Saturday, June 5, 9:30AM – 11:00AM
Bike/ped advocates have long been champions of social equity, accessibility, health, and sustainability. Since the pandemic, people all over the world are finally recognizing what the advocates have known all along – to achieve these values, it is critical to reduce automotive dependency, offer safe and convenient alternatives to driving, and to think differently about how we use our valuable public space. Using this momentum, we are reimagining our streets, neighborhoods, and business districts as places not just for cars, but for all people. In this session, hear experiences from advocates around NJ followed by the opportunity to ask questions of panelists about how they’ve succeeded – or are still working- to build better places for people.
Moderator
Polli Schildge – Founding Member, Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition
Polli Schildge is a founding member of Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition. In 2016 Polli and members of APCSC succeeded in an energetic campaign to convince the city to accept the NJDOT Rt 71 Road Diet, which is currently under construction. As a result APCSC received the 2017 NJDOT Complete Streets Summit Taskforce “Complete Streets Champion Award”. APCSC members continue to work to create a safe, truly walkable, bikeable city for everyone, especially the most vulnerable in Asbury Park, and the Jersey Shore.
Polli focuses on education, and community outreach for APCSC, managing the Apcompletestreets.org website, social media, designing print media, leading monthly Slow Rolls around Asbury Park, and leading calls to action.
Polli Schildge is a personal trainer, a former competitive cyclist, and 2019 NJ title winning powerlifter. She’s the proud mom of 6 married kids and 11 grandchildren.
Panelists
Lisa Serieyssol – Chair, Princeton Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee
Lisa Serieyssol is a transportation professional for Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association where she is coordinator for two of its programs, Safe Routes to School and NJ Street Smart. In her hometown of Princeton Lisa chairs the Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee, and with community support she has been active in helping to improve and integrate the walking and biking infrastructure of Princeton and its surrounding region.
John Sullivan – President, Bike & Walk Montclair
John Sullivan serves as Bike & Walk Montclair’s President and is a community placemaking activist. A science teacher by day, John is an avid fan of good urbanism and proponent of the placemaking movement. John believes deeply in the physical, social and psychological benefits of “Place.” He is an active part of the Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) campaign and helped lead a grassroots effort that built the first demonstration parklet in Montclair. John enjoys generating community enthusiasm around both the policy and advocacy components of the public space and complete street initiatives in Montclair and beyond. John believes that Montclair’s traditional development pattern and “good bones,” coupled with it’s access to public transportation, make it an exciting place to study and implement non-auto dependent transport options connected to Places that celebrate the human scale.
Shaun Ellis – Founding member of Ride Free, a transportation gap project by Free Bridge Mutual Aid
Shaun Ellis has been part of a volunteer-based, free transportation project called Ride Free, a new program organized by Free Bridge Mutual Aid in Lambertville, NJ. He works for Princeton University Library as a User Experience and Web Accessibility professional, and served on the Princeton Public Library’s Technology Council, where he taught web development classes and organized Code For Princeton meetups, a chapter of Code For America. The meetups and hackathons brought citizens together to write code for civic projects, such as an app that simplifies the affordable housing application process and another that helps bikers avoid dangerous routes in Princeton based on accident data. Shaun collaborated with Princeton High School AP Environmental Science students to develop an app that allows citizens to locate and report ash trees that are in distress due to an EAB infestation, a project that was highly praised by Princeton Mayor, Liz Lambert. Shaun has also been an active abolitionist in his community, leading efforts to remove police from local schools and public boards. Shaun is a co-founder of Soupçon Salon, an arts-oriented, non-exclusive mutual aid society in downtown Lambertville, where he lives with his partner and two teenage boys.
Pam Lamberton – Founding Member, Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition
Pam Lamberton is a Community Activist for the disadvantaged, and Founding Member of Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition. While APCSC started out as a “bike group” it has morphed into a “total city transportation and access group”.
APCSC lobbied and succeeded in get the AP City Council to buy into the road diet on Main St. which is almost complete. APCSC is currently brainstorming more open street projects, and jitney service. We have a close relationship with our City Assistant Manager/Transportation Director which is invaluable.
Pam has a BS in education, and pursued a career in IT. If she had it to do over she might have chosen Urban Planning. There are thousands of ways to help the disadvantaged and Psm believes that they are ALL embedded in Urban Planning.
Todd Pagel – Former Councilman, City of Metuchen & President of Bike Walk Metuchen
I was elected to the Metuchen Borough Council in the summer of 2017 and served one term. Unfortunately I could only serve one term because of Coast Guard Reserve commitment. In addition to serving in the Coast Guard Reserves I am also a middle school History teacher in Edison New Jersey.
During my time on the council we championed many pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements in an effort to make Metuchen the most walkable and bikeable town in New Jersey. The first project that I spearheaded was the adoption of the dockless bike system Lime in Metuchen. We were only the second town in New Jersey to have dockless bikes. At the height of the program we had about 50 Lime Bikes in the borough and they were immensely popular. We averaged more rides per bike per day than many other much larger cities who had them. The council also applied for and received a grant from the state of New Jersey to construct a bike lane on Grove avenue which is one of our major thorough fares. Working with the state and county we also were able to lower every street in the borough’s speed limit to 25 mph.
During the beginning of the Covid crisis the mayor and council closed one of our most popular two way streets to cars on weekends so that residents could use it for recreation and business could use it for outdoor dining and shopping. This street is now one way with half of the street being used for restaurants and other outdoor activities. We are advocating to close the street permanently. In my post elected life I am volunteering with the accessibility commision and serving as the president of our local advocacy group Bike Walk Metuchen. I have lived in Metuchen for 12 years with my wife Nora and our two children Crew and Pacifica (4 and 7).
Kathleen Ebert – Founder, Point Pleasant Borough Complete Streets
Kathleen Ebert is a Complete Streets Advocate and is the founder of Point Pleasant Borough Complete Streets (PPBCS), a complete streets advocacy group of over 1,000 strong located in Point Pleasant Borough, NJ. Kathleen graduated with a BA in Planning and Public Policy from the Bloustein School at Rutgers University. Through the eyes of a planning student and a parent, Kathleen saw street safety needs in her town of Point Pleasant Borough (PPB). In 2017 she founded Point Pleasant Borough Complete Streets and has dedicated the past 4+ years to spreading education and awareness of all things complete streets related in an effort to plant the seeds for the PPB decision makers to implement street safety improvements. In the past few years, the Boro’s town officials have really embraced enhancing street safety and have placed it higher on their list of priorities. Kathleen and the PPBCS community are excited to see the improvements happening around town which include new sidewalks on routes to schools, additional crosswalks where needed, and speed limit radar signs to name a few. This past year slowed down public events, but the PPBCS community is planning to safely hold educational events in the future.
During the beginning of the Covid crisis the mayor and council closed one of our most popular two way streets to cars on weekends so that residents could use it for recreation and business could use it for outdoor dining and shopping. This street is now one way with half of the street being used for restaurants and other outdoor activities. We are advocating to close the street permanently. In my post elected life I am volunteering with the accessibility commision and serving as the president of our local advocacy group Bike Walk Metuchen. I have lived in Metuchen for 12 years with my wife Nora and our two children Crew and Pacifica (4 and 7).
Anthony Talerico Jr. – Mayor of the Borough of Eatontown
Anthony Talerico, Jr. is a lifelong resident and Mayor of the Borough of Eatontown. Eatontown is proudly the first town in New Jersey to adopt the NJDOT’s Complete and Green Streets for All Policy by ordinance. Our Complete Streets Advisory Committee has advocated very successfully for sidewalks and pedestrian networks in development applications before the Zoning and Planning Boards. Eatontown is part of the redevelopment of the former Fort Monmouth military base and is working closely with the State of New Jersey to ensure that this build-from-the-ground-up area will reflect our goals to provide safe passage for pedestrians, bicyclists and those with mobility issues. Eatontown is currently participating the NJ DOT’s Local Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Assistance Program and looks forward to implementing their recommendations in future budget cycles.
Kenny Sorenson – Advocate, Neptune Complete Streets
Kenny Sorenson is a local Asbury Park musician who rides a bike to local gigs and encourages his band mates and fans to do the same. Ken and his band “Stringbean Blues”, are the subject of the award winning documentary, “ Bike Riddim” promoting bicycling and Asbury Park. He lives in Neptune City with his wife and daughter. Here they encounter local politics in the quest to make the streets safer for people.
Nancy Blackwood – Chair, Red Bank Environmental Commission/Green Team
Nancy Blackwood is the chair of the Red Bank Environmental Commission/Green Team. She is an advocate for Complete Streets, and helped move Red Bank in that direction by working with the borough to develop a tactical urbanism project (a pedestrian safety as well as a plaza) in 2019 which in turn led to an inspiration for Red Bank’s Broadwalk pedestrian plaza in 2020 – closing off Broad St to help businesses during the pandemic.
Her home is fossil-free, with heat pump HVAC, solar panels and an electric car. “My focus is sustainability and I try to live with preservation of our resources in mind, because the Earth will survive the future, but we cannot say the same thing for humanity if we do not make major changes. I hope to inspire others and enact projects that get Red Bank moving in the right direction.
