No parking problems in 1878. Do historical references help us with parking policy in 2023? The CMA thinks so. See “conclusion” below. Click to enlarge this historic engraving.
Michael Badger put up the slide below and said that we have to preserve parking for beach goers. But this is a red herring- ( A good metaphor for a beach town.)
Every beach town at the Jersey Shore, including the Grove, is prepared for those who come to the beach in the summer. That is not an issue for anyone who lives at the Shore. We expect beach visitors. The new Grover parking plan will allow essentially the same parking space availability for beach goers as before. When you live at the Shore you are part of the “seaside resort” presence. We love all that, and Badger is arrogant when he says that we do not want our “seaside resort” to remain “as it has been intended to be.”
It is his organization that wants to take over the town and make it what he intends it to be: “A Christian seaside resort.” The CMA needs to be one of the factions in town, not rulers of the kingdom.
And those who visit our beaches deal with parking according to what’s available. For example, Seaside Heights has parking lots, and Asbury has meters. So to say that we Grovers who favor resident parking would be depriving beach goers of access to our beaches is just a diversion from the truth as to why the CMA opposes a parking plan advantage for residents.
The CMA runs a huge summer religious event calendar which brings many people and cars, something that no other shore town has to deal with, and the CMA, which brings in large amounts of money each season wants to be sure that their religious tourist crowds can park.
They don’t reveal any concern about our residential community. And where is it written that it is OK for the Grove to be a “Christian Seaside Resort?” Check the Constitution as well as the 1979 ruling of the NJ Supreme Court. I am no lawyer, but the situation in our town is ripe for legal challenges. Just ask Shane Martins of the Neptune United.
Just because the CMA owns the land doesn’t place it in charge of how our citizens get to enjoy their town. The CMA doesn’t control those who live here. The Township gets to control crowding and it should favor those who live here and pay taxes.
The Neptuners should be reducing those numbers so that the residents of the town can manage to have space to enjoy the Grove for themselves including our own programming scaled down so that we can have local music events, kids activities, arts in the parks,…this is urban planning, not “discrimination.”
Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net
JAMES TAYLOR
Phillip: 100 years ago, large numbers did come to the Grove—-by train.
I agree with Michael Badger’s point. Nothing has changed except societal car-dependency rising. Ocean Grove was always a place for all to come visit, in even larger numbers 100 years ago than now.
That being said, I sympathize with those who need to drive and cannot find a space. I will continue to stay out of the way on foot and bike and watch from the sidelines as the permit pilot effort unfolds.
David: No doubt. Most discussion on parking looks at only one side of the equation: ie. too few spaces. But the other side of the equation is too many cars, especially in season.
Blogfinger has editorialized about this subject, but one of our principles is to be ignored by everybody. But that’s OK,
Rev Stokes had a horse problem so he built stables over on the west side of town. He parked those horses near where I now live. In fact my house at Delaware and Mt. Hermon was lot #1.
Now, in 2023, we do appreciate that the stables are gone. But Stokes dealt with the supply side of the problem in 1870..
What did the CMA do about cars in the Grove when they appeared around 1910?—-well,they banned cars altogether on Sunday. We can learn a lesson from historic CMA: Let’s cut back on tourism due to mega-events, and voila; summer season weekend problem solved..
Paul. Blogfinger.net
Do you have giant flea markets in your Queens neighborhood.
Parking needs have changed over the years. I live in an area of 41 co-operative buildings of six stories in Queens, NYC. These often have indoor garages. Mine has 56 parking spaces for 134 apartments. When the building opened in 1958, the garage was a third empty as there was plentiful parking on the street and many residents did not have cars. With families often having more than one car today, things are quite different. Street parking is difficult and the waiting list for a garage space is over ten years. I suspect that Ocean Grove now has more cars than in the past.