BRICK – A resident urged the governing body to address what he said is a dangerous situation involving speeders on narrow streets.
In the Cedarwood Park section of town, pedestrians take their lives in their hands, resident Brendan Stuk said. He brought the issue up at a recent Township Council meeting.
He said that after the road was paved in 2021, it became a speedway. The residents had to complain frequently before a speed limit sign was installed.
Then, when a double yellow line was painted down the middle, it made the speeding worse, he said. Most double yellows are on highways, so people treat it as such. Additionally, before the lines were painted, a driver would move over when they saw a pedestrian on the side of the road. Now, they won’t because they can’t cross the double line. So, they put the pedestrians in danger.
It doesn’t help that people cut through the neighborhood to go between Hooper Avenue and Mantoloking Road, he said.
Parishioners at the nearby Church of the Visitation leave services “like high schoolers leaving school,” he said.
He said he has had multiple incidents near the intersection of Lynnwood and Fairfield avenues due to the narrow lane and people not crossing the double yellow to get some space away from pedestrians.
If someone has a stroller, or a mobility device like the motorized wheelchair that one neighbor uses to walk his dogs, there is no safe place to go, he told The Brick Times.
“Please don’t wait for a tragedy to force change,” he said.
Township Administrator Joann Bergin reached out to Stuk after the meeting to discuss the issue and determine a solution.
According to the Brick Township Historical Society’s website, the neighborhood was settled when a newspaper, The Hudson Dispatch, offered a plot of land in Cedarwood Park with a subscription to their newspaper. However, the caveat was that a subscriber had to buy an additional lot at full price in order to build a house.
Given the historic nature of the area, the roads were probably not constructed for the volume or the size of modern vehicles.
