Bergen officials fail to add safety measures or warning signs many months after two women were killed by cars in Hackensack

FATAL CROSSING: None of the four crosswalks at Passaic Street and Summit Avenue in Hackensack -- including this one used by Carol A. Ventura, who was struck by one vehicle and run over by a second on May 13, 2021 -- have been improved with "Walk/Don't Walk" signs or any other warning to alert pedestrians about turning vehicles, like the one I photographed recently, above.

 

NO AERT FOR DRIVERS: Since Carol A. Ventura's death, Bergen County officials paved Passaic Street and Summit Avenue and repainted faded turn lanes and crosswalks, but failed to add a message on the traffic signals, alerting drivers who get a green arrow to watch for pedestrians.

County gets off cheap 

with new asphalt, paint

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- In the more than 8 months since a 76-year-old Hackensack woman died from injuries after she was run down and then run over in a crosswalk, Bergen County officials have failed to add "Walk/Don't Walk" signs at the intersection, Passaic Street and Summit Avenue.

County officials also haven't installed signs warning drivers who get a green arrow in turn lanes on Summit Avenue to yield to pedestrians crossing Passaic Street.

The only apparent improvements at the Hackensack intersection where Carol A. Ventura, 76, was fatally injured at dusk on May 20,2021, was the repaving of Passaic -- a county owned street -- and repainting of faded or missing lines marking the four crosswalks and two turn lanes.

A second death

And more than 10 months after the death of Lillian J. Holmes, 81, who was struck by a hit-run driver and run over by a second vehicle on another county owned street, Polifly Road in Hackensack, nothing has been done to improve poor street lighting or add crosswalks and warning signs.

Hackensack City Councilman Leo Battaglia said requests for better lighting have fallen on deaf ears.

Holmes was crossing a darkened Polifly Road on the way to a CVS Pharmacy when she was struck by the two vehicles, including a black BMW X-5 whose driver fled. 

No crosswalks

There are no crosswalks or signs warning drivers of pedestrians along a 6-block stretch of 4-lane Polifly Road, despite several apartment buildings on both sides of the street and the CVS.

Michael Pagan, the public information officer for Bergen County, didn't return calls seeking comment on whether "Walk/Don't Walk" or warning signs will be installed where the two women were fatally injured.

Pagan is also a councilman in Teaneck.

Investigations

The hit-run death was investigated by the Fatal Accident Investigation Unit of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, which apparently hasn't been able to find the driver who fled.

Hackensack police investigated the death on Passaic Street and Summit Avenue, but no charges of failing to yield to a pedestrian were filed against either driver. 

PEDESTRIANS FACE SUDDEN DEATH: There are apartment buildings and a popular CVS on Polifly Road in Hackensack, above and below, but a 6-block stretch of the 4-lane street between Essex and Lodi streets doesn't have a single crosswalk or warning signs for pedestrians or drivers. And none was added after Lillian J. Holmes, 81, who was crossing Polifly Road on the way to the CVS, died on March 4, 2021. She was knocked down by a hit-run driver and struck by a second driver, who stayed on the scene. 

READ: How 2 Hackensack women

 died crossing the street

READ: Record columnist fiddled 

as drivers got away with murder

Former Trump campaign chief is indicted in probe of Russian meddling in election

To emphasize President Trump's insensitive comments to the widow of a black soldier killed in Niger, political cartoonists Marian Kamensky, above, and Steve Benson, below, invoke the image of Trump tossing paper towels to storm victims in Puerto Rico.

Many more cartoons can be found at Cagle.com, a website that relies on contributions from the public.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

UPDATE: President Trump's ex-campaign chief, Paul Manafort, and his former business associate were indicted today. And a Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with a Russian professor who said Moscow had thousands of emails with "dirt"on Hillary Clinton.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

No major news outlets, including The New York Times and Washington Post, have been able to add details to a CNN report that a grand jury has "approved the first charges" in the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 Russian election.

On Friday night, CNN claimed an exclusive, reporting "the charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge."

"Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as today, the sources said.

"It is unclear what the charges are," CNN said of the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Could this first indictment mark the beginning of the end for Trump, who was elected nearly a year ago, when millions of Democrats sat out the election?

All he has accomplished so far is dismantling many of the health and environmental achievements of former President Barack Obama.

Residents of Clinton Place in Hackensack go all out in the weeks before Halloween, above and below, drawing hundreds of visitors from near and far.

Most of the decorated homes are on Clinton Place between Summit and Prospect avenues.

The Record

On Saturday, my so-called local daily newspaper, The Record of Woodland Park, ran a Page 1 story from USA Today on CNN's report, but there was no follow up on Sunday.

Instead, most of Page 1 was devoted to the fifth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. One sub-headline said:

"The Garden State is still storm proofing its vulnerable infrastructure"

In nearly five full pages of coverage, there was no blame placed on the Christie administration for bungling the recovery from Sandy (1A, 5A-6A, 8A-10A).

And a front-page column by Mike Kelly defended wealthy Margate residents who fought the construction of protective dunes that block their beachfront views of the Atlantic Ocean (1A).

NJ Transit

Also on Page 1, The Record reported NJ Transit's rail ridership declined 3 percent last year, echoing declines in public transit ridership in almost every major urban area.

"According to the American Public Transportation Association, U.S. transit ridership fell 2.88 percent in the first six months of 2017, almost identical to the 2.9 percent annual decline at NJ Transit," Staff Writer Curtis Tate said on 10A.

Tate reported low gas prices have lured many commuters back to their cars.

But The Record has never reported on the lack of rush-hour seats on NJ Transit trains and buses, or written about growing traffic congestion and air pollution at the Hudson River crossings, where toll-booth waits of an hour or more are commonplace.

Christie helped cripple NJ Transit by cutting state subsidies to the agency by more than 90%.

Endorsing Murphy

On Sunday, The Record's Editorial Board endorsed Democrat Phil Murphy for governor in the Nov. 7 election.

"Murphy promises a more progressive, inclusive agenda than [Republican Lt. Gov. Kim] Guadagno," an editorial on 2O stated.

"Guadagno ... has moved further to the right, abandoning her centrist roots during these last weeks of the campaign," according to the editorial.

Defense of Christie

Sadly, The Record mentioned that it endorsed Governor Christie in 2013, when the GOP bully won a second term.

His re-election came just two months after his aides and a crony at the Port Authority secretly ordered the closure of access lanes to the George Washington, causing five mornings of traffic chaos in Fort Lee. 

The editorial claimed Christie "during his first term" showed "an ability to forge deals with Democrats who controlled the Legislature."

But, of course, The Record forgets  Christie used hundreds of vetoes and the threat of more vetoes to achieve his deals.

And Sunday's editorial shocked readers by mentioning Christie's "stalwart defense of Muslims living in New Jersey," without providing any context.

That ignores he tried to ban all Syrian refugees from coming to New Jersey and the rest of the United States after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015, a few months before he dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump.

Pedestrian deaths

A column on Sunday's Local front raised an alarm over the 166 pedestrians killed crossing New Jersey "roads" last year (L-1).

But for some reason, Staff Writer John Cichowski pads the column with 10 or 11 paragraphs (8L) on a Ridgewood woman who was severely bitten on her arm by a small dog "upon leaving Saddle River County Park" (he doesn't say whether she was driving or walking out of the park or whether the dog walker was in a crosswalk).

Most of the rest of the column discusses crackdowns in Hackensack and Paterson on jaywalking pedestrians, and drivers who violate state law by refusing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

The headline over this rambling piece:

"The price we pay for

darkness, deer and dogs"