Navigating the Island every day can be difficult – and dangerous – for those not yet of legal driving age. Calla Aniski, 16, a Ship Bottom resident with a busy athletic schedule and two jobs, including work as a lifeguard, is well aware of the dangers.

“Last year, I kind of caused a three-car accident,” she said. At the intersection of 14th Street and the Boulevard in Ship Bottom last summer, two cars were rear-ended after failing to stop for Aniski, who was crossing the Boulevard on her bicycle. “I’ve heard other stories like that, so I thought it would be a good thing to try and fix. I know a lot of people are in the same situation, but they have small children and surfboards and beach chairs and umbrellas, and everything you lug to the beach.”

Since last summer’s close call, Aniski has made it her mission to create safer streets in her community by launching “Better Streets 4 Ship Bottom,” her Girl Scout Gold Award project.
“You have to do a project that helps out your community,” she said. “It has to be something you’re familiar with.” The Gold Award is the highest honor a Girl Scout ages 14 to 18 can earn, and requires 65 hours of leadership that “set the foundation for a lifetime of active citizenship,” according to the Girl Scouts web site.

Aniski has been involved in Girl Scouts of the USA since first grade, she said, “since I was a Brownie, and now I’m a Senior (Girl Scout),” and she’s using nearly a decade of community leadership experience to make a lasting difference in her community. She has used those 65 required active leadership hours to speak to local and state government officials, including Ship Bottom and Long Beach Township police and legislators in New Jersey’s 9th District, as well as the county engineer and others who are committed to help make her plans for safer streets a reality on Long Beach Island.

“We’re trying to get (painted) crosswalks on every other street,” said Aniski. “If we did it every block, the blocks in Ship Bottom aren’t long enough for a car going at the speed limit to stop in time.”

Despite coincidental timing, Aniski’s work toward safer streets is unrelated to the recent changes to New Jersey’s statewide pedestrian safety law.

“It’s weird because now people think I made the law, and I say no, it has nothing to do with my project. It’s not even really what I’m going for,” she said. Though she said she doesn’t necessarily disagree with the changes to the law, she has been working for more than a year on her project to make pedestrian crossings more visible, not to increase police enforcement of motorists who fail to yield to or stop for pedestrians. Ultimately, her work should make it easier for pedestrians to comfortably cross the busy Boulevard and eliminate some of the confusion that has been raised, especially in recent months, by the pedestrian safety law.

“Crossing the street is absolutely horrible,” said Aniski, who crosses several times a day on foot or bicycle to get from bayside to oceanside for lifeguarding. “A lot of people get frustrated. I know I do. And it’s not that safe, it’s not.”

The first step in increasing safety, beyond sheer education and awareness, is to clearly mark designated crosswalk areas with painted lines. “Every intersection in New Jersey is legally a crosswalk; they’re just not marked, and nobody knows that,” said Aniski. “If they’re marked and people know that they have to stop and (pedestrians) know where they can cross … drivers will be aware.”

Aniski isn’t working just behind the scenes, either. Beyond her work meeting with and gaining the support of local officials, she is also putting her project in the public eye through various media outlets and the web site she has created and maintains, www.betterstreets4shipbottom.org. On the site, visitors can learn more about the laws and the infrastructure of Ship Bottom, offer opinions about where crosswalks are most needed in the community, and read about available options for safer streets.

“It’s awesome,” said police Lt. Paul Vereb, traffic safety officer in Long Beach Township, who taught Aniski in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in elementary school. “She did a really good job on this whole incredible web site.”

Vereb said he is confident Aniski’s work will make a difference when it comes to pedestrian safety. “If it’s affecting a child in high school, then what’s with the people in Trenton? What’s with the Department of Transportation?” he said. “(Aniski’s work) might be the thing that gets us some recognition because, I mean, after you hear the story of a girl almost getting in an accident last year as a pedestrian, then she goes and tries to do something about that, I think that’s a neat story.”

With both the work she has done and the public pushing for safer streets based on the increased awareness of the pedestrian safety law, Aniski said she believes her designated crosswalks will be a reality on the Island within the next year. “With the rate that it’s all coming at us, I think that there will be a lot of progress made,” she said. “We’ll have something done, something improved from what we have now.”

Aniski won’t stop when the paint dries on the pavement, though. “If I started it, I’m (going to) keep up with it. I’m not just going to abandon it,” she said. Beyond painted crosswalks, this aspiring high school junior has researched the possibility of lighted crosswalks as well.

Her web site has a page dedicated to solar-powered crosswalk lights, which she said cost less than a quarter of the price of their electric counterparts and require even less effort. “It would cut the cost, and it would make it safer because people would press the button, the car could see the flashing light, and (pedestrians) could cross.” She is advocating for use of the Active Beacon from Statewide Traffic Safety, which is a wireless solar light that requires no power connection, trenching, hanging wires or control cabinet, and would allow pedestrians to use a conventional push-button to alert motorists to their desire to cross with high-intensity, flashing lights.
These lights are similar to the system recently installed in Harvey Cedars, where three sets of continuously flashing lights are spaced throughout the township to encourage motorists to slow down and create more breaks in motor vehicle traffic. This would allow pedestrians more opportunities to cross the Boulevard. Aniski’s proposal, however, is more targeted to pedestrians and their individual journeys across intersections. These lights would be activated only when pedestrians are standing at a corner waiting for cars to stop in order to cross the road safely. She said she would continue researching and advocating for alternatives to increase safety, even though she knows painted crosswalks are the first step and other options might be a long time in the future. “I don’t know about the (lighted crosswalks),” she said. “That’s a dream.”

Aniski is also working to install the Cops in Crosswalks program in the area, which is a federally funded initiative that places undercover officers in marked crosswalks, ready to distribute warnings and tickets to those motorists who fail to stop for them. She said Ship Bottom police were not receptive to the idea, though all the Island police departments have implemented their own methods of enforcement of the amended law.

Aniski can be contacted for questions, concerns, and suggestions for the proposed crosswalk map at her web site.

In the meantime, pedestrians and motorists alike all over the state of New Jersey are asked to be cognizant of the law: All motorists must stop for any pedestrian – that is, a person on foot – at any intersection, whether there is a marked crosswalk or not. The only exception to this rule is at lighted intersections, where pedestrians must yield to the lights and cross only when they have a green light. Motorists who stop at a green light for pedestrians will be ticketed. Pedestrians who cross against lights or in between streets can be issued a $54 ticket for jaywalking. Motorists who fail to stop for pedestrians as they cross the length of the roadway from shoulder to shoulder can be issued a ticket for $200 and face penalties of two points on their licenses. Pedestrians walking along the shoulder should walk on the left, facing traffic.

Cyclists are not considered pedestrians and must obey the same laws as motorists, including stopping at stop signs and red lights, and signaling when they plan to turn. Cyclists should drive with traffic on the right shoulder, and motorists need not yield to a cyclist trying to cross the street.

For more information about Aniski, her project and the state law, visit her web site.

— Ashley Tedesco
ashleytedesco@thesandpaper.net