By Michael Nunes
Staff Writer
RED BANK— Members of the borough’s planning board were assigned homework at the last meeting — figure out ways to make the town better.
“Think of an area in town that you might not like the way it looks now, and then think what would we do to make that better, or if something is really bad now, how could we tweek that,” said Dan Mancuso, vice-chairmen of the borough’s planning board at its May 2 meeting to kick off a discussion on revisiting the borough’s master plan.
“When we visit a master plan, it is about vision. It is looking at where we are now and looking where we want to go.”
Iimproving traffic circulation, pedestrian safety and encouraging further development were areas that the planning board intends to look at moving forward as they reevaluate their master plan, which was written in 1995 and last re-visited in 2009.
Under law, the town’s master plan must be re-examined every six years. Prior re-examinations occurred in 2002 and 2008.
The possibility of adding more bike lanes in the borough, a popular idea in the borough and also throughout Monmouth County, was addressed by Mancuso and he expressed concern that the idea was a non-starter.
“I feel that improving pedestrian safety is more important than bike lanes. I like bike lanes, but we are not making our streets any wider. The paint on the road is not going to protect the bicycle rider,” Mancuso said.
For Linda Cohen, who is an alternate on the board, the board should continue to strengthen the borough’s downtown, which could translate into a safer and more confident community.
“The more businesses that we have downtown that can attract people will create the situation that we want to see, which is more housing for people to live in an area they can feel safe and confident in. Safety is really important and it is becoming more important everyday,” she said. “There are places that you do not want to walk around because there is no activity. If there is activity in the area, you feel perfectly secure.”
The lack parking, not only in the borough’s down town but in residential areas, was also an issue brought up by members on the dais.
“It seems to me that we are zeroing in on the down town area for parking. I think we have a lot of problems with residential problems with parking, too. There are very few parking spaces on side streets and back streets,” Barabara Boas, another alternate on the board, said.
Mancuso responded to Boas’s comments by saying: “We are never going to be able to solve the underling problems in the established neighborhoods that there are too many people with too many cars parking on streets that do not have enough room for them. That is not going to go away. All we could do at this point is make sure that anything that gets built provides adequate parking.”
The board plans to continue its discussion at the May 16 planning board meeting.
Contact Michael Nunes at mnunes@gmnews.com.
