Margate ready to reduce 4 lanes of Atlantic Ave traffic down to 2. But before that happens, the 3 Margate Board of Commissioners want to hear from you. Residents are needed to provide input on this ‘road diet’ idea.
Studies show that road diets reduce crashes, injury and death. More safety for pedestrians. Safer bike routes too.
Margate Mayor Michael Becker hopes he can attract a online crowd for this town hall.
ROAD DIET Town Hall Meetings.
- Dec. 14th 1:30p
- Dec. 15th 6p.
A few residents despise traffic delays caused by summer visitors. Police agree. One lane in each way reduces speeding. Road diets becoming common practice across country.
Currently: 2 traffic lanes in each direction, parking and bike lanes on both side. Mayor Becker admits the city doesn’t have traffic study yet.
Commissioner Maury Blumberg has little faith in Margate’s communication and public awareness channels. Blumberg says social media, window signs and email blasts not enough. Blumberg says city’s public relations and marketing channels not enough.
Public often says they’re being kept in the dark with stuff like this.
Few residents take part in these meetings. Poor communication from City Hall is one reason. The other: close to 75% of taxpayers are part-time residents. City not very good at reaching that group.
Atlantic City is on board with road diets. Ventnor is not. Yet.
Project would not take long. Just restriping. The new traffic pattern could be in place for Summer 2021.
NJ Department of Transportation awarded grant to Margate: $275,000 toward cost of $400,000 project.
an absolutely absurd idea for 3 months of traffic a year on weekends,
will just create more side street traffic and autos trying to avoid slow traffic.
A better solution would be a way to slow the traffic with delayed green lights.
Absolutely for this Road Diet. It is so dangerous walking across when one lane stops and the other can’t see the on coming traffic. This concept opens eyes!!! GO FOR THE PLAN!!!
This would be a decent idea if it was combined with better traffic flow control (one ways on the beach to bay streets) and measures to offset the speeding on Winchester, Monmouth and Amherst which will end up absorbing the bulk of the volume. Maybe a few additional stop signs on these three streets and make Amherst one way. Combine all of that with traffic control known as speeding tickets and maybe this would be a truly safer place to live.
Please leave Amherst Avenue two- way.
Do not make Amherst one way.
Why? What would that do to traffic patterns, how would that impact your life in any way?
I believe you are sending people the wrong message by allowing pedestrians to walk out into traffic in the hope that the traffic stops. This naturally puts the burden of responsibility on the driver and I have personally experienced on numerous occasions what i consider abuse by pedestrians of standing in the street engaged in conversation while traffic waits. It directly contradicts what I learned in the Margate school system many years ago to look in both directions for traffic, before crossing. This law is not standard in the rest of the country and it may promote the idea in, especially younger people, that they don’t have to observe traffic patterns in other locations. The answer may be to have traffic lights at each corner on Atlantic Ave., which would be an expensive venture for the city. Another solution may be to confine bike lanes to the one way streets presently in service. Hopefully consideration for the movement of emergency service vehicles will take priority over concerns of bicyclists and beach goers by the decision makers.
100% right. The law as intended was for pedestrians to still stop, look, make eye contact with the driver, then walk when the car stops. Too many rude entitled jerks just go right into the street and never stop, even if they weren’t at the corner yet. And they crass against the red lights on the lighted intersections. Also, bikes aren’t pedestrians… they shouldn’t be cutting in either.
Agree, wholeheartedly. PLEASE leave Amherst going both ways, but keep the Margate Police on patrol for speeding, more often and much better! If it is made one-way our immediate side streets will become a dangerous mess. You want to raise legitimate money for Margate, enforce the speed limit on Amherst and vigilantly ticket the thousands of offenders who disregard it, each year!!!
It makes no sense to leave Amherst as a 2-way street. You could give speeding tickets 24/7 and it won’t change the speeding on that street. In reality, very few speeding tickets are given in Margate, let alone on any section of Amherst, it’s not something that leadership wants to do. Let’s not forget, all of Margate is 25MPH!
That’s just it, no one is getting speeding citations in Margate. So why would they go 25 mph.
This is a bad plan. Eliminate the Bike Lanes. The street cannot handle cars, pedestrians and bikes, it is maxed out. Eliminate bikes and raise the speed limit.
I love this idea of the road diet. It makes so much sense. The speed of the cars coming from Atlantic Ave into South Mansfield is horrendous. So maybe this will help to have them slow down on Atlantic before slamming down on the gas into Mansfield.
Also, The Police need to be for vigilant monitoring speed during the summer. Longport has police monitoring both Atlantic and Ventnor Ave. I never see anyone monitoring in Margate.