793 Petition Signatures Submitted to the County and Township

Good morning,

First - the mom and daughter struck on the morning of 3.14 are doing fine (thank goodness). In an extremely moving gesture, they stopped by our shop yesterday to communicate that they were doing OK and offered the attached drawing (below). "The best part of getting hit by a car was having a hot chocolate afterwards" shared the daughter. We laughed and cried again together but this happy ending has not eased our resolve to fix things in this dangerous intersection.

To that end, we just submitted 793 signatures (and counting) from just 3 petition collection days to the County and Township leads. Find below* the letter that was shared. 

Thank you everyone for taking a moment out of your day to sign the petition. There is a lot going on these days (to say the least) and it becomes difficult to prioritize just what to address first. However, I promise to stay on top of this and provide updates as they become available. Please do not hesitate to reach out If there are any other thoughts on this matter. Hopefully we hear back soon from the County/ Township and can share another positive update.

Be safe out there and stay positive. We're all in this together.

Much appreciated

*the letter that was sent:

Good morning,

As you may or may not be aware, we recently initiated a Petition signing with the goal of addressing a safety issue here in Montclair, New Jersey. 

The area of concern is Watchung Plaza, where Park Street, Watchung Avenue and Watchung Plaza intersect.

The cause of concern is the ongoing and regular number of vehicular accidents, and more pressing - the number of pedestrians struck by vehicles in this dangerous intersection.

On the morning of March 14th, a mom and her young daughter were struck by a vehicle attempting to cross Park Street. Each luckily escaped life threatening harm but this could have easily been a tragedy beyond words. This event is not the source BUT the stimulus for the following Petition.

With this following Petition - we request an expedited County/ Township approach to the recently introduced Resolution including the following:

1. Specific start and completion dates for the 'traffic study'.

2. Specific start and completion dates for vehicular/ pedestrian traffic revisions to result in a safer environment for our community.

3. Police presence during elevated traffic periods including but not limited to 'School commuting hours' (M-F, 7am to 8am, 2pm to 3pm)

Find attached the following:

- Petition signatures to date (793 total in just 3 days)

- Petition comments to date

- Link to Petition: https://www.change.org/watchungplaza

I am a member of the community but also a business owner with a shop in Watchung Plaza. Police reports of accidents is but one metric of the severity of the issues in the Plaza. We witness the unreported: the near misses, the episodes of road rage, the young, the elderly and others who deserve our greatest care not provided the fundamental respect to safely commute in their town. We're better than this. Let's use this opportunity to not only address the immediate issue but to make things much better in our beautiful town of Montclair, New Jersey. 

I am available at your convenience to meet, if necessary, OR for any other purpose to assist in facilitating the solution.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

Robert Genovese