Two public speakers at a Bergen County Commissioners meeting on a recent public hearing urged officials to fast-track a countywide Local Safety Action Plan after two pedestrian crashes in two weeks, including the death of a 4-year-old.
Chris Nowell, a Fort Lee resident, said a mother carrying an infant and walking with two sons was struck by a driver making a left turn at Ramapo Valley Road (U.S. 202) and Oak Street in Oakland; the child, identified by Nowell as 4-year-old Jalen, was killed and other family members were injured. “If you haven't visited the intersection and the memorial that's there, please go and spend some time there,” Nowell said.
Nowell cited the county’s systemic analysis of intersection crashes and urged the commission not to delay review of the final Local Safety Action Plan (LSAP) received from the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA). The study, he said, identified priority locations where low-cost improvements could reduce crash risk; it lists 310 Priority 1 intersections out of 540 total systemic priority intersections.
Nowell also described county capacity limits: he said municipalities made over 150 safety requests to the county in 2023 but that county staff can do only about one to two intersection redesigns per year and roughly 20 minor improvements such as crosswalk repainting or signal retiming.
Patrick Diorama, a resident who described recent local efforts to install center-road pedestrian signs near a transit-oriented development, told commissioners that engineering prescriptions alone may not be enough and that elected officials must sustain political attention to move safety projects from plan to pavement. “It's a political problem that we need to solve,” Diorama said. He urged the commission to ensure the LSAP does not sit on a shelf.
Why it matters: commenters tied the urgency to recent fatalities and to a system that, they say, prioritizes only a small number of fixes annually while leaving many dangerous intersections awaiting improvement.
At the meeting the public hearing was then closed and the commission moved on to routine business; no vote on adopting the LSAP was recorded during the portion of the meeting in the transcript.
Key details from public comment: the Oakland crash was on Ramapo Valley Road (U.S. 202) and Oak Street; a separate crash involved a 14-year-old struck on County Route 501 in Demarest while in a crosswalk. Commenters said the county engineering and planning department holds the final LSAP from NJTPA and that staff had discussed adding more crash data to the study, a step commenters warned should not delay the county review and response.
Community impact and next steps: Commenters called for faster scheduling of engineering reviews, expanded resources for intersection redesigns and more proactive follow-up with municipalities that have outstanding safety requests. The LSAP and its recommended priority locations were discussed publicly; the commission did not vote on new funding or specific interventions in the recorded portion of the meeting.