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 Honorable Mayor Coles,
Thanks so much for giving the option to reach you through this open forum.
I live on a fairly new block in town called London Avenue. It is located behind the quickchek by New Hampshire and Cedarbridge avenue. There is another block called London Blvd which is a couple of minute car drive off of Chestnut Street. Nobody lives on that block as it is a driveway/entrance to the Stamford Meadows development. Many people living on my block had trouble with receiving packages and visitors because of the confusion. However, more importantly, there is a confusion when people call for emergency services be it PD/FD or hatzala. This is very dangerous as almost always the first responders have traveled to that London before realizing their mistake and then calling the party back to ask for correct directions.
Just tonight I had to call LFD for a false alarm thank God. However, although I explicitly explained that it is the London Avenue by cedarbridge and new Hampshire they still made the mistake and went to the London Blvd off of Chestnut Street. Until when do we have to wait for this to change? A death, a fire or robbery will be waiting a bit too long. Let’s correct this issue ASAP please.
This is very dangerous and GD forbid we don’t want any fatalities due to this. Is there any way to change the London by Chestnut as no one lives there anyhow and thus not have this confusion anymore.
Another suggestion would be to have the maps of the first responders updated weekly rather than not as often to keep it updated in this forever growing town. Please advise how my neighbors and I should proceed with the name changing process
Thank you for your time and guidance on this very important matter,
I remain,
Shimon
Response from Mayor Coles:
Hi Shimmy,
This is an involved process which involves getting the post office on board as well as he property owners involved. I agree with you that this is a potential safety issue. I will ask the committee tonight to begin the process. If there are no homes along the street it will be much easier.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Ray
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Have a question for the Mayor? Send it to [email protected]
Thanks for bringing this up. The street name redundancy has been brought up here on TLS in the past but apparently has not been addressed…
It is a matter of life and death.
The best way to fix this problem is to correct it before it even happens.
I tried preempting the issue with Evergreen Ave, to no avail. There is a developed Evergreen Blvd off of Chestnut St, and there is a proposed Evergreen Blvd just a 1/4 mile away near Locust x Vermont.
I spoke to township officials to no avail.
The street leading to Stamford Meadows has already been changed to Stamford Hill Rd.
Drive by and you’ll see the sign.
Perhaps 911 needs to update their database.
This has been brought up numerous times and is still an issue in many places throughout Lakewood. Why can’t the builder/township check BEFORE the new street is built to see if there are any conflicts rather than waiting until after the fact when it becomes a larger issue ? I assume there must be some process before a Street name is assigned (but maybe not in this town)
As a neighbor who passes through daily,I feel obligated to try and help. I think changing the name of this London Ave to a brand new name would take care of the problem a lot faster and more sufficiently. It’s not funny to have the FD or hatzalah come even 30 seconds late. This should be a priority of every person on that block!
What’s worse is the doubled addresses on 7th st and others since they changed it east of Princeton from east 7th to plain 7th street now east 7th starts at park so now there are the same numbered houses on both sides of princeton
This street naming business should be caught in the permitting process when the plans go to the planning or zoning boards to make sure there are not similar sounding names to confuse the FD, PD, EMS. Shafto sounds like Chateau, and there are many duplicate sounding streets.
Being the writer of the letter I woul like like to address comment #3/pickle. The day after I sent this email, I drove by and saw that it was changed already. However, as you wrote and I tried to stress in the email, the more pressing issue is to have the emergency services update their map databases more frequently. This is of utmost importance to the citizens in our town- To be able to call in time of stress without having to describe in length where they are located.
Regarding the builder not checking the name, I heard that the township checked the address database before issuing the LONDON Avenue name. Being that no one resides there, no address came up and thus they were allowed to name London again in error.
Once we’re on the topic, the idea of builders naming streets after family members and friends with Jewish sounding names is ridiculous and extremely selfish. Our development had to go through a lengthy process of changing a block called Yechiel Way to Hunter drive. Yechiel is a very Jewish sounding name and very difficult for others to pronounce correctly. It is foolish, dangerous and ridiculously wierd. Please halt all these names and change them to more normal sounding ones.
This is the same blame-after- the-fact game. The street naming process needs to change so that this doesn’t happen to begin with. That’s something builders, the planning board, or whomever (I’m not even sure, just suggesting) may have the ability to verify and approve street naming.
Btw, this also happens with every new street that opens in Lakewood, and there many, constantly. From mail and package delivery to requesting emergency services. Updates, additions, and name changes all take time. Lakewood’s emergency services do a good job keeping up with the rapid changes but it’s still a process. Instead of going after the township and emergency services this would be better addressed at a planning board meeting, at least to start with.
As for the call in question, the FD never went to London Blvd – Chestnut. They went to the “Quick Ckek” development to look for London Ave. As it’s a new area in town, and rather dark at night, they initially past the block but simply turned around to find you. That can happen in any new neighborhood regardless of street names.
Jack B- My neighbor, a volunteer for LFD advised me to call LFD for the call in question. As we were waiting for the truck to arrive we watched on his map of the responding truck. Being that he is part of the Fire Department, he had access to the location of the truck. We both saw the truck initially going to the London Blvd off Chestnut. So your Assumption of the story is 100% wrong. Please verify your information before posting in the future.
Shimon
In many other towns proposed street names need to be approved by the police department before site plans are signed off on by the planning or zoning boards. It may be a good idea to implement such a policy in Lakewood.
Maybe we should stop building until the street naming is fixed
How about cedar drive, cedar row, cedar Street, cedar court and cedarbridge? Or forest Ave, forest drive, and forest park circle. Or pine Street, pine circle, pine park, and pine blvd. Yes every one of these are real streets in Lakewood. And many more.
Shimon,
I stand corrected. I am a volunteer LFD member myself and I mistook your call for another similar one. This is not the first time the LFD has responded to your neighborhood and street and this mistake didn’t happen at other times. Consider the amount of new streets opening, let alone similar-sounding ones, all of which take time to be updated in any database. The LFD is doing a fine job.
My point remains. There isn’t much emergency services can do. Implementing and maintaining an internal mapping database is costly. There isn’t much room in the budget to consider this. Typically, emergency services will rely on other currently existing maps. A fast-growing town, such as Lakewood, means constant updates and an almost never up-to-date database. We can apply for name changes after the fact and push for more frequent updates but there are too many moving parts and all this takes time. Unfortunately, that results in the occasional mistake. Not a good situation at all.
The simplest and easiest solution is for street names to be approved and verified at the initial stage before they present a problem.
To Joe,
Every Site Plan application that goes before the Planning Board actually does get sent to the 911 dispatcher and to the Fire District office before it even goes to the Planning Board.
Members of the public can attend the public meetings of the fire district and ask the commissioners their questions on this topic – before developments get approved.
Moshe,
While the plasma may be submitted to the police and fire departments the town does not require a written approval of the names by the departments as other towns do.
Firstly, the Fire District office does give written approval to every Site Plan application. The career captain submits his approval and the district staff submit the papers.
Secondly, even though the township doesn’t currently require written approval from the police and fire departments, once those 2 departments receive their copy of the site plans, they have the ability to respond with their concerns. If they would respond with their concerns, there is the potential that the Zoning Officer would recommend that the Township Committee make the change.
I personally have followed – for almost 2 years now – the planning and zoning boards, and the fire districts (and Public Works’) written approvals for 99% of the submitted site plans, so I know how much the career captain approves without making any constructive comments.
Again, these boards hold public sessions and members of the public may attend and pose these critical questions to the respective boards and see what happens in response.
Diverting a little bit from this topic, why don’t developers name all the streets in their new development after Fallen police Fire EMS members of the Lakewood community. That will show tremendous amount of hakoras hatov.
I don’t have an issue with the naming process is rather have a grid like in brooklyn, also can we lower the speed limit in town?
Honoring fallen police and emergency officers with street names is an excellent idea!
I do hope there aren’t many (and that we have not many more new streets coming up…).
We should all take a lesson from the village of new Square in Upstate New York. In the early 1950s when they were building up their Village and they were naming their streets they wanted to name it after cities in Russia and Ukraine. The post office told them that they cannot accept such names because it is difficult for them to read or pronounce it. After Consulting with the previous Rebbe, he said name all of our streets after presidents of the United States to show appreciation for a wonderful Medina shell chesed…. there is no reason why developments in Lakewood can’t do the same. I know there’s allready streets named after presidents in presidential Estates. But we have plenty of other ppl that we could name after.