Lakewood Mayor Ray Coles responds to your ‘Ask The Mayor’ questions: Oak Street

The following is an ‘Ask The Mayor’ question submitted to TLS, and the Mayor’s response. Email your questions for the Mayor to [email protected].

Question:

Dear Mayor Coles,

I live on Oak Street, and wanted to bring to your attention the urgent need for side walks on Oak Street. Since the new installation of the traffic light, there are turning lanes and the shoulders have been removed. Currently, there is no way for me or my children to walk out of my driveway, since cars are zooming by. My children can’t walk to the bus stop without being in the street, and I can’t walk down the block to a neighbor or on Shabbos because we are literally in the path of oncoming traffic. Please can you consider installing sidewalks this summer? If I want to walk down the block with a stroller, it is truly dangerous to leave my house and I am afraid for my children who want to visit their friends in this beautiful weather. We appreciated that you put sidewalks on Albert Avenue, and are requesting the same for Oak Street.

Separately, we are wondering what the reasoning was behind the turning lane on Oak going south on Albert Avenue, towards a dead end called Salem Avenue. It is really surprising, as that is not a congested area, and there is no need for a turning lane in that direction. Perhaps it was a mistake, and there was supposed to be one lane going straight on Oak, with the turning lane going north on Albert. Please take a look at this, because the neighborhood residents are scratching their heads trying to figure out the rationale behind the turning lanes.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. I am a follower of your column on the Lakewood Scoop, and appreciate the forum where simple residents of this wonderful town can interact with our township officials.

All the best, wishing you a wonderful summer,

Response from Mayor Coles:

Good morning

I was made aware of several issues in the area after the lights were installed and we are in the process of addressing them. Some of the turning lanes will be removed and the shoulders will be reinstalled. Additionally we are going to use some of our CDBG funds and install sidewalks in the area.

Thanks

Ray

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you Mayor! I was always nervous for my children to walk to school (as they don’t get bus) and need to walk down Oak street. But since they painted the new lines it got real dangerous. Even I was scared to walk down Oak. I hope this gets fixed really quickly.

  2. @new reality. Exactly! This is another project which a lot of factors were not very well thought out or calculated. It’s just another mistake which needs to be amended and will wind up costing us tax payers more than it should have.

  3. Mr. Mayor the question was to change the turning lanes not to remove them…I noticed the turning lanes by Pine Street have really helped! Why didn’t we try that before the lights were installed? I’m convinced that lights will make things deteriorate over there…time will tell. maybe keep em off

  4. What about putting a crosswalk to cross Washington (at pine St) New turning lane was put in, but oops- the crosswalk was left out.

    Also an area where many pedestrians are found.

  5. My daughter is also a walker on Oak street as she does not get bussing. I have for years been asking for crossing guards on Oak street, with 6 schools and a lot of vehicular traffic. Instead there is a crossing guard on Oak and 9 who does nothing! We need sidewalks and crossing guard by Oak and Albert neighborhood.

  6. What about boycotting buying in developments the traffic is insane and only getting worse… With all the new developments on prospect driving there is insane… even with the light at Williams you can get stuck there for three lights of u need to turn if our elected officials don’t care then we should just boycott it …. no more buying …. it’s doesn’t make any sense to me … the builders can out up three houses instead of 50 …

  7. At least if your putting up so many homes make as many exits as possible to dilute the traffic … think what’s best for the ordinary citizen not the builders or those that have money and can pay their way for their needs ….

  8. Thank you Mayor for the initiative and all of your pro-active work. We all recognize your caring work.

    Please allow me to expand and create awareness in the aforementioned neighborhood.

    An issue in the Albert area is that we do not get bussing if we use one of the many schools located in our neighborhood and are therefore required to walk to school.

    Although the north section of Albert received sidewalks – the south side – which includes Albert, Oak, Marlin, Coral and Salem Streets, have been forgotten.

    Another important project left out on the list of to-do projects was re-paving of Oak street – which has been complained about in hundreds of comments from locals and of Lakewood users.
    On that list it mentioned development in the area.
    None of us received any notification of any proposed projects active on Oak St. (between Albert and New Hampshire).

    Please take note of another potential issue regarding Salem St.
    On the other side of the woods a portion of Vine street was renamed Salem Street (are there public hearing for these things?)
    The potential for a future connection of the Salem streets is very slim – as those woods has a stream and wetlands running right through it.
    We are therefore left with a potentially dangerous situation in case of emergency responders getting confused.

    A general idea that can be implemented is to reach out to each neighborhood when a local project is proposed – even-though professionals were hired to do studies but no-one knows a neighborhood better then its inhabitants.

  9. i heard from twsp officials this was a county project, and the lakewood township had no in put at all, but now they have to clean up the mess

  10. Typical of how the development occurs in this town-lack of planning. The problems mentioned in this letter seem pretty obvious & should have been foreseen had there been any real experts doing real planning. What a joke!

Comments are closed.