I was horrified to read yesterday in a response from the Mayor that a traffic light is being added for the new school next to Misameach on Cedarbridge.
What used to be the only reliable road in town has been turned into a parking lot. Albeit with plenty of highlighted safety pedestrian crossing zones.
You need to look no further than Cedarbridge to realize things are sometimes messed up around here.
Our biggest complaint is traffic (busses?) and seems the decisions being made daily just keep making things worse with no way to turn it back. There used to be traffic lights on Hurley, MLK & Clover. Then a few months ago one was added by Vine.
There’s about 1,200 feet from Vine to Clover. So what should we do? Let’s add another light in the middle between Vine & Clover for this school that just popped up out of nowhere.
Is the goal for Cedarbridge to be backed up from the Garden State Parkway till the Public School on 6th & Clifton?? Sadly, We are almost there!
How many thousands of people travel on this road everyday or even a few times a day? Why can’t we all rise up and voice our opinions and stop the destruction of not just our streets but quality of life!
It’s time to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Does anyone have ideas on how we can stop this change and others (example laurelwood / county line) from taking place once announced?!
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How about working on synchronizing the lights that already exist but are causing traffic backups???
Root of the traffic starts at Main. The section between Main & Hurley fills up so fast that it causes the entire Cedarbridge backup to begin.
Also, the arrow from Cedarbridge on to Hurley isn’t close to long enough so that also is one of the root causes of the backup. Add 15 seconds and prob double the amount of cars would be able to go, so if that’s synced with the 9 imagine what a relief it can cause for Cedarbridge.
Now if you want to fix the traffic toward New Hampshire that’s much simpler. All that’s needed is synced lights but for some reason that can’t be figured out…
Though I don’t have a solution, I can attest to the Cedarbridge disaster.
I live in the central / James area. One day my son missed his bus and it took me 56 minutes to get to his school and back. Anyone reading this comment that doesn’t travel the streets here prob thinks I’m exaggerating while those that do are thinking “an hour to get to school and back, that’s not bad for around here.”
With all these “improvements” things have just gotten worse & worse. Looks like we’re not done yet…
Fun fact: During rush hour, congestion occurs on highways with no traffic lights.
Curious, in which area of town do you live?
One doesn’t need to be a traffic engineer to realize that alot of the Cedarbridge traffic is caused by poor decisions and not simply too many cars.
As is the traffic coming down central. how bout officially make it 2 lanes? and it gets worse by night with the arrow lasting enough time for MAX 4 cars to go. We’re not a town of 175 families anymore… an arrow of 30 or 45 seconds would help a ton!!!!
I have a really great idea! Let’s extend Bein Hazmanim, that way, half of Lakewood will be up in the country, and then most of the traffic problems will be solved!
Or let’s have Bein Hazmanim for 3 months in the winter, and half or three quarters of Lakewood can go to Florida, I don’t think anyone will complain about traffic during that time!
I live on cedar bridge and it’s a joke. Whoever thought to put in the concrete divider is about as smart as the cement used to make it. The traffic is crazy going both east and west. But what is even crazier is when a fire truck is stuck in traffic with sirens blaring and can’t move an inch. I have actuall seen in come down the wrong side of the road just to get thru. People are still making illegal left turns in and out of southside and ohh let’s not dorget the illegal u-turns for no reason.
Another thing they need to get rid of the left turn only lane (maybe one car uses it a day) that turns into the carpet/flooring place. People need to be able to make that right onto MLK otherwise the traffic builds up all the way over 88 down Clifton
Yes… I wrote a letter to the mayor regarding that left turn lane into the carpet store but never saw a response. They can use the right lane as a right turn only and have those other 2 lanes fixed.
Everyone needs to address their concerns to the right people – As the mayor keeps on reminding everyone, Cedarbridge and all of its traffic lights are County roads. Their engineers, not Lakewood’s, make these decisions and plans and only the county can make changes to the traffic signals as well.
the point of that light was not to alleviate traffic rather it was for safety reasons. there have been many crash’s at that intersection and throughout cedarbridge over the years and the county poured a lot of money into the street to improve the safety not the congestion.
It won’t be solved. This area was never designed to withstand the population explosion. Two lane back roads have become mini highways. As the population spreads into Jackson the roads will get more congested and it will never be resolved.
I’m not sure if you realize that the Lakewood Vaad has installed (with their endorsements) all the political appointments in Lakewood over that 20 years. If you have a problem with the local infrastructure, why don’t you contact the Vaad & seek their help? They have the resources to get things done more than anyone else around here.
Cedarbridge Road was a beautiful country road as recently as 25years ago. It was never meant to have all the traffic it sees daily. Too late to fix it. Too many people moved into Lakewood. It is Lakewood’s fault for not controlling it’s crazy growth. It affects every town surrounding it. I won’t even go near Lakewood or Jackson anymore.
Agree!
BMG should create a southern campus. Work out the logistics re rosh yeshivas and half the traffic would head in the other direction. Students living south of tracks go south etc..
What does this have to do with BMG?!
Half of the town goes to BMG.
Did you notice traffic is worse when sefer starts and ends? It’s not a coincidence!
Which half of the town goes to BMG from New Hampshire toward Hurley ?! And they definitely don’t go to BMG from hurley toward NH
they should also build a parking garage…
Great idea!!
3 BMG campuses wouldn’t be too much…
With one closer to westgate/jackson
The traffic going to and from BMG is only part of the problem. The other part is that a large percentage of the population go to and from work.
BMG has tried to make a southern campus but from what I’ve heard, it hasn’t done very well.
Shorten the green light for vine street and it should blink at night, move over the baseball field on mlk and cedarbridge a few feet and reinstall a right turning lane/ shoulder from cedarbridge to mlk, i agree with turning the shoulder on central into a second lane, add another lane on the 9 south (and dont tell me its a state road, the mayor and co. should be a little hooked up and figure out who to convince), do not add more lights to cedarbridge!!
dualize Clifton Avenue. it’s been suggested many times but the “elites” don’t want to lose their parking spots.
If you ever drove in a down town in any town traffic goes slow it’s by design.
down towns that are on speedways don’t last for very long.
dualize Clifton Avenue. it’s been suggested many times but the “elites” don’t want to lose their parking spots. this is screwed up!
a robust public trasportation grid with priority to local malls would greatly reduce the strain on the roadways.
Where is the Planning board? How did they approve all this?? why isnt the committe giving marching ordfers to the zoning and planning abord to put a stop to all the out of control development and schools wherever they want to be placed? Now the committee wants to allow dorms in any schoool? What about the BOE that is in debts to the state for over 100 million , how are we paying for that?? Who is running this town? How do we keep voting for same old and expect different results???!!
i work right there by cedar bridge, i barely ever see anyone crossing there, many hundreds more cross on rt 9, not sure why we needed this wide pedestrian safety zone, which only makes the roadway smaller, another scam-or simply poor planning
I don’t think it’s for people to cross, the concrete thing was made to stop idiots from making left turns onto Northbound Cedarbridge from the side streets.
Then once it was there they made it have an overabundance of crosswalks for some reason.
A left turning lane on to Clover is so overdue. Loads of cars are forced to either wait through many lights or merge left to make it through the light. There is sufficient room for another lane. I wish this would happen.
the chachomim engineers dont really understand traffic patterns unique to our area! And their favorite day to assess is on Shabbat or Holidays, because they’ve been asked to come on days that won’t interfere with our busy hectic schedules! Also they are making these crazy middle lanes with the circular arrows which are rarely used (except for by the selfish people ripping through), thus shifting the regular lanes all the way to the side of the road. In order to do this they have to eliminate the shoulder , which makes it unsafe for bikers and pedestrians! ALso , by shifting the lanes all the way to the edge of the road it makes turning onto the road from another street much more dangerous! I wish they were “street” smart too!
u r totally right. It seems that most newly installed traffic lights are so dysfunctional until someone speaks up! If no one would take the time to speak up, u can have a brand new 1 million dollar traffic signal that is doing more harm than good, and it’ll go on like that forever until someone speaks up! Shoutout to all of u who make the call/submit a letter, thank u Mr Coles for always reaching out to the engineers on our behalf. It really should be standard practice that the engineers return after a week or so to ensure they have the timing of the intervals up to par ,instead of us needing to summon them!
The shifting of lanes to MLK that now has eliminated the right turn ability is the first contributer to this disaster. The cars turning on to Cederbridge from Vine with the light is the second disaster. There should be no light with only a right tirn ability onto Vine. Cederbridge has now become a second Rt 9 parking lot. What a total disaster. Put the town at a complete standstill.