Officials Address NJTPS Rt 9 Meeting in Lakewood

to Mayor akan and I'd like to thank mayor akan for his immense amount of work put into this [Applause] project thank you Deputy Mayor can can everybody hear me in the back anybody okay good thank you Deputy Mayor and uh before I even begin I just wanted to say that Mike you can't hear me you're sitting right there you're younger than me um I I just want to say that I I'm speaking on behalf of of uh committee manstein committee M CO's committee m theia and and Deputy Mayor Miller are all here um but because of time you know we're starting a little bit late so they decided to give up the the podium to me and and allow me to represent them um I also want to acknowledge Senator singer who made the effort to come out here today assemblyman keen and assemblyman rival who made the effort to come out today and um Joe schoer who's here on behalf of Congressman Smith we got the round um and and um and Frank's scarantino who here on behalf of the county freeholders um this as most of you are aware um this this study has been ongoing for about six months now four five six months most of us on the committee have been at least a meeting or two where and the meetings continue will continue to happen it's a a study that's that's looking for lowcost high impact fixes for Route n part of the one of the components of the study calls for and I want to thank Gordon M runs a beautiful meeting and takes everything that we we say seriously so thank you Gordon of njtp and this this stud is being done in conjunction with the Department of Transportation so uh and one of one of the components of this study is to have collaboration between stakeholders all stakeholders which include the public of lak so that's why we're having this meeting today so I really I want to thank our our officials our our um our higher officials from the state senator and assembly men putting this effort and and for doing such a good job and and trying to take everything a step closer obviously this there's there are a lot of different components to getting r 9 W which is I know everybody's first concern but we're everything is baby steps and we're trying as quickly as possible to get it done um there's there was supposed to be public comment session was supposed to be cancelled but due to popular demand um the njtpa and do agreed that we'll have a 30 minute session after after CPA does that presentation so whoever wants to be heard please stick around and have a timer here and I'm actually going to set it for myself CU I think I'm going for too long it's a two-minute timer so I'm turning it on right now after two minutes it's going to go off if anybody has comments you can you can always everything that anybody says is going to be recorded even if you just go to the one of the stations and at one of the information stations the surveys will all be recorded so please fill out a survey before you leave and and everything's going to go into the minutes of this meeting so so even if you don't get a chance to speak you'll still be you'll still be heard your voice will be heard and it's worthwhile for you it will have been worthwhile for you to come just for that alone so so but but if you do have a comment and if if you could keep it very brief 15 minutes uh uh 2 minutes per person half hour that just allows for 15 people but if people come up and they say their name and address for the record and just make a quick comment then obviously more people will be able to get in so the the quicker the sooner the better so my clock the clock's running and it's about to run out on me so so without further Ado um I'm going to introduce and welcome to the podium our beloved Senator good evening everybody and again I want to thank the mayor for the opportunity let me just share briefly and and I don't want to take up a lot of time because it's really I've seen the presentation you should really see the presentation and I also want to hear the comments certainly are important for you to make but but there are two meetings that happened prior to this I think the public should know about that are so important a meeting that uh that mayor aan and mayor Lin and I had they couldn't have the rest of the committee there the reform situation we had uh Sean Keane our assemblyman at Dave rival committee we met with the commissioner of transportation we talked about the key factors number one the short-term fixes that we talk about to help help alleviate some of the problem but we also talk about the long-term solution and that's what we're talking about the long-term solution is the dualization of rine especially in the lake for us here we talked about the key factors in that and the the mayor and and and mayor lickstein made it very clear that between 65 and 70% of the landowners in southern Lakewood would be more than willing to give the department the right away and that's an important aspect because that saves millions and millions of dollars to the state and the commissioner said in front of all of us very clearly very very simply if that happens as a game changer and we will hold him to that game changer and I want to thank him and mayor ly for working on that to get the list together to get the land owners willing to do so so we can make it a game changer and the second meting which is just as important is one that happened a few weeks ago when Senate President Sweeney came and met with the entire Freeholder delegation and the entire legislative delegation you're talking about all the districts that all four legislative districts and he asks us what is the number one Transportation issue for both the freeholders and for the delegation remember it's not just it's not just Laker it goes all through Ocean County here's Jimmy hosta district and his assembly people there was Chris Conor's assembly people Sam Thompson's assembly people and certainly Dave and Sean and myself and they said the number one issue in Ocean County is a dualization of Route n throughout the county starting in L and you know Senate President Sweeney put it loud and clear if they're talking about the transportation trust fund do not talk to Ocean County delegation unless you're talking about rout N9 if you're talking about transportation state what we have to do to fund it if you're not talking about Route 9 do not not talk to this delegation this is our number one issue in Ocean County it's the number one issue of the delegation and the number one issue of the freeholders I don't know any other issue that has brought everyone together saying we need this for Ocean County we only have two north south cars we have the Garden State Parkway and it's taken us how many years to finally see that start to come to fruition and by the way that came to fruition because Joe Buckaloo from Lakewood from Ocean County was a commissioner and insisted they start doing that and you've seen the fruit of that work both in Lakewood and going through brick and into Tom zman going south we need that same emphasis on route nine so again you have our commitment and you have the commitment of all the legislative dist the freeold this the number one issue starting in lak by the way it has to start here heading south and makes sense to everybody so with that I'd just like to bring up the two best assembly in the state of New Jersey did a fabulous job conference chairman for the assembly Dave rival and my my f famous running mate Sean King thank you Senator singer ladies and gentlemen of Lakewood uh we understand the importance of this critical uh item for Lakewood the route n widening to make everybody's lives more manageable down here in this part of the county Bob singer is absolutely accurate when he talks about a state federal component the north Jersey Transportation Association is doing an outstanding job by providing this study um we're aware of it we're aware of what the issues are we're aware of the great job that mayor AER Mike Deo and the other members of the governing body that are here mayor lickstein and Minos and what they're doing to put the pieces together in Lakewood by doing a survey and getting the property owners to commit to putting that together is a big part of it you heard that commissioner Fox is well aware of those efforts folks when we talk about a state and federal cooperation you're talking about New Jersey with a gasoline tax which is one of the lowest in the country every penny of the gasoline tax represents $50 million for places like Lakewood so when you're talking about a bipartisan State approach to the transportation trust fund just remember that you're talking about pennies and then that translates to millions and millions of dollars Bob singer is correct when we're talking about any cooperation with this legislative delegation in Ocean County the main priority is here in Lakewood so you can be rest assured of that that we're watching we're involved and that this will remain be our number one priority with regard to Transportation thank [Applause] you again we're just here to reiterate our support uh two two great components are happening here though we have a very efficient njtpa and a very talented commissioner Jamie Fox and that is what's really going to help this project come together two great people two great organizations I think Jamie Fox doing a fabulous job he's aware of our our desire as sen already said and our commitment to make this happen the T f as Sean has said is going to be a priority of the legislature come November and I stand with the senator and the assembly if route N9 is not on the project this delegation is not talking so they need us to talk they need our votes they need our support and we're not doing without route N9 that is our commitment to get this done for you so once again I'm looking forward to seeing your responses and the suggestions and again I want to thank you njtpa for your hard work and and your commitment to Lakewood at Ocean County so thank you very much [Applause] okay thank you very much um at this point I'm going to turn it turn the microphone over to we're honored to have Scott Stevens here from the Department of Transportation I'm going to turn it over to him and he's going to introduce Gordon meth from of the njtpa who's been running this this meeting Frank I'm actually going to call Frank Scaro speak on behalf of the cyers good evening um it's a it's a really exciting crowd here I'm optimistic that we're going to get a lot of good input into this project I know the holders uh were scheduled to be here this evening unfortunately due to a conflict they couldn't make it on behalf of the board i' I'd like to encourage you all to participate in this study um there's a lot of sentiment about we've studied route n enough and I just want to point out to you that this is a necessary first step in a process that should ultimately deliver near and uh shortterm and long-term improvements to the car so I encourage you to participate uh go through the reader boards take your choices because the the the choices you make this evening will ultimately shape the Future Vision of and improve and hopefully dualized or night thank you