Red Tank Brewing owner John Arcara speaking at Wednesday’s council session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council voted Wednesday to boost the fees charged to restaurants to maintain tables in parking spaces converted to streateries.
The action followed claims by two business owners that the hike was onerous.
Borough workers created a streatery outside Bombay River and Tacoholics restaurants on Broad Street in July, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
At the Red Bank council’s first in-person session in more than two years last week, a lone member failed to advance a pandemic-era fix said to be favored by two merchant organizations: street eateries.
Mayor Joshua Halpern, second from left in top row, as seen during Monday’s virtual council meeting. (Screengrab from Zoom. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five days into the job, Fair Haven’s new mayor forged a “compromise” Monday night in an effort to preserve funding for a road project that appeared dead a week ago.
“We’re looking for progress here,” Mayor Joshua Halpern said during a 47-minute special council meeting, his first as a public official.
Cooney Terrace, above, and part of Hance Road would remain sidewalk-free, and possibly curb-free, under a proposal up for a vote Monday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Se UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
A Fair Haven road project that appeared dead Tuesday may have been revived by the man who was named mayor that night.
Mayor Joshua Halpern on Friday called a special meeting of the council for Monday night to consider a plan to repave the northern end of Hance Road – but without sidewalks and maybe without curbs.
Delivery trucks and tree-removal equipment narrowed a stretch of Hance Road Wednesday morning. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After seven years of planning, and months of intense pushback, Fair Haven’s council killed a plan to install sidewalks and curbs in an area that residents likened to a “country lane” Tuesday night.
The action, on a 3-3 vote without a mayor in place to cast a tiebreaker, left unanswered what to do about streets that still need repaving, and whether to waive a $350,000 grant to pay for it.
Pedestrians on Grange Avenue Monday evening. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Residents of a Fair Haven neighborhood on the Navesink River told the borough council Monday night they don’t want sidewalks installed on their “bucolic” streets, even if a $350,000 grant has to be abandoned.
Without discussion, the Red Bank council authorized a restaurant’s closing of a public street for seating of diners Wednesday night.
Amid a boomlet in parklets to help boost Red Bank restaurants, Mayor Pasquale Menna was critical Monday of one eatery’s unauthorized takeover of a public street over the weekend.
Public works employees installed concrete barricades around several parking spaces on Broad Street in downtown Red Bank Thursday afternoon.
A public parklet on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. Red Bank officials plan to allow parklets for designated restaurant use. (Photo courtesy of Planet Princeton. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Among a series of adjustments, Red Bank’s economic reopening committee has scrapped the Sunday pedestrian plaza on Monmouth Street.
Instead, the Broad Street plaza, which has drawn large turnouts three nights a week since debuting June 18, will become a four-day affair with the addition of Sunday operations starting this weekend, Red Bank RiverCenter executive director Laura Kirkpatrick tells redbankgreen.
At the same time, plans are in the works for “parklets,” or temporary seating structures, to be built in parking spots outside a handful of downtown restaurants, including three that participated in the aborted Monmouth Street plaza effort.
The cost of road rehabilitation work on Spring Street will be partially covered by a state grant. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank will get some of the $161.25 million in Municipal Aid Grants to be doled out for 2020 by the administration of Governor Phil Murphy, his office announced last week.
Other towns on the Greater Red Bank Green will also get slices of the pie.
Motorists have been encountering detours on Branch Avenue at the Little Silver-Red Bank border all week long. What’s Going On Here?
It’s the beginning of a sidewalk replacement and installation program that Little Silver officials hope will reshape the walkability of the suburban town over the next year and a half. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Theo Cheevers at Church Street and Rumson Road, site of a recent sidewalk reconstruction. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Where exactly in Little Silver are there sidewalks, and what condition are they in? How might crosswalks be improved?
A young borough man has decided to tackle those questions this summer. And while the effort sounds, um, pedestrian, local government officials are looking forward to his findings.
Authorities hope the crossing will centralize pedestrian movements to and from the theater on show nights. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s long-awaited plan to extend streetscape touches down a neglected stretch of Monmouth Street includes a mid-block crossing at the County Basie Theatre, officials say.
Depending on the cost, the project might also include a reworking of the landscaping across the street from the theater, on borough hall property, into an outdoor seating area for theater patrons and others, they said.
A stretch along Monmouth Street is one of many culprits in violation of Red Bank’s snow removal ordinance requiring property owners to clear the snow and ice from their sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Although most of the downtown and residential properties’ sidewalks are clear from the recent blasts of snow, there are still some out there that haven’t seen a good shoveling in a while. Aside from causing a pedestrian hazard, it’s against borough ordinance.
The borough has, in turn, slapped lots of people with fines for not keeping the sidewalks clear of ice and snow.
Existing brick sidewalks along Fair Haven Road, above, will be reset after the street and curbs are redone. Concrete sidewalks will be replaced with brick at the town’s expense.
Fair Haven’s on-and-off affinity for brick sidewalks is on again as preparations begin for a repaving of Fair Haven Road, a thoroughfare that once glistened with oyster shells.
But the business of looking back while looking ahead isn’t limited to reanimating the quaint look of centuries past. Some residents think the town should reimburse them for personal outlays for sidewalks of both brick and concrete that are of a more recent vintage.