An observer standing at the intersection of Grand and Monmouth Streets in downtown Jersey City almost has to flinch at the sight at people crossing the road, coming from or going to the new Jersey City Medical Center.
The constant flow of vehicles forces pedestrians to wait sometimes as long as five minutes, then dart across the road.
And there’s the concern over what will happen when schoolchildren attend the new public school being built directly across the street, slated to open in January 2005.
But at a meeting in City Hall on July 9, representatives from the Medical Center met with city officials and agreed to install a traffic light there by early October.
Visitors to the hospital, employees of the hospital and nearby residents when interviewed recently expressed relief.‘What took them so long?’
Luis Palacios and his wife Nelba were coming back from his therapy session at the Ambulatory Care Center of the JC Medical Center on a recent Saturday afternoon. Palacios underwent a knee operation a month ago and has to visit the Medical Center at least three times a week in order to recuperate.
Palacios and his wife after several minutes were able to walk off the curb near the corner of Monmouth and Grand Streets and cross the street to reach the yellow centerlines. Another few minutes were spent looking both ways before proceeding across the rest of the street.
“It’s a great idea because it’s very hard to cross [the street]. This is such a big avenue and the cars don’t always stop,” said Palacios, a resident of the Jersey City Heights.
A 20-year employee of the Medical Center, Mary, said, “it was about time” that a traffic light would be put up.
“There’s no crossing guards, so at least there should be a light,” she said. “Especially since they’re building the school across the street.”
The school in question is the new Public School 3, an early childhood center that is expected to have a population of 576 students, from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade.
Still funding issues
The meeting to approve the light was held July 9, and there will be another one scheduled for the second week of August to discuss the progress and the funding for the light.
Ward D Councilman E. Junior Maldonado organized the first meeting and was in attendance along with representatives from the Jersey City Medical Center, assistant city planner Maryann Bucci-Carter, Joao D’Souza of the city’s Traffic Department, and Asstistant Corporation Counsel for the city Joanne Monahan.
According to Maldonado, the traffic light was in the site plan of the Jersey City Medical Center, who would also pay for the cost of installation, estimated at over $100,000, and should have been installed before the Medical Center opened.
But Medical Center officials during the meeting did not want to take full responsibility for the installation.
Maldonado said that they tried to convince the city that the Jersey City Board of Education should also share in the costs since they claim that the school would be tapping into the same sewer lines that are currently used by the Medical Center.
“[The Medical Center] said they had spent their money and would not be able to get further funding. Our contention is, we really don’t care.” said Maldonado. “It will cost the city and the Medical Center millions of dollars if there is a fatality as a result of there not being a traffic light.”
Thomas MacEwen, the senior vice president of facilities and construction for the Liberty Healthcare System (which operates the Medical Center), confirmed that the Medical Center would proceed with plans to construct the traffic light.
MacEwen said that at the present time, the Medical Center has retained the services of design consultants to study the area, the volume of vehicular traffic and other factors, and submit the information to the city’s Traffic Department. The Traffic Department will then work with the New Jersey Department of Transportation to expedite the process of installing the light. In many cases, this would take a year, but they hope that it will be fast tracked for installation in October.
MacEwen, however, said that the reason the traffic light was not installed was that the Medical Center had done other improvements in the area before construction was completed on the center and that there was very little money.
“Nine hundred thousand dollars was spent improving the infrastructure, upgrading the sewer lines,” he said. “From a fairness perspective, we need someone to share the costs with us.”
MacEwen said that the Medical Center has been in contact with state legislators whom he did want to name about monies available to purchase and install the traffic light.
Another meeting will take place in the second week of August with the Medical Center making a presentation to Councilman Maldonado and other city officials of their study and to answer questions on how the funding of traffic light will be done.