Hackensack to ban buses and limit parking on Main Street

Buses and 54-foot-long trucks will be banned after Main Street returns to a two-way traffic pattern. State Street also is expected to become a two-way street at the same time.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Traffic and parking on Main Street in Hackensack will be radically altered when the street returns to the two-way pattern of the past.

Before Tuesday night's City Council meeting, officials were briefed on changes to the 2012 Downtown Rehabilitation Plan by Francis A. Reiner of DMR Architects.

Reiner, the city's redevelopment consultant, said buses and 54-foot trucks would be banned, and UPS and other delivery services would have to use designated Main Street loading zones with restricted hours.

The city also will enforce "tandem parking" for cars and other passenger vehicles on Main Street, between Passaic and Essex streets, that would leave an 8-foot gap between spaces for two vehicles.

That will allow drivers to pull forward into the spaces, eliminating the the need to stop and reverse, which causes traffic jams, Reiner said during the public Committee of the Whole meeting.

Hackensack's plan to revitalize and redevelop the areas around its bus terminal and train stations will allow the city to apply for a Transit Village designation.

That would bring priority funding from some state agencies, and Department of Transportation grants to both the city and developers.

Reiner mentioned the possibility of a rubber-wheeled trolley linking Hackensack University Medical Center to the city's two NJ Transit rail stations.

The conversion of Main and State street to two-way traffic is at least two years away, city officials said.

Today's paper

Another Record front page dominated by baseball, state tests, politics and medical news doesn't offer much for the majority of local readers. 

On the Local front, the editors made sure to run an upbeat story on unanimous Hackensack City Council approval of a redevelopment plan for the former River Street headquarters of North Jersey Media Group and its flagship paper (L-1).

NJMG is expected to sell the 19.7 acres for $20 million or more.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg isn't expected to use any of that money to improve local-news coverage or even resume giving raises to the newsroom staff in Woodland Park.

Borg was responsible for moving printing of The Record to Rockaway Township from Hackensack in 2006, and then closing NJMG headquarters in 2009, hurting already struggling Main Street restaurants and other businesses.

Bear, fire news

Thousands of Record readers have been sitting on the edge of their seats, awaiting the reopening of Ramapo Valley Reservation and Ramapo State Forest, and today, their prayers are answered in a story leading the local-news section (L-1).

A Lodi fire that harmed no one dominates today's Local front, thanks to a gee-whiz photo from a freelancer (L-1).

Better eating?

The Record's editors continue to send mixed messages to readers with articles on breast cancer in both women and men (A-1 and BL-1), and recipes that mock heart health (BL-2).

Clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson specializes is artery clogging food, such as today's Chili Cheese Dip.

You'll need a half-pound of mystery ground beef and a full pound of Velveeta for this week's disgusting dish.