CHRIS KELLY staff Brick Traffic Safety Officer Jeffrey Lindquist sets up a device that measures distance near the intersection of Chambers Bridge Road and Ovation Way on Nov. 30. There have been several pedestrian fatalities at the intersection this year. Story, page 3. BRICK TOWNSHIP – No one will ever know if Henry Genovese pressed the button to change the traffic light before a car on Chambers Bridge Road struck him one dark November night.
Genovese, 69, died in the early morning of Nov. 13, just hours after the accident at the intersection of Chambers Bridge Road and Ovation Way.
He was the third elderly pedestrian to die crossing Chambers Bridge Road this year. Genovese was in the crosswalk in a motorized scooter, but crossed against the light.
The other two men didn’t use the crosswalk to cross the highway. One of them wore dark clothing. One of them crossed in the dark.
“Most of the general public is misinformed as to what the laws are,” said Traffic Safety Officer Jeffrey Lindquist. “Everyone thinks the pedestrian has the right of way anytime. That’s not true.”
PHOTOS BY CHRIS KELLY staff Top: A man attempts to cross Chambers Bridge Road at the intersection with Ovation Way on Nov. 30. The area has been the site of several fatal accidents involving pedestrians. Below: Cars zoom by in the dusk at the intersection of Chambers Bridge Road and Ovation Way on Nov. 30. The area has been the site of several fatal pedestrian accidents this year. At left: Pushing the button for the traffic light at the intersection of Chambers Bridge Road and Ovation Way is the safest way to get across the highway, police say. And police, township and county officials are trying to do what they can to avoid any more accidents at the nowdeadly intersection.
The Ocean County Engineering Department has agreed to install 1,400 feet of a dark-colored mesh fence along sections of Chambers Bridge Road, to discourage pedestrians from trying to cross the highway.
“Three of the four fatalities happened at the crosswalk and we hope the fence will alleviate the problem, Acropolis said at the Nov. 27 Township Council meeting.
Higher intensity light bulbs will be installed on streetlights and more lights will be installed on street poles, he said.
But that will only take care of part of the problem. No one can stop someone from trying to cross anywhere on the highway if they want to.
“You can’t legislate safety,” Acropolis said after the meeting. “You try as best you can. A lot of it is about personal responsibility. If you want to chance things, cross in the middle of the road. People make those life and death decisions every day.”
The crosswalk at the intersection of Chambers Bridge Road and Ovation Way links the Brick Township Housing Authority’s senior citizen apartment complexes on the northbound side of the roadway to the shopping center and stores on the southbound side
Police urge anyone trying to cross at the intersection to use the crosswalk and the pedestrian-activated button to change the traffic signal so they can cross on a green light.
“People are confusing convenience with safety,” Lindquist said. “Crosswalks are put in a location for a reason. You don’t want to cross the road in the middle.”
The light at the intersection can sense how many cars are lined up and changes accordingly, Lindquist said.
“It only stays red or green depending upon how many cars are in line,” he said. “If they don’t activate the button, they could wind up with only 15 seconds.”
But pressing the pedestrian-activated button to change the light overrides the traffic sensor and gives pedestrians much more time to cross, he said.
“All they have to do is push the button,” he said. “It gives it the maximum time for the signal.”
The pedestrianactivated signal gives pedestrians a total of 35 seconds to cross the roughly 85-foot intersection. That number includes the actual time of the green signal
and an additional five seconds for the light to change, Lindquist said.
“They don’t pick that number out of the air,” he said.
Traffic studies have shown most people travel 4 feet per second across the intersection. It takes elderly or disabled people a longer period of time to cross, but that number is built into the light’s timing, Lindquist said.
Police officers did safety presentations at three of the senior citizen apartment complexes near the intersection this year, he said.
Genovese died less than a month after William Gregson, 74, was killed. Gregson died on Oct. 15, when he tried to cross the highway in the area of 150 Chambers Bridge Road at 7:46 p.m. A township police cruiser driven by Patrolman Scott Smith, 24, struck him.
John F. Auerbacher, 81, died after he tried to cross Chambers Bridge Road near the entrance to Kohl’s Plaza on Jan. 19. He failed to use the crosswalk.