Dear Editor:
No fair-minded person would claim that Applied Housing has done nothing good for Hoboken. But when Michael Barry says to a Hoboken resident and critic, “How many feet of public space have you created or helped fund for the residents of Hoboken?” he’s being a bit disingenuous. It was only through Herculean efforts by Hoboken residents, the Coalition for a Better Waterfront, and a few lone city councilmen, like Anthony Russo, that Pier A has an open space. Left in the hands of developers, this lovely patch of green would have been a skyscraper. That’s not exaggeration, that’s fact.
But this tit-for-tat is beside the point. Hoboken taxpayers are making it pretty clear that over-development is a real concern; that it’s time for responsible development that fits the scale of this town. Every time another large development goes up, the commute through the tunnels gets a little bit worse. If you have to go through the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel every day, or take the PATH, you know this. However, you wouldn’t know it from the traffic studies conducted, because developers hire specialists who only measure car traffic as it’s impacted from their specific development. So the numbers always seem oddly small.
Why hasn’t anyone studied the cumulative traffic affect from the thousands upon thousands of new units going up? What is the cumulative affect on car traffic? What is the cumulative affect on the bus and PATH lines? On pedestrian traffic? How many drivers are avoiding the congestion on Washington by using the side streets parallel to Washington?
These are important questions. And maybe it’s not the developers’ responsibility to conduct these studies. They’re not a not-for-profit organization; they’re in business to make money. But, nonetheless residents deserve to know the whole truth. Because once a development is up, it’s up. And by then it’s too late.
J. Tavlin