Candace Faust knows a thing or two about inequitable access. Following a back injury in 2021, she spent time in a wheelchair and couldn’t drive for nine months. During that time, she became intimately familiar with accessibility issues in Eatontown and beyond.
“My boyfriend took me to a concert in a nearby town, a place you’d think was built for accessibility. But we had all sorts of trouble accessing the walkways and businesses.”
Today Ms. Faust is an Eatontown Councilmember, giving back to the community where she was raised.
Early Volunteerism
She began her career in service as a volunteer on the Shade Tree Commission, Recreation Advisory Committee, Traffic Advisory Committee, Community Garden Committee, and Zoning Board of Adjustment. During Eatontown’s Master Plan Re-Examination, she attended the League of Municipalities where she first learned about Complete Streets initiatives.
“Complete means everyone has access,” said Ms. Faust when asked what Complete Streets mean to her. “It means inclusivity.”
Ms. Faust and her colleague Virginia East decided to bring this concept back to Eatontown and together they formed an ad hocComplete Streets Advisory Committee. They helped apply Complete Streets concepts to the 2018 Eatontown Master Plan.
Crucially, the borough passed a Complete Streets ordinance in 2019 codifying the advisory committee and policy: “All transportation projects shall create Complete Streets that allow safe, environmentally healthy, economically sound, equitable, accessible, and convenient travel along and across streets for users of all ages and abilities and for all modes of transportation, including motorists, bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and their passengers, and pedestrians…” The ordinance specifically calls for safety with a goal to “eliminate all road fatalities” and “significantly reduce crash severity and injury,” among other goals.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Ms. Faust immediately got to work planning and implementing safe streets projects.
Complete Streets Projects
After attending the NJ Bike & Walk Summit in 2018, Ms. Faust and Councilwoman East applied for a $3,000 NJ Prevention Network grant to build a stone-dust pedestrian path in Wampum Veteran’s Memorial Park. Following this project, Ms. Faust and her colleagues applied for and won a $10,000 North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA), Rutgers and Sustainable Jersey grant for technical assistance in creating the Eatontown Greenway Plan, with the aim of providing everyone with safe access to the heart of the community.
“Eatontown is bisected, even trisected, by highways and high traffic roadways,” Ms. Faust explained.
The Eatontown Greenway, when completed, will connect three parks, downtown businesses, the library, the community center, and schools. People walking and on bicycle or scooters will have a safe route to travel off of Route 35. The greenway includes a small footbridge over the water that separates Lewis and West Streets. In addition to the Greenway, Eatontown also has plans for bikeways including a protected bike lane on Industrial Way on the other side of town and completed a Comprehensive Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan in 2022.
Simultaneously, the Complete Streets Advisory Committee launched a series of municipally-organized walks with Eatontown’s emergency services (Fire, Police, EMS, OEM and CERT) in “an effort to create a partnership between various organizations in the Borough.” Eatontown has multiple Complete Streets events every year including The Moonlight Walk series, which is a lantern-guided walk with scary stories, and the Eatontown Bike Rodeo, each now drawing nearly 80 people every year.
Events are just one tool in the advocacy toolkit Ms. Faust has utilized to engage residents in active transportation and to share the “idea of connecting” among different groups.
Six years after co-founding the Complete Streets Advisory Committee, Eatontown has earned nearly $900,000 in grants for Complete Streets projects and is a Silver Certified Sustainable Jersey community and is Gold Certified in Safe Routes to School.
Advice for Advocates
Ms. Faust has several pieces of wisdom to offer those seeking to make Complete Streets changes in their own communities.
- Adopt a Complete and Green Streets checklist and ordinance. As a former member of the Zoning Board, Ms. Faust says “having a checklist to work from is extremely beneficial” because it takes the uncertainty out of a project and puts the onus on the developer to adhere to the Complete Streets policy.
- Find the right balance of advocacy and compromise. Build bridges by volunteering and serving on boards.
- Plan events! Walks, rides, and rodeos all build community spirit around Complete Streets principles.
- And most of all, “Be patient.” If there is opposition to a project, wait it out, Ms. Faust recommends. Her motto is the Greek proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”
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