I’m not sure which color is the new black but Lakewood sure seems to be the new Brooklyn. At least as far as driving goes. It’s not really a new phenomenon, it’s just that it keeps getting worse and worse, adding a depth of newness to it every day. Route 9, south of the lake is simply a parking lot at many points in the day. Aside from the strain, accidents are up and emergency vehicles are impeded. Where does it come from and what can we do about it?
It is obvious that the wild growth in this city has contributed to clogged roads and the growth is only going to continue. It is also clear that the roads were not built to handle such a traffic load. But it is not like no one has taken notice. The NJTPA held a meeting in August and Lakewood’s rank and file attended and spoke. To be sure, widening route 9 is the big idea, but the cost is astronomical and no one is betting on the state putting up the money to make it happen. For now, other ideas seem to be in the works. It looks like some roads are being built which would help toward alleviating the problem by siphoning off some of the traffic to side streets. Yet, although it may be helpful to some degree, it certainly is not a long term solution. Also, as long as the construction continues, which is sure to happen, any benefit accrued by side roads will be negated in a few years or less.
Back to widening the streets…which may happen one day. There are some good people who have been working toward this goal, and probably continue to do so, but it does not seem likely that we will see any major road construction in the near future.
Realistically there are not many options that would work. I’m jotting down a couple of ideas that come to mind. It goes without saying that nothing is as effective as widening the roads, but perhaps there are some plan B’s to consider. Would any of them actually work?
· Widen to one lane. Use middle road for North or South bound traffic, depending on traffic pattern and/or time of day.
· Remove all lights south of the lake until Chestnut/Cross Streets which will ease traffic considerably. Build overpasses and jug handles for intersecting streets.
· Build multiple side roads to siphon off traffic.
· City transit busing up and down the 9, $1 a ride.
· Bike Lane
· Create incentives for carpooling
Any other cost effective ideas? Hit the comments!
If you look in many places there is a big shoulder or a wide lane. If you remove all shoulders and make the 9 into a narrow two lane road with a spead limit of 35 things will always be moving….
Another idea would to make central and 9 into a traffic circle like how they have in Isreal thus keeping the flow of traffic
Encourage telecommuting so workers can work from home. Encourage methods of accomplishing what people want without having to use cars. Shopping online is one example.
The only light between the lake and Chestnut is James/Pine light, and while it may alleviate traffic somewhat on Route 9 it will cause a disaster on Pine and James which are already terrible at certain times. And if they have the space and funds(which apparently they don’t) for overpasses and jughandles they might as well widen the road.
Lakewood is the new Brooklyn in other ways as well, not just as it regards to driving. But I digress.
stop building multiple new houses!!!!!!
Well said. However your heading is missleading. Simple Lakewood is very different than Brooklyn. In Brooklyn you have a lot of foot traffic. In other words in Brooklyn a lot of errands are done by walking, to locations in walking distance, and public transportation. In Lakewood almost everyone has at least one car due to need not luxury.
I got an idea stop building
Lakewood is a Town…not a City.
sure welcome to brooklyn NJ
from the beeping to the crazy driving etc…. straight from brooklyn crowd. as a person born & raised in lakewood & watching it grow since it was tiny just yidden near BMG.
“Lakewood is the new brooklyn” near BMG is boro park, Chestnut neighborhood is the flatbush crowd & go a little further to the belz community in Lakewood & that is crown heights. Soon there will be a williamsburg neighborhood in Lakewood. it will be Satmar on Cross street. ENJOY THE GROWING TRAFFIC.
Anything relating to changes or improvements of Rt 9 will need to be approved by the State. They’re not appearing too eager or willing to address this problem. That having been said, eliminating lights south of the lake until Cross? Do you realize how much traffic comes down Pine St/ James Street? Not to mention that James is often a very helpful route to avoid congestion on Central Ave. Removing the lights would relieve one roadway only to severely clog up others.
They should make a second lane on the 9 from james to the lake and a second lane going in the opposite direction from james to prospect since thats were the traffic builds up and there’s enough space for one more lane without having to widen the road if they use both shoulders.
Traffic Circles! A great idea! Seems cheaper than jug handles and overpasses to me. I hope some NJTPA guys are listening.
The scoop rocks!
Traffic circles are being eliminated due to safety concerns.
There’s the whole world, then Lakewood. Lakewood is unlike any town or city most people have ever experienced. Lakewood is in its own Galaxy. No we’re not like Brooklyn, Skever, Monroe, or Baltimore, etc. The growth is incredible and although we experience many hiccups throughout the day it’s still a great place to be even if your stuck in traffic.
Open side roads, Arlington, vine. Also stop approving culdesacs all the do is dump more traffic into route 9. Make every development be a through street to somewhere, not like Lakewood commons.
Build a bridge across the lake.
Would connect Lakewood parallel to route nine.
The reason Lakewood will not do it because the state is not going to pay for it.
This is the only way. It sounds nuts but great idea.
So the state doesn’t help us with the board of ed,
The state doesn’t help us with widening of Route 9,
So where are elected officials on helping us out?
It will get worse, possibly much worse before it gets better.
fix mlk and pine it’s a disaster
Traffic circles in Lakewood?!?!? You guys are crazy! Have you seen the four way stops in town? People have no idea what to do! There’s always the one driver who sits there for a half hour pondering when it’s her (usually a her) turn. People wait by every intersection for an extra twenty minutes because there’s a car coming on the intersecting road about a half mile away. People in this town need to learn how to drive properly. Too cautious is also dangerous never mind highly annoying and contributing to the already slow traffic. Traffic circles would be a whole new thing for people to learn, there’s just no way it’ll work.
Some decent ideas…the problem is that nothing is ever DONE about the problem. Instead NEW developments and buildings and stores keep on being built on route 9, as well as on roads that feed into rt 9. To a certain degree I feel like you get what you pay for. If no one cares to AT LEAST STOP MAKING IT WORSE then everyone deserves to sit in traffic.
Who will direct traffic for the change from north bound to southbound where do you want to put multiple side roads without ripping down houses city buses or bikes are not to convient to do shopping or run errands and by taking down lights it will make it impossible to cross route 9 leading to accidents and cutting LAKEWOoD in half south of the lake I think we should all get gyrocopters and that would alleviate alot of the traffic and I don’t believe you need a pilots licence to operate 1 and you can build 1 yourself for under $5000
Connect Vermont all the way to Spruce from rt 70. Also connect Vine to Cedarbridge. Widen 88 too. Make it so that new construction along rt 9 has to be set back from the road in case it ever gets widened.
To those who argue stop building, you are starving residents of affordable housing. We already have an affordable housing crisis in this town. Since the last development, Stamford Meadows was built there is not a single new development of townhouses going up in this town unless its a development for a group of chasidim. Nothing at all against chasdim but is just seems like developers have no interest in building townhouse developments for anyone else. (its much eaiser to sell when groups move in together. Thats why they only build chasidish developments as they move in as a group.) But the litfish are starving. The only houses for sale are duplex’s which cost upwards of 600k. If we stop building rent and housing will go up and everything will become unaffordable.
Yes, homes must be built, but that does not mean that it needs to be done on Route 9. Cederbridge is one example…Lakewood is a big place so there are places to build that wont wreak havoc on the world like building on top of route 9. West Gate was built in a location that does not stuff up roads like smaller developments on route 9.