Danger at the Corner

The City Council minority voted down a traffic light at this hazardous corner.

This is a scene that is waiting to happen at a Hoboken corner without a traffic light, in an area seeing more pedestrian traffic than ever due to new residential and commercial development.

It's at 16th and Park. 

It's in Beth Mason's ward.

4 City Council members voted AGAINST bonding for a traffic light at this corner last Wednesday night.  They were Mason, Occhipinti, Russo, and Terry (Castellano).  GA calls them 'MORT'- which also means 'killing'.  As in killing the bond ordinance for the traffic light- which required 6 votes to pass, which killed a needed pedestrian safety improvement in a developing part of town,  potentially causing the killing of a human being by a car.

That's a lot of killing for 4 Council people.  But we aren't finished.

There's the less tangible kind of killing.

The killing of our childrens' hopes for a park to play in NOW- with a new soccer field, grass, space to run and play.

Because the park won't open without this light.  And MORT knows it.  

How does Beth Mason explain this to her 2nd Ward constituents?  

No,  efforts to kill the hospital sale weren't enough for these 4, they killed the 1600 Park opening for the kids of Hoboken because they don't want ANYTHING GOOD to happen under the Zimmer Administration.  Just like they don't give a damn if the City goes into default, loses it's credit rating, bleeds jobs;  NOW they stand in the way of 1600 Park opening.

Because they don't give a damn about where are kids play, or if there's a traffic light where one needs to be.

Ask Mike Russo to cough up the $300K his family owes Hoboken and the $100+ K we all spent for his father's health insurance-- that would more than pay for the light. How about it?

Unbelievable.

This has gotten little attention because of the drama surrounding the hospital sale.

But Patch  covered it today:

A failed vote on a bond ordinance to purchase and install a traffic light at 1600 Park could delay the opening of the uptown park, which was initiallly scheduled to be opened this month.

The opening of the park was delayed recently, after the mayor said that the park couldn't open without the installation of a traffic light to improve pedestrian safety in the area.

The city proposed a bond for $350,000 to purchase and install the traffic light. Director of Parking and Transportation Ian Sacs said that the city and the county had negotiated the traffic light already. The bond was a way to pay for it.

"This was our plan," Sacs said, adding that it was "carefully negotiated with the county."

So one traffic light in a neighborhood that needs one, and a park in city that needs one, are waiting for the petulance of 4 elected officials to subside.

Let's hope  it does before someone gets hurt at 16th and Park.