brewster I like it. Stops the through traffic very nicely.

But it requires support from EZ Pass and the state. Possible, but the Fulup / Murphy feud won't help.

There's Tons of traffic jumps off 78 at Columbus ave, down Christopher Columbus, to Marin (and Erie to a lesser degree). No benefit to JC. Actually a cost due to traffic police and road wear.

The downside is that anyone driving into JC for business now has a problem. This includes the employees and anyone attending one off meetings. This isn't acceptable.

Alternatives?

Don't allow turns onto 12th street during rush hours. That would stop the through traffic, but locals can't drive to the Holland. Not much better.

A ban on through traffic. That's the real problem. We want people to come to JC. Even during rush hours. But only if they are coming to JC and not using JC just to cut in line at the tunnel.
How to enforce? Add cameras on the 78 CC exit, and the entrances to the tunnel. We might need to add one at the 78 LSP exit too.

Of course there will be legal challenges.....

I was using a cash only guy, but he disappeared one day, with my keys and some some cash I had in the house.

So I switched to MaidinJC.com They've been doing a great job. On time, cleaned the apt spotless, girls were super nice, even offered some tips (clean your toothbrushes in the dishwasher to disinfect them).

I like that the owner lives here in town and is a real company with insurance, bonding, etc. After my prior experience, I'll be more careful on who I give my keys to.

We live by Hamilton park and two young guys in matching coats knocked on our door today. They said they were from PSEG and wanted to see our bill to explain a notice on it. Smelling a scam I sent them off on their way.

A little research and I believe I have their scam. They are trying to switch you to a different gas/electric provider. Not sure if they go into a hard sell line, try to trick you into signing documents that actually transfer your provider, or just steal your account number and switch it without your consent. Don't care.

Here's a link with more details outlining the nature of the scam. The specifics are for NY, but the SCAM could apply in NJ too.


http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/12/27/ ... -sleazy-scams-sell-energy

I stopped by the library on Jersey Ave for the first time today.

I've tried before but they were always closed due to holidays, weather, or Sunday.

I saw 4-5 staff and 2 parents each with a child.

Didn't last long. It was over 80 degrees in the kids section. The thermostat in the middle of the room far away from the heaters was set to 75.

Than I tried to get a library card. Seems you need a drivers license and recent bill! It's a library card not a secure document like a passport. Btw in NYC you just need a drivers license.

Staff was too busy clipping coupons to help.

Went online to find a comments or email address. Nope. Feedback isn't welcome I guess (gotta have time for coupons).

Fulop! More expenditure cuts here!

Left and went to the Word book store. Friendly staff, normal temp, nice selection, and busy. Can't wait to come back.

I think the new stop signs are great! Once the traffic enforcement kicks in it will help the community tremendously:

1) It will be safer to cross at intersections. While pedestrians have the right of way in NJ, the drivers in JC couldn't care less

2) The traffic will slow down. The speed limit is 25mph, but cars doing 40+ are the norm

3) It will help divert some of the traffic that hops off the highway and cuts through downtown to cut in front of the rest of the tunnel traffic. My 2 year old, knows that it's polite to wait your turn--but drivers couldn't care less.

4) Let's rack in some funds for tickets! If we tried, we could crush Hoboken's $3.5m take in tickets. Let's go JC!

When we lived in Hoboken, there was a speed bump right outside of our front door. The only time we ever heard anything was when a driver blew through the stop sign and speed bump--we heard them cursing up a storm. The cheers from our house were louder though

Quote:

I'm not sure the reason, but the drivers in JC have no regard to pedestrians, and little regard to traffic signals. It's the generality, not the exception, that drivers will run down pedestrian, run red lights, run stop signs. Four to five times per year I can count on witnessing a car hitting another car or pedestrian. I

I've lived/worked in Hoboken, Philadelphia, NY, Queens, London and have never experienced such consistently poor dangerous driving behavior.

Every morning and evening I walk Jersey Ave from Hamilton Park to Newark to Christopher Columbus to exchange place and at least weekly a car comes closely to clipping me. Marin is especially bad.

It strikes me that there are three classes of issues:

1) General disregard for traffic regulations. This includes speeding (45-50 mph on Jersey is typical), stop signs, traffic signs, stop before right on red, pedestrians in the cross walk, talking on cell while driving.

I believe enforcement should be significantly increased with fines. My experience has been that the police rarely are in forcing the rules of the road. Even more disturbing is that during "accidents" no penalty to the driver is made. My neighbor and her sun were hit while in a cross walk with a stop sign and sent to the hospital. The driver didn't even get a ticket.

I believe the enforcement should be implemented both with police as well as cameras. I know the cameras are controversial, but I personally don't have much sympathy for drivers complaining as they are trying to "make the light".

2) Part of the reason for accidents is due to difficulty for cars to cross some roads (e.g. cross Jersey Ave from say 5th) is hard as there's too much traffic to due so safely, and on the side roads the stop signs are inconsistent (e.g. on the same road some intersections have stop signs and not others)

I understand that in some cities, that all intersections have 4 ways stops. It slows down traffic and removes the confusion. I think it's worth considering.

I believe traffic lights are required at all intersections for the major roads (Jersey, Newark, Columbus, etc)

3) Every morning and every evening, a huge portion of the traffic on Marin is tunnel traffic from cars jumping off the highway and cutting through JC. This should be stopped. It has no benefit to JC and only increases the costs and risks to JC. I'm not sure how to enforce this, but not allowing right turns on 12th street would be very effective (but would make it difficult for JC residents to use the tunnel). A better option would to disallow through traffic and enforce it through cameras on 12th street and the highway on/off ramps.

I'm sure that there are better solutions, but something must be done. One of the most amazing things about JC is that it's a real city where you can live, work and play without needing a car for everyday use. But it's much too dangerous because of the unlawful and reckless driving.

I'm hoping with the new administration that more can be done.

snowflake20 wrote:


I probably agree with you. Nothing can be done that will stop 100% of reckless driving or crime in general. The proposed measures may not have stopped this particular horrible incident. But it _is_ possible to significantly improve the situation.

We can't let "the perfect is the enemy of the good" -Voltaire

Quote:

Certainly no guarantees.

We have a culture problem and poor enforcement of laws only reinforces this issue. Said differently, the driver was almost certainly a long-time repeat offender and believed he could get away with reckless--after all he probably thought it was fun. If he had been caught multiple times in the past due to greater enforcement, he would most likely have driven more reasonably to avoid getting caught again, or have lost his license, or have been off the streets and in jail.

More broadly, greater enforcement would improve the overall safety of the city and while it might not have avoided this one horrible event, the overall safety of the city would improve.

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@ Brewster ~ full agreement. Now what do we have to do to make this happen?

This is a huge issue and one of my biggest issues with living in JC. Its sooo dangerous for both pedestrians and drivers.

I\'ve been clipped twice as a pedestrian in the past year on Marin and Columbus by drivers ignoring pedestrians in the cross walk.

I live at in intersection with stop signs in all directions. Every day there are dozens of cars blazing through the intersections and we have multiple accidents per year.

Weekly on my walk to work, I see cars running red lights, not slowing down but instead accelerating through the light.

Weekly on my walk to work, I see cars driving around cars in front of them into both oncoming traffic, or the right parking lanes because the car in front is obeying traffic signals (lights, stop sights, yielding to pedestrians). One of the times that I was clipped was because of this.

I\'ve had some correspondences with Fulop on this and he is sympathetic but its a much larger issue and requires many things. In my opinion:

- We should have speed bumps at every stop sign. Stop signs are regularly ignored and cars go _much_ too fast on the side streets. This would at least keep the speeds down.

- We should have cameras on all traffic lights. The cameras should enforce running red lights, right turn on red without stopping, and not yielding to pedestrians in the cross walk. If this can also help with speeding so much the better.

- We should have high police presence for speeding, reckless driving, and yes driving while using a cell phone.

- Through traffic from the highway through downtown JC to the tunnel should not be allowed. Cameras on the exits from the highway and on the right turns into the tunnel could match plates and issue tickets. This alone would dramatically improve the situation along Columbus.

None of these proposals are new and have been discussed in the past. Some on JC list always shoot them down for various reasons such as \"tickets are just a way to increase revenues\", \"it would increase accidents because xxx\", and such.

There\'s always someone arguing it\'s the cost of living in a city. I\'ve lived / worked in center city Philadelphia, Manhattan, Hoboken, downtown Boston, downtown London, and Queens. JC is _much_ worse. I\'ve never been scared to cross the streets until coming to JC a few years ago.

Every reason that I\'ve read is just a rationalization to justify selfish, reckless and dangerous driving that has become habitual to far too many residents in JC. I have no compassion for those arguments.

Personally I agree with HamiltonParker.

When at a store it\'s nice to know that there\'s someone around if I do have a question. Even better if they are knowledgeable. There are times when I have the time and want to have a dialog. But all too often it\'s been a long day and I\'m not interested in chatting with the store owners (or anyone else of that matter). I just want to complete my transaction.

Since the owners are tasting their wines, it shouldn\'t be too hard to write down a few words to share with us for percentage of the bottles.

I do have other issues with this shop:

- The selection is actually rather thin as most of the wine is tucked into a small room.

- There is a very strong bias towards European wines especially French.

While I\'d prefer to support a store right around the corner from my house, I will instead keep going to Jersey Wine for a better selection, some descriptions and overall more inviting.

We stopped in this weekend while walking about. The new store is sooo much better.

The prices are good and the selection is much better than the shops on Newark Ave. There is a nice selection of goods for Indian cooking, but the focus is mainstream. It's much better than the Hamilton Park Coop or C-Town. It's not Garden of Eden in Hoboken, but certainly the best grocery we've seen in town.

I hope they make it. We will definitely be shopping there frequently.

This is the first that I've heard about this election. I don't see anything on Fulop's site and don't recall receiving a ballot.

Does anyone know where I can find out more about it?

I'd love to kick Healy and his like out of town.

Quote:

Classic JC List response.

When people complain about
- inconsiderate noise
- crime
- garbage in the street
- city corruption
- lousy schools
- crazy drivers
tell them to move out.

Maybe we could try to make our city better instead of just telling everyone to get out so that the only ones living in the city are stricken with poverty and crime.

+1 on PostNet. We've been using them for a few year and are very grateful.

Before when we lived in Hoboken the options were better as both FedEx and UPS have trucks by the Path station and they hold your packages there. But when we moved to JC we had no way to receive packages except via USPS where we would head down on Sat to pick up packages (and stand in line for ages but that's a different matter). PostNet solves all of that for us.

BTW, all of the carriers will leave packages on the stoop -- it's not just UPS. It's a problem.

> 250 tickets/71 days = 3.5 tickets/day

That is very disappointing. You can stand on the corner of Columbus and Marin and almost immediately pull over drivers who are failing to yield to pedestrians. Actually unless the pedestrian is completely blocking the car's path, many drivers choose to accelerate. To add to their violations, they are usually on their cell phone, and frequently making left turns after the light has turned red.

This corner is a bit extreme as it desperately needs a left turn signal, but that's no excuse for the consistently dangerous behavior.

With the most modest effort, the city could issue a few dozen tickets per day on almost any corner in JC. It would easily bring in much needed revenues and make the city safer.

I for one would fully support it.

It\'s often stated on this list that we live in a city and that we just need to be street smart, or that it\'s really not a problem, or other specious remarks. Below are some historical records of murders in area

2008 Murders

- Newark: 67 total, 23.7 per 100K
- Jersey City: 25 total , 10.3 per 100K
- NYC: 523 total, 6.3 per 100k
- Hoboken: 1 total, 2.5 per 100k
- Union City 1 total, 1.6 per 100K
- Bayonne: 0 total, 0 per 100k

http://www.city-data.com/city/Jersey-City-New-Jersey.html

Clearly, JC could do a lot better.

Let's not forget this is the *exact* same spot that we had a shooting on 5/29/09.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2009/05/t.html

IMHO, the core issue is that we have significant gang activity in the tougher parts of JC and this bleeds into downtown. JC needs a multi-year sustained effort engaging JC Policy, NJ Policy and FBI to deal with this. This won't happen until we get a mayor who is more interested in improving JC than in helping out his political cronies.

I fully support a historic district and understand and agree that developing a historic district may mean that changes to property will take a bit more time and money.

My issue with Dan is very simple:
- Provides no indication of what would be acceptable so that we can budget time/funds before

- He holds up permits for inordinate amounts of time

- Provides no guidance on how to proceed where there are issues

- Change the rules mid-course

- Doesn't return calls, emails, nothing


For a specific example, we wanted to install central air which required a unit on the roof which would not visible from the street. It would only be visible from a neighbor's roof. This should be a perfunctory historic approval as it has no historic implications. After six months, countless un-returned calls and emails, multiple escalations we finally received approval with no changes, comments, nothing. Wrieden just sat on it because he could.


I have more examples, but any more details and Wrieden may be able to figure out who I am and he may make future projects even harder.

Recently, a car drove by our house and threw a bottle out the window. To my surprise (or perhaps not), the car was a city vehicle!

I wish I was faster with my camera phone!

That would be excellent! Maybe it would help with the problems at Guillo's on Coles. That bar brings in street fights, gangs, and who knows what. The neighborhood has had enough and would appreciate anything that would help control this.