Congestion pricing, dog beaches, eliminating beach tags: 11 ideas to improve the Shore

The Jersey Shore is like the old joke: nobody goes there anymore, and also, it’s more crowded than ever.

It is true that many Shore stalwarts have been priced, or annoyed, off the beach. And that towns feel busier and sometimes tenser than ever: more cars, not enough parking, canopy-to-canopy beaches, prohibitive housing costs, that occasional rudeness.

Not to mention rising sea levels, nuisance flooding and seemingly regular tornado watches.

To move from complaining to solutions, we racked our brains, asked experts, and solicited ideas from our readers for ways to improve the Shore experience for everyone.

So many of the suggestions had to do with reducing traffic and the sheer number of cars in beach towns during the summer.

Wrote one reader: “We need fewer cars on the island so bikers can safely travel — need to open lots on parkway and run shuttles.”

This reader proposed giving every homeowner two parking passes. “I live in Sea Isle,” the reader said. “Too many cars.”

Kara Cumiskey said that tenants brought seven cars to her four-bedroom rental in Ocean City.

“I think that there should be a ‘beach tag’ for cars,“ Cumiskey wrote to us. ”Or some type of ‘congestion pricing’ for bringing your car onto the island. Something that gives people some pause for bringing a car for every person."

While a mandatory ban or limit on cars seems unlikely, giving people the option of leaving their cars off the island and shuttling or Jitney Guy-ing into paradise seems like an interesting idea. The golf cart and e-bike rental business would definitely pick up. Fewer turtles would be squashed.

Relatedly, there were calls to increase and improve public transportation to the Shore. The current NJ Transit train is fantastic to take (and from the Shore end, NJ Transit riders can park their car for free at the A.C. Convention Center), but man, is it slow.

An hour and 34 minutes at best between 30th Street Station and Atlantic City? Two hours between trains? Connections to the PATCO’s high speed line only help a little. Still, I’ve noticed a lightness in the steps of the people who get off in Atlantic City with their suitcases and sunglasses. They’re onto something.

Others noted that train service once ran down the Shore to various towns in Cape May County. Wouldn’t that be lovely.

Ariela Rutbeck-Goldman, senior staff attorney at Fair Share Housing Center, says the Shore’s housing crisis is “increasingly a threat not just to affordability, but to the Shore economy itself.”

“The Jersey Shore can’t remain a place where the people who work in restaurants, hotels, shops, and other local businesses can’t afford to live,” she said.

Fair Share says more Shore towns are building affordable housing under the requirements of New Jersey’s affordable housing law.

Belmar, for instance, is “repurposing dilapidated motels and other underutilized properties to increase their housing supply,” she said.

“The goal shouldn’t simply be to create “employee housing,” so that workers can make it through the summer,” she said. “The Shore needs enough homes that teachers, nurses, service workers, young families, seniors, and other people who make these communities work can afford to live there year-round.”

As one reader wrote, “Stop the monster houses being built. The charm of the shore is getting bulldozed one lot at a time. These new builds are ugly!”

Another noted the homogeneity of the new construction, in particular the white boxes with the black roofs and trim. In a lot of Shore towns, this ship has sailed. Sea Isle City, for example, is almost totally built out. But there is some hope for others, with the old Shore houses, whether they are the big turn-of-the-century Dutch colonials or the small ranchers of the Wildwoods, are hanging in there.

Fair Share Housing is advocating for programs that help nonprofits acquire and preserve older homes to protect housing for year-round residents, as well as expanding tenant protections to prevent evictions.

“Monmouth Beach, one of the Shore’s wealthiest communities, recently authorized the purchase of a two-bedroom condominium that will be deed-restricted and sold to an income-qualified household,” said Rutbeck-Goldman. “That’s a relatively small investment, but it demonstrates that municipalities don’t have to wait for a large development project to create affordable homes.”

Lots of people urged New Jersey beach towns to do away with beach tags. Dream on. Strathmere, one of the last three free beaches in the Philly area of the Jersey Shore, just voted to start charging $10 a day, $45 a season, or $30 if you buy a tag before Presidents Day. That leaves just Atlantic City and the Wildwoods beach-tag free.

One interesting idea was to make the beach tags reciprocal to other towns. Some towns, like Ventnor and Margate, do have reciprocity, but readers imagined a Cape May County beach tag, for instance, that would encourage exploring.

Related, a bill that would require towns to be transparent about where their beach tag revenue is actually going has stalled in the New Jersey legislature.

Many towns have expanded bike lanes and redesigned roads to calm traffic. More of this, please! No matter the pedestrian laws, the reality is, it’s still a miracle if the cars stop for you as you start to cross, or if the bike lane isn’t clogged with runners going in the opposite direction.

Roads one block from the beach should be one lane in each direction, with traffic calming measures like flashing pedestrian lights and bright flags for the pedestrians to carry across. It will require a lot more patience than Jersey is known for. It’s okay! There should be a safe way to commute to jobs by bicycle and return home at night.

I know this is not going to happen. But what a wonderful restaurant renaissance might follow! A mini Cape May! As one reader wrote, “I have had a place in OC for 25 years and other than [Ocean City Yacht Club] have never eaten dinner in OC because can’t even have a glass of wine!”

“Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, worries that the entire Jersey Shore is becoming more high-end resort, less natural coastline .

Zipf advocates a concept known as “coastal naturalization,” and says residents and visitors must rally against the “overdevelopment and citification” of Shore towns. That includes expanding parks with native plants and trees, which Zipf says will increase both quality of life and resilience to storms.

The Surfrider Foundation has an Ocean Friendly Garden program to help.

Zipf advocates an end to “the unchecked paving and urbanization that erodes community character while contributing to increased flooding, polluted runoff, and litter.”

Speaking of increased flooding: The Wetlands Institute announced that it’s temporarily retreating from its half-century headquarters on the Stone Harbor Causeway to rebuild its trails and building because of increased flooding.

Their focus is on coastal resilience and marsh restoration, with nature-based solutions. They are elevating and widening their Salt Marsh Trail and creating a new high marsh designed for diamondback terrapin nesting and coastal birds.

Lenore Tedesco, the Institute’s executive director, says marsh rescue is critical for storm-risk reduction.

“By elevating the Salt Marsh Trail, we are also creating a barrier to storm waves but unlike many coastal protection features that wall off people and wildlife, we are doing it in a way that benefits marshes and wildlife,” she said.

The Institute is hoping other coastal communities learn from their approach.

Are dogs so bad? What if every town, or every island, had a beach dedicated to dogs and their owners? What if there were dog hours ... on the Boardwalks? What if all the towns allowed dogs to run free on the beach before, say, 8 a.m. in the summer? As Bob Dylan wrote, “In harmony with the cosmic sea / True love needs no company / It can cure the soul / it can make it whole / If dogs run free.”

There’s been a welcome uptick in big name acts booked to A.C.’s estimable Boardwalk Hall, including Shakira, Phish and Goose (also, Disney on Ice). Rüfüs du Sol performs on the beach this weekend. But the sophisticated and intimate Thursday night Jazz concerts on the Atlantic City Boardwalk only started in August this year. They are a popular tradition that in previously years ran all summer long. There were a few A.C. beach concerts this summer, and a couple jazz nights at Gardener’s Basin, but nothing like in past years.

On the upside, there is a robust food truck scene at the A.C. Seawall and at O’Donnell Park, and new housing construction projects in places that have long been vacant. And no beach tags. But the city is under increased pressure from expected job losses due to New York casinos. Will Atlantic City put the pieces together?

Have more ideas? Email us at downtheshore@inquirer.com!