Dear Editor:
The Washington Street bus stopped at Third and Washington Sts. The young woman in front of me stepped down and slipped on a sheet of black ice. Had that been me, and had I survived the fall, I certainly would have sued the responsible party and retired off the proceeds. The question is, who is the responsible party?
There is ice, not only where the buses stop on Washington Street but at the Jersey Transit and PATH Depot, where people get into the taxis and on most cross streets and cross walks. It is the worst I have seen since living here for over 20 years. This winter has been unremitting in cold and ice. It behooves the city to make decisions protecting pedestrian safety under these adverse conditions. My suggestion is that the Public Works Department do their best to rid the main streets of ice especially at bus stops and cross walks. If property owners do not cooperate, they should be fined. In the long run, this will spare many people injuries and the city lawsuits it can ill afford.
These are the kind of nitty-gritty, day-to-day issues that people want their elected officials to be involved in rather than the unproductive focus being directed to who wins the latest power struggle and gets the most publicity.
On the positive side, during the holidays as I was walking home along Hudson Street, I heard seasonal music and gazed upon a scene out of Currier & Ives. I watched families ice skating on a rink with a view of the Hudson River and the New York skyline. Finally, something good for ordinary families to enjoy! If we could follow this up with middle-income family housing instead of high-priced, rental dormitories for transients, we would be making real progress. The ice rink could have been bigger but it was a refreshing Hoboken holiday miracle.
Jean Forest