Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2), a candidate for Jersey City mayor, is unveiling countywide pedestrian safety priorities after the death of six-year-old Eli Bender on Friday, which had the community at large reeling at a vigil on Sunday.
“The tragic and heartbreaking loss of Eli Bender should force everyone involved in public service in Hudson County to re-examine their priorities and look closely at the systemic failures at all levels of government that got us to a place where a young boy could lose his life like this,” O’Dea said in a statement.
“I’ve fought alongside pedestrian safety advocates for decades, often as the lone voice in county government willing to push for change — that led to the creation of Jersey City’s first ever bike lanes that we successfully fought to implement in Lincoln Park, helping start the conversation about pedestrian safety that still continues today.”
In addition to the Lincoln Park bike lanes, O’Dea touted lobbying the county government to adopt a Vision Zero pla and, installing the county’s first traffic calming infrastructure measures with cut outs on John F. Kennedy Boulevard from Communipaw to Sip Avenues…