A heat map of Red Bank showing intersections with the most vehicle crashes. (Red Bank Master Plan. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Red Bankers: What do you think is the most hair-raising intersection in our town?
Adopted last year as a blueprint for the town’s future, the borough’s 2023 Master Plan is also a gold mine of factoids about life in our town.
Among them: a list of the 10 intersections with the most traffIc crashes, according to New Jersey Department of Transportation Data accident data for the period of 2018-2020.
Here are the top five (with a tie for fifth place) in ascending order of sketchiness:
(Photos by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
5. Maple Avenue and East Bergen Place/Drs. James Parker Boulevard
Number of crashes: 17
Number of injuries: 1
Drivers jumping the light to make a left turn from Drs. James Parker onto Maple. Others waiting their turn and getting stuck mid-intersection when it turns red again. Cars heading eastbound onto Bergen scooting around left-turners in the right lane along the curb. And railroad crossing a few yards from the intersection complicating everything.
This intersection is a cornucopia of potential dangers that should remind us to just go slow, relax and wait your turn.
Broad Street and Reckless Place/Harding Road
Number of crashes: 17
Number of injuries: 5
Tied for fifth place with Maple/East Bergen for the number of accidents, but with five times as many injuries. This reporter notes anecdotally this location also seems to be have the highest number of cars driven by attention-seeking manchildren who delight in having loud mufflers.
4. Monmouth Street and Maple Avenue
Number of crashes: 25
Number of injuries: 4
A half mile trip down Maple Avenue (also State Highway 35) takes a driver through three of the five most treacherous intersections in town. Pedestrians heading to the Count Basie Center for the Arts create Frogger-like conditions at this one. Accidents included drivers striking cyclists (two) and a pedestrian.
3. Riverside Avenue, North Bridge Avenue and Rector Place
Number of accidents: 28
Number of injuries: 2
With two dead gas stations, a vacant office building, and 1,000 cars an hour passing through at peak hours, this four-corner junction is “an unsightly entryway into Red Bank that does a poor job of introducing visitors to the Borough,” according to the Master Plan. Truth.
It’s also the first of three entries on this list along the Front Street corridor where the master plan says, “The particular geometry of these intersections may be a factor.”
Never mind geometry. Trying to cross here as a pedestrian or navigate it as an out-of-towner newbie feels more like advanced calculus. The master plan calls for several measures to improve safety here, including “refuge islands” for pedestrians to stop mid-crossing. Perhaps to call their lawyer to prepare their will.
2. West Front Street-Shrewsbury Avenue/Rector Place.
Number of accidents: 31
Number of injuries: 4
Standing curbside watching traffic zoom through this intersection makes one wonder how there are not even more smashups here. An at-grade railroad crossing not far from this intersection complicates things. Then there’s the added hazard of truck drivers misjudging the height of the railroad trestle and getting stuck beneath the railroad trestle, which happens all too often.
1. West Front Street and Maple Avenue
Number of accidents: 40
Number of injuries: 8
With Chipotle, 7-11 and far more crashes than any other intersection in town, Maple and Front is one of three intersections in this top five that lie along State Route 35 as it wends through town. The state jurisdictions adds another bureaucratic hurdle for town officials seeking to do anything about it.
Add to that: the West Front Street corridor “showed a high incidence of vehicular crashes during the period, including the greatest number of injuries and crashes involving pedestrians (which are of particular concern given the likelihood of serious injury),” the report said. The map below shows vehicle crashes involving bicyclists and pedestrians from the same period:
Want to know the other trouble spots on the list? Here’s the chart with the full list of the top ten. (click to enlarge)
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