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24th
Oct 2024
Oct 2024
Officials Want Your Help in Identifying Problem Traffic Areas
By Eric San Juan
Ocean County and state officials want to identify problem areas on New Jersey’s roadways, and they’re asking for public input to help them out.
The result will be a Local Safety Action Plan, which aims to focus on areas that could use safety-related improvements and restructuring. As part of the effort, officials are asking residents to take part in an online survey to help spotlight areas that are in need of attention.
Links to the survey can be found at www.co.ocean.nj.us, or can be directly accessed at Ocean.SafetyPlansNJ.com.
According to the Project description, “Public involvement is critical to helping identify concerns and potential solutions for addressing them.”
Using an interactive map, residents can submit comments and ideas for specific intersections, roadways, and other areas.
Organizers urge people to “think about safety issues that you have experienced while traveling in the highlighted counties in New Jersey and share your experiences and ideas,” and then to add them to the interactive map. “You can also view the feedback others have left.”
An in-person workshop is also planned for October 12 in Waretown, at the Pine Barrens Jamboree.
The effort is being funded by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. Also participating in the effort are Bergen, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, and Warren counties.
To learn more about these plans, visit safetyplansnj.com.
Ocean County Commissioner John P. Kelly said the project is especially important in Ocean County, where roadways have grown more and more congested over the years.
“Ocean County's population continues to grow exponentially putting more motorists and pedestrians on our roads. Our population also more than doubles during the summer tourism season adding tremendously to the number of vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists using the roads,” Kelly said in a written statement. “This Local Safety Action Plan will provide us with yet another tool to help us make certain our roads are constructed and maintained as the safest transportation network possible.”
Not counting local and state roads, which make up the majority of roadways in the area, Ocean County manages 1,600 miles of roadways and almost 260 culverts and bridges.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fatalities on U.S. roadways fell in the first half of this year by 3.2 percent – but not in New Jersey, where traffic fatalities were up a whopping 22.9 percent from January to June 2024, when compared to the same span in 2023. There were 266 road deaths during that period last year, and 327 this year.
In fact, the Northeastern United States in general did not keep pace with national trends in this regard, with a 4 percent overall increase in road deaths.
The data is available at crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov in the Traffic Safety Facts report issued in September.
Ocean County officials hope to reverse that trend locally, with the help data from this survey will provide.
"We encourage Ocean County residents to visit Ocean.SafetyPlansNJ.com to participate in the survey and web mapping activity," Director of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners Barbara Jo Crea said in a written statement.