Some visitors act like they are from outer space.
June 1, 2019. Ocean Grove.
Once again the town of OG is under siege. Shuttle buses don’t help much—they just allow even more crazed tourists into a small town where the residents are trapped in their own homes.
I heard people cursing at each other, illegal parking, cars obstructing the roads, cars cruising aimlessly, and residents walking for blocks carrying groceries if they were lucky enough to find a space somewhat near their homes.
No pictures are necessary. If you are a resident, you know the situation. Don’t dare move your car because you won’t find a space when you return.
Who benefits from these mega-events? Certainly not the tax-paying residents.
The single-party-ruling-class from Neptune views our parking and crowding problems as insoluble and they make no distinctions between those who live here, tourists who come to flea markets, religious event parking, or those attending events to sell stuff to outsiders (as sponsored by the street -closing Chamber of Commercials.)
But other towns succeed in providing comfortable and worth-while events during prime season designed to benefit the residents. Did you ever look at the summer schedule in Spring Lake? They have events, but nothing like what we are experiencing today. Instead they have concerts, plays, town tours, kitchen tours, outdoor art, etc. Go there now and find Seward Johnson’s lifelike sculptures all over town—-it is a magical art display that will be a thrill for children and adults.
If you went to Spring Lake today, you would surely be able to park. And the same is true of other beach towns near us, with the exception of Asbury Park which goes out of its way to tempt tourists, and they have significant parking issues, some of which are solved by urging visitors to park in the Grove.
And keep your eyes on the North End Redevelopment Plan which may soon become a reality. Imagine the parking mess which will surely occur.
And, if they have public sessions to present the plan, make sure you all go and imagine the ripple effect on the whole town due to pollution, environmental impact, and worsening parking everywhere (can it actually get worse?)
—Paul Goldfinger, MD Editor@Blogfinger (Yes, we do repeat ourselves, but you never know who is visiting this site for the first time.) During Sandy we railed against FEMA’s efforts to deny the CMA help, but those FEMA folks were reading Blogfinger—-I know from an informant’s insider information.
Let’s bring back old King Tut to rule this town. He brought laughter and song to his people:
Stephen DeRosa from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire:
It is pathetic that we have to talk about this every single year and yet nothing happens. Other towns in the area have handled this with a simple fix and yet our town does nothing year after year.
The new thing to get us to be quiet is to do a study which just wastes everyone’s time and money. We all know what the answer is – parking permits for residents. Parking zones w meters for visitors in the downtown area.
See what I did there? Easy.
I was at a meeting with State Senator Vin Gopal on Saturday. An attendee asked him a question and he stopped her and said “I know you’re going to ask me about Ocean Grove parking again aren’t you?” with a big smile on his face like he thought it was funny. (She was going to ask him something else.)
It was really very disheartening to see this type of thing made fun of when it is something we struggle with all the time. It’s a simple fix yet they insist on wasting time and $ doing studies so it looks like they’re doing something. We are prisoners in our own neighborhoods because they refuse to impose the simple fixes every other town has. Shameful.