Safety of Central Avenue to be Examined

You wouldn't normally consider grabbing a sandwich, getting a haircut or picking up dry cleaning to be all that dangerous.

But customers of the group of stores near the corner of Central Avenue and Elmwood Terrace as well as the neighboring residents deem this area of West Caldwell a safety hazard.

According to those in the area, vehicles traveling northbound from Caldwell often exceed the 35-mile-per-hour speed limit coming out of a bend in the county roadway into this narrow area where parking is permitted on both sides of the street.

It's resulted in 14 reported accidents in the last five years between 126 and 136 Central Ave., according to Police Chief Michael Bramhall.

The accidents have ranged from side-swipes that have knocked mirrors off parked vehicles to more serious incidents where pedestrians have been struck—like John Seragusa, who has lived near the corner of Central Avenue and Elmwood Terrace for 17 years.

"They come around that bend between 35 and 45. I see it all the time," he said. "This is a safety hazard. About three or four years ago, I was parked on the street. I went to my car and boom, a guy ran me over. I pushed myself away from the car. If I didn't, I would have been down the street."

The most recent accident occurred Tuesday afternoon at about 4:30 p.m., when a vehicle traveling northbound on Central Avenue struck a vehicle making a turn from Elmwood Terrace.

Both drivers were taken to Morristown Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Bramhall said.

However, the driver coming from Elmwood Terrace needed to be extricated from the vehicle, according to Bramhall, who said the accident—that closed Central Avenue in both directions from Miller Street to Washington School for an hour—remains under investigation.

"This was a crash where someone was coming out and either because of a view obstruction or something else, didn't see the vehicle coming north on Central Avenue," Bramhall said. "The cars parked could be view obstruction. There is legal parking. I've made a left out of there before. You just have to use a lot of caution. You can't rush through it. Cars are coming around the bend that are going northbound. I don't know if the cars being parked there had any direct bearing on this case."

The safety of the area was brought to the attention of the West Caldwell town council following complaints of vehicles parked on the curb of Central Avenue near the corner of Elmwood Terrace.

Councilman Richard Otterbein, chairman of the public safety committee, said after further investigation, it was determined the vehicle owners were parking on the curb to avoid being side-swiped.

"We've received some information that there's an issue with parking where people were parking up on the curb and on the sidewalk," Otterbein said at Tuesday night's council meeting. "After we did some research, there may very well be a safety issue in that area. There have been some 13 accidents [14 with Tuesday's accident] in that area in the last five years. Unfortunately, there was an accident there late this afternoon. That is a county road. What I've asked the chief to do is to do some research in that area—do some measurements, do some traffic surveys in that area. At that point, we will come to some landing on a suggested solution to the problem."

Mayor Joseph Tempesta called the area "quite a safety issue" and pointed out that Council President Joseph Cecere has even been side-swiped three times near the corner of Central Avenue and Elmwood Terrace.

The mayor suggested slightly widening the roadway as a potential solution to avoid vehicles being side-swiped in the area.

"At the very least there should be something set there with the proper speed limit posted going into that area at a very minimum to a maximum of maybe widening the road by a foot or two on each side by just pushing the curb back without necessarily taking anyone's property away," Tempesta said. "That extra foot or two may make a difference from someone getting side-swiped and parking on the curb so they don't get side-swiped."

According to Bramhall, the police department will assemble a comprehensive report that will include traffic volume, speed and roadway measurements in addition to gaining input from residents that will be presented to the town council and county.

"It's always a good idea to get input from area residents. For example, if we were to put up a flashing light we would want to recognize the impact it's going to have—is it going to be flashing into people's homes in the middle of the night when they are relaxing watching TV or reading a book? Those are things we're going to look at and try to get input from people who may be affected," Bramhall said.

"There is also always the possibility that the county may recommend no parking on one side or the other. We're going to be dictated by what the county's final decision is going to be. Nothing is out of the realm of possibility as we try to accomplish our goal and that is making it safer. I wouldn't categorize it as a dangerous area, but it's definitely an area where you need to use more caution."