file photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the “Save Ridgewood Outdoor Dining ” petition has been making the rounds on various Facebook groups . As of this writing the petition had 2023 signers who wish to preserve the outdoor dining corrals.
Early on the Ridgewood blog voiced some safety and esthetic concerns but overtime at lest to some degree these objections were addressed . The promoters have claimed that the corals only take 18 spaces from street parking , and after all Ridgewood has an empty parking garage on Hudson Street as well as a 1/2 empty commuter parking lot at the Ridgewood Train station .
The concept being pushed is that if people have to park and walk they are more apt to find and shop at a local retailer on their way to the restaurant of their choice. Others who remain concerned for their health like the added dinning out option and dog walkers like the convenience of enjoying a meal with their pet .
We still have some pedestrian safety concerns and lets face it some of the corrals are not as neat and tidy as they should be . There is still that logistic problem for customers and clients looking for a quick pick up or drop off at a merchant.
The main issue is the very same issue that has predated the building of the Hudson garage . The Ridgewood blog has felt that the problem with the central business district has not so much been parking but access . The over taxed road infrastructure to just too congested to make the downtown or the CBD convenient. Over the last decade the problem has gotten worse and has only been exacerbated by the high density housing, bike lanes to nowhere and traffic easing .
Another words it is getting harder and harder to get in and out of the central business district which puts a serious damper on doing busines there .
COVID is over. Restaurants should be back within the space they either own or rent. It’s not fair to the other merchants.
Get rid of those blockades.
The footprints are too big. Time to retreat to a couple of tables on the sidewalk
Pay to Play…you wanted the garage and now you want free public space. The food is just not that good.
TBOS!
Take Back Our Streets!
Take them back from the street eaters.
Then erase March 2020-March 2022 from our history, never to be discussed again, except insofar as discussing it will help us to prevent it from reoccurring.
“It” being : Allowing a lousy virus to be our daddy, and everything that flowed therefrom.
Bricks falling, concrete blocks on the street, pedestrians being struck by MV and a empty parking garage. What else?
I’m certainly not against a few tables on the sidewalk but our streets are entirely too narrow to allow parking on both sides and tables in the street. I would also like to see wheelchair and stroller access on the sidewalks!
Take down the shanty huts with extension cables draped around them. Looks live Hooverville and a fire hazard.
They told us as children that streets were for cars and sidewalks were for people. Now there are almost no sidewalks open. I wouldn’t want to be attempting that with a walker, crutches, a stroller, or unsure footing.
Get rid of those hideous things. Restaurant owners do not own Ridgewood.
Outdoor dining needs to go. If a restaurant wants outdoor dining, they can BUY or LEASE a space that has outdoor dining.
Outdoor dining is ugly, dangerous, and a deterrent to people visiting the downtown area to shop.
Restaurants that feel entitled to consume public space and use it as outdoor dining for their private, for-profit businesses should be boycotted.
Keep the outdoor dining and expand the close off of Ridgewood Ave to pedestrian only from Broad to Oak permanently.
Outdoor dining ending in April
“Some outdoor dining enclosures in parking spots will disappear by the end of the month in Ridgewood, according to a report.
The 18 parking spots that restaurants have been renting during the COVID-19 pandemic will go away as of March 31, NorthJersey.com reported. Ridgewood’s village council decided, in a split vote, to dismantle them.
Ridgewood’s council may decide what to do with the summer weekend pedestrian plazas and 16 other rented parking spaces this spring, the report said.”
It’s really depressing to see the desire to go back to the stone ages. The downtown dinning program was the most innovative thing this city has done in decades. Get out of your cars and walk, ride bikes, take an Uber. It’s also clear that the leadership of this town has very little courage to do something to bring the community together. “Back to normalcy”? yeah, it was so great before. NOT!
Either turn East Ridgewood Ave (S. Maple to Broad) into a full pedestrian area or get rid of these dining corrals and allow proper 2-way traffic and street parking. The corrals were meant to be a temporary “social distancing” measure during Covid. As expected, the restaurant cabal has enormous power in the Village, which is why we had that ridiculous garage built on the backs of the taxpayers. Now they don’t want to give up all those extra street seats.
go full pedestrian permanently