TO THE EDITOR:
Hi Paul – First I just want to thank you for the amazing job you do. You keep me more informed on Ocean Grove than any other news source available to us here!
I have a question that I believe Blogfinger has touched on in the past…about a problem that seems to have reached new highs (lows?) this year: Blocking parking spots with cones, lawn chairs, human bodies, strollers, flower pots, and/or small children. As I type, someone has placed orange cones in front of my next door neighbor’s house on Asbury Ave (not her — she’s already parked! — it’s another ‘neighbor’ saving a spot for himself). On Saturday, someone on Main Avenue was *hauled away in handcuffs* after getting in a verbal altercation with a police officer over the spot she was blocking. So yeah, it’s getting a little nutty.
Do you know of any ‘official’ venue we can contact when we see a roped off spot? Like, so someone official can come unblock the spots? I know it’s not a top priority in our boardwalkless town, nor am I calling 911 over a blocked spot, but was wondering if you had any advice or guidance to offer. We’ve been here for 8 years and I can say that for sure ‘spot blocking’ is out of control in the summer of ’13.
Thanks, Paul! 🙂
Laura
OCEAN GROVE, NJ
JULY 7, 2013
Editor’s Note: Laura. You are correct that this is not a new issue. Although there is no law against holding spots, no one is entitled to reserve a spot. Therefore, it is acceptable to remove the barriers and to park your car in that location. Many people don’t have the nerve to do that, so the practice continues. But if you have a passenger in your car who is strong, tall and fearless (I have my wife), then take the spot–it is a public street.
There is no one you can call to remove the blockades, unless, of course, there is a dead body there. That would get the police to come over, but otherwise they have little interest in your complaint unless there is a fist fight.
A variation on this theme is to park one, two or more cars in a creative way by having large spaces in between. Then the owners can rearrange them when someone comes along for whom the space has been saved. Another solution is to buy a parked car.
This past weekend was horrible as far as parking is concerned, but it is now Sunday night, and you could go out now and find plenty of spaces.
Paul, Editor @Blogfinger
In my city, we use “metered” parking, but we have no meters. Instead, there are kiosks or a mobile app. One enters the license number, charges the fee to a credit card, and selects the timing. A problem arises when the meter enforcers type in the wrong license number and issue a ticket mistakenly, but it’s easily remedied online. This requires no meters, just judiciously placed kiosks, and an app. And revenue.
I don’t think blocking off spaces on the street next to someone’s house is going to work. Drivers desperate to find a spot will simply park in it.
Reblogged this on Blogfinger and commented:
This appeared in 2013, so it is fun and Imelda to post it again..
Laura:
I’d take the cones and throw them out at your office. If more appear, I’d take those too. If you tell me your street, I’ll come and take them. SO outrageous! If I see someone with trash cans or whatever blocking the street and there is an open space across the street, I will always go out of my way to park where the trash cans are — I just move them to the grass. Once I was conrfronted by an angry male and I simply pulled out my cell phone and asked the man if he wanted me to call the police and have them come and sort it out. He backed off. No one has ever taken retribution on my car. We need to put these people in their place.
So Sue … How do your neighbors feel when your friends show up with 3 – 5 cars depriving them of parking?
The situation North of Main and West of Pilgrim Pathway is entirely different from other parts of town. The very narrow, very short one way streets have to accomodate the Auditorium, the seasonal tenters, many large condo conversions, at least 2 apartment complexes, Asbury meter avoiders, beach overflow as well as resident parking. There are only 2 through streets East and West, each one way. Asbury Ave is mostly multi family and has to provide for Lake Ave. plus it changes direction midway and dead ends at Founders Park. Add in the very necessary fire zones, numerous little parks and even in the best of times residential parking is a grand adventure at worst a nightmare.
I agree with Blind Pursuit and welcome all who wish to enjoy our unique town. Many times we do not move our car during a busy weekend and enjoy watching others enjoy the town. The streets are public and parking should be available to all. We have a number of neighbors who share the same sentiment. Let’s not make Ocean Grove another faceless suburban community that happens to be near the beach!
My friend is a parking industry expert and was down a few weeks ago. He doesn’t have a quick answer, however, he did note that meters on the unmarked streets (parallel parking) would be a mistake, as it would require lines and the loss of a significant amount of parking, as the statutory size of a parking space is huge.
I also don’t want resident permits, as some weekends we have friends down and have 3-5 cars and some weekends we aren’t there. It evens out and we know you don’t move your car from 9am-5pm Saturday. (we’re on the north end – 2nd beach block. summer parking sucks – we knew that when we bought the house).
PS – we are constantly entertained when we sit on our porch and watch people try to parallel park, especially on the left side of the street.
There’s no excuse for blocking spaces in front of someone else’s house. But I will defend vigorously the right of the homeowner to block ONE space for his/her own car, in front of one’s own house on summer weekends and holidays.
I recommend that Neptune mark off facing “Resident” spaces at the north (or west) of one property and the south (or east) of the adjoining property for the property owner. This would take up 36 feet of the 60 foot total. The remaining 24 feet would be open for “visitors.” ONE “Resident” permit sticker would be sent to each property owner, with a number to match the space. If interlopers intrude on “Resident” spaces, then the police should ticket. This makes it easy for them, rather than having to stand between disputing neighbors with no definite ordinance to follow.
If people have more cars than will fit in the space in front of their own house, they should ask the permission of their neighbor, park them in front of a vacant property, or park them in a lot, or on the outskirts of OG.
This whole business of a “free-for-all” is, frankly, irresponsible. It is no way to run a municipality. We are tax-payers. We deserve a responsible governance of our streets.
Since he denies that the cones are his, how does he keep getting them back? Ask the police to just confiscate them or toss them in the trash. If he claimes them he’s guilty.
Laura: If I post your comment, will he come and put cones in front of my house? —Paul
Thanks, Paul, for helping generate a spirited discussion from my email!
It’s certainly not an issue that will make me pick up stakes or move…I love OG for (mostly) all its weirdness and quirks…but to respond to some of the comments, this isn’t about me being bummed that I can’t park in front of my house — I mean, I can’t even park in front of my house in January!
I knew full well what I was getting into when I bought a home here. What I’m having a hard time with is coming home to traffic cones placed in front of my house pretty darn frequently by the guy across the street. I just am. Not to mention that it makes us and/or my elderly neighbor look like we’re the jerks putting them there.
I am finding a hard time seeing the blessing in disguise with this one, but maybe I’ll come around.
Since I come from the ‘mean streets’ of Hudson County I’m not willing to do anything that will get my tires slashed or my face punched so I just leave them there. To answer some other comments here, if the cops do see them, they remove them and ask who put them there—so that’s something. (And the guy who puts them there denies he did. Oy, I know.)
And I do admit, I am for residents-only parking stickers like Hoboken has — it’s a nice perq for residents (since we have so few as part of Neptune Township),and it is a HUGE money maker for the municipality (to, say, build a boardwalk with). But that’s a WHOLE other debate. I just want this dude to stop putting cones in front of our houses. Maybe he reads Blogfinger. 🙂
Laura
Try parking on Spray Ave. We have 35 to 45 cars looking to park from the La Pierre year round, plus the Ocean View condos, plus the Marlboro condos, plus the home owners on the block.
Not to mention they park here to go to A.P. beach. The Township will not work with us in any way to solve our parking problems.
Blind pursuit has the right idea here folks……I live in the beach blocks, parking is awful and I feel fortunate to have to deal with the problem! Life is good!
Blind pursuit- Well said.
Is it too much to say, “Try looking at the parking situation as a blessing in disguise”?
I live in a part of town where parking can pretty much be described as “annoying on summer weekends,” so I realize I am speaking from a privileged position here. That being said, I find the lack of parking meters and resident permits to be one of the things I love about living in Ocean Grove.
In a way, Ocean Grove is a gated community where the gate is always open. I like that. The message is “Welcome to our beautiful little town by the sea. We are happy to share this place with you. Yes, parking is free. We are glad you came.”
Actually, there is a sign on the gate that says something similar (think about it the next time you drive past).
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the only people who would object to permit parking are the households with over 2 vehicles or those with commercial designations. A 2 layer system with yearly and seasonal permits makes sense to me.
Hotels and B & B’s could issue temporary permits and pass the cost along easily enough. The Ocean Front and the Business/Main area could have time-limited parking as well. Everything south of Pigrim Pathway or perhaps New York Avenue should be resident parking only. Auditorium events could take advantage of a shuttle service to remote parking lots. Some plan has to be implimented because the status quo just ain’t cutting it anymore.
As a former, temporary resident; now back in the Hills; we too experienced “gamesmanship” with regards to parking spaces. One neighbor continually parked his vehicle in order to take 1 1/2 times the length of his vehicle, preventing the balance of the space on the street to be used to park another vehicle. Mindful that we were temporary residents we always made sure he had enough room to get out, but he wanted more.
This is a sad little game. But, to the meat of the letter; they are PUBLIC streets, not private and people can park where they want to. Have the same problem here on our street where a nasty neighbor actually goes out to block off parking in front of their house when a neighbor is having a party, etc; despite their having a double wide driveway and parking on the street behind their house.
It’s wrong and illegal, but the town has too few resources to enforce these things let along a myriad of other ordinances that it fails to enforce.
Be careful though getting engaged with some of these people who selfishly put cones out. Who knows when one might just fly off the handle and go “postal.”
One problem I can see with metered spaces and parking permits is that a fair number of Camp Meeting activity participants don’t actually live in OG. Since the Camp Meeting Association is the reason that Ocean Grove IS, this could have any number of unintended consequences.
My wife sings in the OG choir, and my daughter plays in the Summer Band — and I’m pretty sure that they would not be too happy feeding a parking meter for the opportunity to perform *for free*. They’d just be annoyed — but the cost of parking added to the cost of driving to OG would likely be a consideration for some of the musicians.
I’m unsure how attendees at the worship services might react to paid parking and parking tickets. My own guess is that it wouldn’t go over too well, either.
Parking never seems to be a major problem on Sunday morning when the beach is closed. (The beach seems to attract more visitors than the worship services, judging by the parking.)
Why not raise the beach price? The OG daily beach badge is priced at $8 which attracts too many visitors for the amount of parking available — you could raise the daily price to $20 on weekends, or eliminate the daily badges and just sell the weekly ($40) and seasonal ($80) badges. Or limit the number of daily beach badges sold each day to some number reflecting the number of available parking spaces. (Asbury Park is priced $5/$6 weekends, and Bradley Beach is $6/$7 so lower-cost beach access would remain available within an easy walking/driving/biking distance.)
Freakonomics recently had a podcast on parking ….
http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/03/13/parking-is-hell-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
The Parking Problem has been talked about by Neptune at council meetings..The conclusion they came to was the problem only exists two months out of the year on Week ends…So there is no need to address it…Although I do not agree ..I see the problem on the south end of Ocean Grove all year long…Mostly due to Bradley Beaches summer meters, home owners with 3 to 4 cars and Renters with many cars….I agree with most on here they should have like Hoboken designated owner spots and resident stickers…Meters should be installed through out the Ocean Front for the summer months only… like Bradley Beach..(check out the revenue they make from the meters) …I also feel the homeowners themselves need to change their attitudes towards their neighbors….and be more considerate especially those that own multi’s and do summer rentals …Last : Paul the Police have removed cones and ticketed people who have tried to hold spaces I watched while on my bike one week end 2 years ago..the more irate the person got the more tickets they were written… …Thank God I never received one so I do not know how creative the Police officer was or what charge they used. One other thing When have people been allowed to Park on the Grass Center Island On Broadway ????
Jason…. Parking has been a problem for as long as I have lived here ( since 1985). And not only in the summer… winter snows cannot be properly plowed because so many out of towners use street parking to “store” their cars here free. THREE efforts to find more parking spaces resulted in just a few spaces on Broadway’s median from CENTRAL TO OCEAN Aves.
Forget about permit parking for residents and/or others willing to pay. Despite many New Jersey towns adopting it successfully, public opposition has cowed Neptune’s elected pols from adopting any version of restricted parking even in the NE quadrant that suffers the most. Considering that beach front parking is available FREE 24/7, even on summer weekends, shows the hopelessness of your suggestion being implemented.
Another factor: Allowing more condos to be built makes things worse. Look at the new condos on Bath Ave: nine more condos with at least 16 to 18 more cars; where will they park? This is like a gallon of milk that the Township wants to fit into a quart container.
In my opinion, the Township will not demolish the Park View and the Warrington in hopes of a future condo conversion and more revenue.
Thank you Paul. You and your blog are awesome. I feel like 2/3 of OG is OK with the current system. However, the North End is a bad scene — narrow streets, AP meter-avoiders, condos, etc. Neptune should designate a special parking zone there, put in meters, and sell permits (perhaps up to two per unit) at, say, $100 per 6 months per permit. If the meter rate was high enough (say $2 per hour), you would scare off most people and leave the permit holders. Enforcement costs plus a profit to Neptune would flow from the meters and the permits. Meters should be in effect 24/7.
Please take note Neptune politicians.
The Neptune Township Committee has declined the idea of parking meters, even though Asbury Park made over $1 million in one year with them. Ocean Grove residents also have rejected that idea for a variety of reasons, but meters won’t help us townies have a more comfortable parking situation, except perhaps to chase the AP crowd back to the north country.
The idea of designated homeowners’ spaces or permits has come up on BF over and over again, with no serious reaction that I know of from the Neptune government. The parking problems are going from bad to worse, but it is mainly an issue during the summer, especially on weekends, but even that can be unbearable for residents.
There are certain current inequities, as stated by Happy Wonderer, but the rules at this time provide for a free-for-all on the streets of Ocean Grove, with no edge for the taxpayers.
I have, so far, never heard of a candidate for Neptune Committee who has stood up for preferential parking treatment for OG homeowners. That’s where change resides.
There is clearly a view by the authorities that there are to be no parking meters, permits, or designated owner’s spaces. It seems like these are really good concepts to deal with the terrible parking situation on the North End due in part to AP folks parking in OG for free. While I’m sure this has been covered on this blog in the past, can someone please give a quick summary of what the “official” view is on parking. Have they ever done any experiments?
Thanks!
I have to be contrarian again and point out that I have blocked a parking spot on more than one occasion for this reason:
All I require is ONE space for my ONE car near my house. Many surrounding neighbors have multiple cars (and guests on weekends), which means they are expecting to take for themselves parking spaces in front of other peoples’ houses, leaving no place for those homeowners to park. THAT is way ruder than blocking a space.
With the street totally packed with cars, if I need to go the store, when I get back someone will have taken my one space and I’ll have literally NO where to put my car.
As far as I’m concerned, every house in OG should have a “Resident” space demarked in front of it. Neighbors and out-of-towners are welcome to what’s left.
I don’t know how many tickets, if any, were issued this past weekend. Strolling about town I saw there was an awful lot of yellow zone infringement,from bumpers to whole cars. Since there are no parking spot lines in most of the Grove, people will take advantage of multiple spaces.
My neighbor, a single man, has three cars, two of which never move! It is also amazing how many homeowners who do have curb cuts, never park in driveways (now patios), yet go nuts if someone gets close to the curb cuts.
Living near the footbridges I can attest to the scores of Asbury visitors who take advantage of Ocean Grove’s free parking, not just on weekends but all during the week. Permit parking is the only solution.
I suspect the “Permit Parking” discussion will rise again.
I have one better—-Want to know how to use 6 spots with only 2 cars? We have a neighbor who has a garage and a driveway that is never used by them.They hog 3 spots on the street and then put up cones in their driveway so no one can ever use those 2 empty spots. Best of all they have the police on speed dial so as soon as someone desperate takes an inch of street space that includes their driveway curb they call.
The way we see it, they block 3 spots in garage/driveway/street behind driveway and 3 street spots with creative parking to boot. AND they only have 2 cars !! You just can’t make this stuff up.
scsupplycompany.com All the cones any town needs.
Re: Retribution. If the homeowner threatens to damage your car, tell them that you can move your car but they can’t move their house. LOL
The Surf Avenue people have had this problem since the start of construction at the condo site. They have been told by responding police that “No Parking ” signs are not legal unless they ahve been issued by the PD. As for the cones-Blogfinger is correct -just move them away when necessary.Remember though that the sidewalk and street ore not homeowner property.
On Bath Avenue, there is a lot being used for staging for the construction on Ocean Pathway. The crew has posted a “No Parking” sign on the fence around the lot blocking two spots. Do they have the right to do that? I understand that they want to be able to drive their equipment into that lot, but it’s not a legal driveway and I don’t believe it is legal for them to park trucks there anyway. We residents have decided to ignore that sign and park there anyway, leaving our phone numbers displayed in case they need to get in.
It’s not illegal, but you could be perhaps ticketed for placing refuse in the street or obstructing traffic
it would require a creative officer to fine an offender
Resident: Please find the ordinance for us that says that reserving a space is illegal and is a ticketable offense. Thanks, Paul
Paul and Laura,
The parking situation people and or cones holding them….That has happened on our street, as it has on most streets in Ocean Grove …this time of year… On my street the police are called, who do respond and remove the cones and or people…The police have said it is not legal to hold a parking space on the street since it is a public street….They will ticket the person…but my experience is they move…Or you can do what some people on my street have done— park anyway and just tell the person to move (if they refuse) just keep parking anyway; or parkers have just moved the cones and parked. And please don’t be afraid of retribution, (are we really going to let bullies rule?) …most just act tough but back off!
Suggestions: Residents only parking permits (a LA Hoboken) for all streets but Main and Ocean Avenue. Extend temp permits to B&B/hotel customers (B&Bs we stayed in prior to moving here gave us daily beach badges..same thing but publicly funded) and seasonal renters. Convert North End and lot next to old Neptune HS into public parking. Pave and optimize dirt lot on South end near Fletcher Lake. Re-introduce jitney after restrictions in place. Won’t completely solve problem but should help significantly.