Future of Cherry Hill? (Atlantic City, Collingswood: appointed, condo, Home Depot)

[DITC]

Of the three main areas around New York: Long Island, Westchester/CT, and New Jersey, NJ has hands down the poorest infrastructure. I do not know who was the planner for NJ but it is a nightmare.

Everybody mocks Long Island as a suburban wasteland but it is superior to NJ. Long Island is much more densely populated than NJ and is a bottleneck island, so the traffic is somewhat justified. Much of Long Island was built in a main street style town structure with LIRR train stops in walking or short driving distance. Much of the shopping can be done in town or the next town over. For the all the people on LI and in Brooklyn/Queens on the roads, LI moves much more efficiently than NJ.

With the exception of some well developed older NJ towns, New Jersey seems to be the original sunbelt sprawl state. New Jersey is the only place where you will see four lanes wide of traffic on an accident free interstate in the middle of the woods far from any city (no I am not talking weekend summer traffic, that is another animal). Many New Jersey towns lack downtowns. Piscataway, Parsippany, Cherry Hill, East Brunswick it all feels the same.

Getting back to Cherry Hill, I really do not know what genius designed these roads. All these shopping centers create jughandle mania and scenarios. It seems as if in NJ there is a shopping center every ten feet Route 18 East Brunswick style. People braking from 50mph to make a sudden turn, or the guy in the left lane switching 3 lanes in .05 miles to get off. The general culture of NJ shopping is to brave the roads to a mall, park your car, roam around some big box store, leave and go to the next store and repeat all day. The trip home either involves traffic or being the lone car sitting at lights on empty roads due to 19 green arrow turns and 6 way intersections. I look in the people's eyes and they look like zombies.

[JoeSo]

Originally Posted by NatasNJ

So funny. That bertuccis was there for like 2 years and NO ONE knew about it. It was next to Macys on 38 side but so hidden that seriously it was ALWAYS empty. I can't tell you how many times people didn't know there was one there.

Probably for a couple reasons- the one side of the mall is a pain to get over to,and since there was a Bertucci's in Moorestown perhaps those people just went there. Nothing is worse than mall crowds plus the restaurant crowds!

[JoeSo]

Originally Posted by DITC

The future of Cherry Hill is that it will continue to be a victim to poor urban planning. A typical new age suburb with no downtown and horrible traffic relative to the low density of the area. They knocked down a racetrack, which is an interesting attraction, for a cookie cutter shopping center replica of suburban Chicago. I get the impression Cherry Hill is becoming the southern equivalent of Paramus, NJ. Think Route 17 traffic.

If any of you have ever had the "pleasure" of using route 17 in Paramus, while all the mall zombies go shopping on a Saturday, you know it is torture. You do not want this. You may want to write to your local politcians to put a stop to all this.

Nah it something new to them...south Jersey has always been looked at as a barren wasteland compared to north Jersey,so this is a step for them

[JoeSo]

Originally Posted by DITC

Getting back to Cherry Hill, I really do not know what genius designed these roads. All these shopping centers create jughandle mania and scenarios. It seems as if in NJ there is a shopping center every ten feet Route 18 East Brunswick style. People braking from 50mph to make a sudden turn, or the guy in the left lane switching 3 lanes in .05 miles to get off. The general culture of NJ shopping is to brave the roads to a mall, park your car, roam around some big box store, leave and go to the next store and repeat all day. The trip home either involves traffic or being the lone car sitting at lights on empty roads due to 19 green arrow turns and 6 way intersections. I look in the people's eyes and they look like zombies.

Well it is south Jersey And it's close to Philly so that may have something to do with it

[NatasNJ]

Originally Posted by JoeSo

Well it is south Jersey And it's close to Philly so that may have something to do with it

I welcome that South Jersey is not filled with the qty & likes of people from North Jersey which would turn it into a cess pool like up there.

[mike0421]

Originally Posted by NatasNJ

I welcome that South Jersey is not filled with the qty & likes of people from North Jersey which would turn it into a cess pool like up there.

Prepare to duck, NatasNJ. Famous first words of an NJ message board war! The old NY vs Philly thing!

I am sure you know about 80-90% of our posters here are north of I-195!

Just had an epiphany! Maybe my next map should be a 'pushpin' map showing where different members of this NJ forum live, and post it. That would prove my point, or disprove it!

[NatasNJ]

Originally Posted by mike0421

Prepare to duck, NatasNJ. Famous first words of an NJ message board war! The old NY vs Philly thing!

I am sure you know about 80-90% of our posters here are north of I-195!

I wasn't the one to start bashing but I will defend SJ till the end.

[DITC]

The Northern vs Southern NJ beef is a broken record that has nothing to do with the initial conversation. You must realize that the Anytown, USA suburbian feel is present in all corners of New Jersey. But while I am at it I would like to say, the Giants fan shopping at in Paramus and feeding at the trough of a fast food drive through is more similar to the Eagles fan woman in Cherry Hill eating the same chain food than you may think.

The issue here is that the new development in Cherry Hill is only making matters worse from an urban planning and efficiency standpoint. A race track was destroyed to make way for an awful shopping center. Now you are expanding a mall with already horrible roads. This is a recipe for the anti-community unwalkable bland corporate America town. I am surprised there is not much opposition to all of this.

Originally Posted by NatasNJ

I welcome that South Jersey is not filled with the qty & likes of people from North Jersey which would turn it into a cess pool like up there.

[NatasNJ]

Originally Posted by DITC

The Northern vs Southern NJ beef is a broken record that has nothing to do with the initial conversation. You must realize that the Anytown, USA suburbian feel is present in all corners of New Jersey. But while I am at it I would like to say, the Giants fan shopping at in Paramus and feeding at the trough of a fast food drive through is more similar to the Eagles fan woman in Cherry Hill eating the same chain food than you may think.

The issue here is that the new development in Cherry Hill is only making matters worse from an urban planning and efficiency standpoint. A race track was destroyed to make way for an awful shopping center. Now you are expanding a mall with already horrible roads. This is a recipe for the anti-community unwalkable bland corporate America town. I am surprised there is not much opposition to all of this.

I agree with Cherry Hill but the location and design of that area will NEVER lend itself to a downtown community type area like Collingswood or Haddonfield. Some towns are designed differently and the people who live there don't want to walk to a downtown area but rather have the larger house and have to drive everywhere in bad traffic. That is the payoff of more affordable housing there. Though recent property tax increases have people leaving that area in swarms.

There is no feasible way to FIX Cherry Hill. You can expand the highways (which will be a fight in itself) such as 70, 38, 561/Haddonfield RD, Kingshighway.... That would at least allow quick travel THROUGH the area and easy access to different areas.

[MoorestownResident]

You guys are taking a very short-sighted view of all of this. The garden state racetrack was defunct and an eyesore, the developers saw this as an opportunity to serve CH with a town center concept with residential units walkable to upscale dining and retail, the same is going on in Voorhees. They worked with the town council for approvals. Rt 38/70/73 and 295 all serve the Cherry Hill Mall, the Moorestown Mall, Eastgate, Centerton Square, The Promenade in Marlton, etc. These developers are falling over themselves to cater to the wealth belt and money towns of Moorestown, Marlton, Medford, Mount Laurel, Voorhees, Haddonfield, Cherry Hill et al. This is a problem of luxury and strong demographics. Traffic is a byproduct of growth, fortunately, much of South Jersey has adopted smart growth and zoning initiatives that prohibit high density housing except in designated areas. And there is still enough open space to keep South Jersey desirable, unlike some other parts of the state that were overzoned and overbuilt to death. There is a plan to deal with increased traffic in the area, we'll just have to see how effective it is. I'd rather have the CH town center than a blighted Garden State Racetrack, because you know what? Traffic is going to be an issue regardless.