Bayonne NJ continued…

To keep up with my Bayonne writing, I felt I had to put up a post today. Bayonne, as I said in my last post, is a great place to live. Bayonne is a horrible place to PARK your car. Parking in Bayonne SUCKS. If you are blessed enough to have a driveway or garage, good for you. But can I ask you a favor then, please??? USE IT!!!

Driving around Bayonne today doing errands, it was just so frustrating. I needed to park by Bayonne Community Hospital. OK, they have a pay parking garage, right? Yes. BUT, I drive a CONVERSION VAN with a High Top, so it doesn’t FIT in the parking garage. So, I drove down 29th street to the Bayonne Parking Authority public lot located on Broadway & 29th street. It was FULL. So was 29th Street, and 30th street, and Broadway, and Avenue E. After circling the square, I just decided to park in a permit only spot, and wait, while my Wife ran in to do what we needed to do.

Bayonne needs to do something about the parking problem! I won’t even go into how much they make on giving parking tickets…. The Bayonne Parking Authority will never be in the red, that’s all I am going to say. I say Bayonne has to do something about the parking problem, but I do not claim to have all the answers. I am just going to vent some of my frustration here, and some ideas I have, and maybe others from Bayonne can chime in. Perhaps there are things that can be done! If we get some good ideas, I will personally bring them to Bayonne Town Hall, and give them to Mark Smith.

Problems:

Bayonne Residential Parking Permits

In theory, this sounds great. “Guarantee local residents get places to park near home” right? Wrong. From what I understand, this permit thing in Bayonne started with the coming of the Light Rail, so people wouldn’t take up residents spots to park near the Light Rail stations. Why is it residential parking on AVENUE C from around 16th street up to the mid 20s? It may actually be more than that, but who is going to park for the Light rail at 22nd & Avenue E, all the way down at 16th Street & Avenue C??? Sorry, I don’t buy it. But another point on this, I had a Cafe for a short time on Avenue C & Andrew St. Customers would not park there, because they saw the residential permit required signs. BUT in LITTLE TINY WRITING, it said “two hour maximum”. In other words, they had plenty of time to park, go in, and help out a local business to buy something, and leave within 2 hours. But you CANT READ THE PART THAT SAYS IT IS OK TO PARK FOR TWO HOURS! BAD for LOCAL BUSINESSES. But wait, there’s more! I have friends that live in an apartment upstairs. The residential permits issued by Bayonne, which they have, lets them park in that area during the day. BUT at NIGHT when they come home from work – AFTER the Residential Permit Parking limitation is OVER, they can’t find a spot!!! Never mind weekends, if you get a good spot on Friday, STAY THERE. Well, unless you are on the Southbound side of Avenue C, in which case you have to move it SATURDAY MORNING FOR STREET SWEEPING! C’mon…. This is just one little area I am talking about, Bayonne is full of problem spots. But the residential parking permits are a JOKE. They hurt businesses, and they do not guarantee residents a parking spot when you CANT find any, in the evenings, and late at night. And I have a hard time buying that this is to stop commuters from parking for the LIGHT RAIL 8 blocks away! Residential Parking Permits would be GREAT if they were for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. During the day is when they are NOT NEEDED though!

Next problem:

Bayonne Needs to regulate property rentals!

If the City of Bayonne required a PERMIT to rent out an apartment, they could regulate things better. Sure, it might cost the landlords $100 for every new tenant, but that could be included in rent over time, just charge $5 or $10 more a month! I am all for people making money with properties by renting them out, that’s fine. What i have a little issue with is people who take what was at one time, a single family house, or MAYBE a 2 family, and end up making it a 4 family, by finishing the attic and basement, and adding apartments- often illegal apartments at that. The streets of Bayonne are too crowded already with cars. But if everyone on your block did this, and each apartment had 2 cars, and the block had 20 houses… Well you used to have to try and figure out how to park 40 cars if they are all 2 family houses, 2 cars per family. There was hardly room for that. Where in the world are you going to park ANOTHER 40 cars??? Again, I don’t have a problem with someone making a buck on their property. But you should try and be responsible, and understand there really is no place for your future tenants to park! If Bayonne had the ability to regulate the apartments, they could calculate how many cars are already registered at that address, and the new renters might not be able to move in if they had TWO cars! Maybe one renter has NO cars, they dont drive. Great. But maybe the guy on the 2nd floor has THREE cars already. If the property in question has a big driveway, and a garage or 2 or 3, no problem! But you should be limited to something like 1 or 2 cars MAX that have to be STREET PARKED, per house. I hope that makes sense.

OK, another issue.

BAYONNE HOMEOWNERS WHO DON’T USE THEIR OWN DRIVEWAYS!

Man this ticks me off…..I know of a guy on a street I lived on, I don’t want to say which one, but just another street in Bayonne. Downtown. On Newman Avenue. Between 2nd and 3rd.  Oooops, and my backspace key doesn’t work. Sorry. Anyway, this jerk had a 40′ long driveway. He had 2 cars. Now he couldn’t put both cars in since it was only wide enough for one car, so he didn’t want to have to shuffle cars around all the time. SO, instead of just putting ONE of them in the driveway, and another in the street, here is what he did, every day. His Wife parked on the street in front of their house, between the painted lines for their unused driveway, and the lines for the neighbors driveway (which they USED). That left another TWO spots in front of their house. If he came home, and nobody was parked in either spot, he would park so that no other car could even FIT in the remaining spot. Now they are taking up THREE spots on the block, and their driveway sits empty. Then, during a snow storm, when the piles where 6 feet high, and no place to park, I parked near the crosswalk, since he didnt leave enough space. I said the heck with it, too much snow, no space to park anywhere! It was a weekend, would probably not get a ticket. The JERK called the COPS and had me TICKETED for partially blocking the crosswalk, WHILE HIS DRIVEWAY SAT EMPTY AND HIS CAR WAS TAKING UP TWO SPOTS!!!

Granted, I may be a little bitter about that last one.

But to that point:

When you park in Bayonne, TAKE UP JUST ONE SPACE!

Seriously. If 2 cars can fit, leave room for another car!!! Do I really need to say anything else. If you are having a problem parking, and cant get the car into a single spot: LEARN HOW TO PARK, YOU LIVE IN A CITY! I don’t want to hear any excuses, there are none. If you are taking up two spots when you could have taken up one, you are an A-HOLE.

OK, I a feel better. Are you seriously still reading this? Wow, you MUST live in Bayonne.

This is my biggest problem with Bayonne. In fact, aside from the high taxes, I really can’t find much else to complain about. But the parking flat out sucks. As I type this, my Wife, who is going into the Dockbuilders Union! Is at School in Manhattan, and I am sitting here waiting to go pick her up at the Light Rail at about 10:00. I have a GOOD parking spot (only about TWO blocks away!) I am going to LOSE that spot when I go pick her up, and I KNOW that. When we get home, we are going to have to park at 16th Street Park, and walk home about 4 blocks. OK, I can use the exercise…. And it isn’t the end of the world. There are people who CAN’T walk, so I should be happy I am able to. But it really sucks when it is RAINING OUT, or COLD, and you are walking with a 4 and 5 year old. And if you ever had a 4 and 5 year old, you would know they either walk excessively slow, OR they are running ahead, and you have to yell at them at each crosswalk or driveway. I love raising my kids in Bayonne. I hate walking through Bayonne with my kids. At least at this age…

That’s it for today. Didn’t mean to be all negative at all. On a side note, I went and registered my 4 year old for school today. The people at Bayonne High School were very nice, and helpful. And it’s a load off my mind that that is finally done, and he can go to school on his first day. He will be going to Bailey, along with my 5 year old.

Talk soon Bayonne!

Parting gift: A shot of the Bayonne Bridge at night, from the Staten Island side (North Shore). Photo by Scott Shepard. You should check out his Flickr Page, some NICE shots.

Bayonne Bridge at Night from Staten Island: photo by Scott Sheppard

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