or dorchester and South pleasant for the past 9 1/2 years to get his opinion nor did anyone talk to the principal (but after all the noise now the village manager is meeting with the principal). the crossing guard stated that no kids ride in the street as they all ride of the sidewalk…
Right but they shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalk, that creates its own safety issues.
Not sure if you saw the accident on S. Pleasant today. Kids should not be on their bikes on that street at all due to the heavy and dangerous traffic. The bike lane should not be there encouraging kids to ride on a dangerous street.
How is a bike lane on pleasant Ave by itself useful? Are there other streets getting bike lanes? The real problem if you bike on this town is going east west – which is quite dangerous.
Just goes to show, beware of the state government bearing false gifts
There’s been a bike lane on one side of Grove St. to Hohokus Brook area. continues from Paramus E. Midland Ave. The Grove St. bike lane gets lots of biker riders sharing the road. All the big box Amazon plus other delivery vans all park on the bike lane for delvy. they block the road, you need go around them, cross the yellow line to pass.
People, dogs and kids, walk, bike on the sidewalks on Grove St.
Ridiculous, if you attended or watched the Council meeting last night it was obvious that this was not well planned out at all. The grant awarded specifically does not allow for parking on the bike lane. Did anyone on the Council actually read what they were applying for???
No parking ! Use your driveways
Use you driveway, no street parking !and no bike lane!
That’s a ridiculous comment, with the holidays coming up people have family and guests coming over. Where are they supposed to park? Why would someone have to tell their family that they need to park on an entire other street because there is a bike lane in front of their house that nobody even uses.
Glad I don’t pay taxes to ridgewood
Keep flying that lgbtq flag in June sell outs
America 🇺🇸 first
so stay on the waldwick blog
I’m glad I don’t have to look at your boats in the front yard and garbage cans on the street
Need dedicated lanes for the high speed electric devices
The council and Engineer are self-serving Jacka$$es and regularly make decisions that seem to make the town worse off. That said, let’s not broaden this to some broader flag flying, woke issue. Keep the discussion on the local problems.
And what the hell was around Paulie’s neck during the Veterans Day Ceremony?
Either that ackward scarf was too big or he is just too small🤣
There is ZERO need for a new bike lane on S. Pleasant. How stupid. They are just trying to get free state grant money. What a bunch of morons. We don’t have one there today, and won’t need it tomorrow. People are nuts.
This subject came up on the village managers FB page last year. I brought up the potential impact to street parking and some man from the West side of town insisted on the benefits. If that is the case put the bike lane on you street not on that of those who clearly communicated they did not want a bike lane on the street they live on. The residents park on the street, their guest park on that street, and those of us on Grove St. use that street. for parking. Not to mention the school events that people attend that require parents to park on that street. Village Council you are literally exhausting with your initiatives that create more conflict than progress.
Enough with the stupid bike lanes
I agree. I would love to see a ‘traffic count’ of bikes using the lanes.
All the riders with their spandex pants and dentist mirrors ride 4 abreast blocking traffic and likely would not use the lane…..
Ridgewood Blog comment section: “OUR VILLAGE IS BECOMING TOO CITYFIED”
VOR reduces on-street parking (about as citymaxxed as you can get)
Ridgewood Blog comment section throws an absolute fit
Will leaf piles be banned there also?
They will propose an ordinance that will BAN trees from dropping their leaves.