Cars that were parked on River Street despite the emergency on-street parking ban Monday. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Maybe they didn’t know about the law. Or maybe they just didn’t give a flying flake.
Whatever the excuse, 284 vehicle owners were issued tickets by Red Bank police for failing to move their rides off the street during the emergency ban in place during this week’s snowstorm, Chief Mike Frazee said. No cars were towed, he added.
A dumpster filled with snow on Broad Street Wednesday. Borough work crews were loading snow into dumpsters to be carted way in an effort to clear the street from curb to curb. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
While our tracking of ticket totals in past storms may be somewhat spotty, that’s the highest total we could find in our redbankgreen archives, topping a pair of 260-ticket snow events in 2018.
The way we look at it — and barring some excuse they can try and run by Judge Frank LaRocca — the vehicle owners allegedly committed one of two egregious misdeeds: ignoring a ban designed to make the job easier for plow drivers incredibly working long shifts this week; or (imagine the horror!) not regularly reading redbankgreen, where we reported the day before the storm that officials were vowing to get serious about enforcement.
Police Chief Mike Frazee was more diplomatic than we about all this.
In response to an email from redbankgreen asking about the enforcement, he described “general compliance throughout much of the borough.”
But he also cited “areas of particular concern where compliance was lacking” including Locust Avenue, River Street, Pinckney Road, Madison Avenue, Herbert Street, South Street, and Leighton Avenue.
“Officers worked diligently throughout the storm in harsh weather conditions, responding to calls for service, assisting with disabled vehicles, and enforcing snow emergency regulations to ensure public safety,” Frazee’s email read. “Unfortunately, vehicles left on the roadway significantly hinder the Department of Public Works’ ability to properly plow and treat the streets.
He continued:
“The borough made extensive efforts to notify residents in advance of the storm, including alerts through the notification system, email communications, and flyers placed on vehicles in both English and Spanish days prior to the snow emergency. In addition, residents were encouraged to utilize driveways or approved municipal parking lots during the event.”Despite these efforts, compliance in certain areas remained a challenge. It is our hope that residents learn from this experience and take the necessary steps during future snow emergencies to avoid leaving vehicles on the street, allowing DPW to safely and effectively clear roadway.”
As for those DPW workers, some of whom worked 24-hour shifts through the storm, they were still working to clear snow from the streets Wednesday.
On Wednesday, a pedestrian gets ready to navigate the unshovelled stretch of sidewalk in front of 21-23 Broad Street, a building currently for sale for $4.9 million. Perhaps a buyer could negotiate to get the price reduced by the cost of a snowblower. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
Workers had the northern stretch of Broad Street closed to traffic while front-end loaders put snow into dumpsters, which were then carted to strips of grass near the Count Basie Fields parking lots.
The same job of clearing the mounds of snow and restoring curb-to-curb blacktop was being done on nearby streets, including Monmouth, White, Linden and the East Side parking lots. An alert posted by the borough to social media said workers would be out overnight and until 8 a.m., “or later.”
They were still working at 10:30 am when we took these photos.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
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