The intersection of River Street and Bridge Avenue is one of three leading to the Red Bank Primary School that will become four-way stops. (Click to enlarge)
Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna loves four-ways.
For a decade, he championed the installation of four stop signs at the accident-plagued intersection of Bridge Avenue and Chestnut Street, and finally got them installed in early 2009.
Half-joking, he says he’s fond of the stops “because they get people to wave to each other: ‘apres vous!‘ And they don’t use their middle fingers.”
More seriously, he says that since the signs went up at at Bridge and Chestnut, still the borough’s only four-way, accidents there “have been all but eliminated.”
He proposed additional four-way stops in 2009, but the idea went nowhere.
Now, he’s back on the topic. Citing concerns raised anew last week at a meeting of the West Side Community Group, Menna is calling for the creation of four-ways at three intersections along River Street: at Bridge Avenue, at Leighton Avenue, and at Tilton Avenue, just up the hill from the River Street terminus, at the Red Bank Primary School.
“So every block, as kids go to school, will have four-ways stops,” he said at Monday night’s borough council meeting. The lone, and notable, exception is the intersection of River and busy Shrewsbury Avenue, over which Monmouth County has jurisdiction.
The police department has “no issues” with the plan, Menna says.
“It’s a small step, but I think parents will appreciate it,” he says. Motorists, though, “may find it hard to accept at first.”
The change will be announced with prominent signage weeks before they take effect to alert motorists who regularly travel Bridge, Leighton and Tilton that they will have to learn to brake at River.
