Martin Ceperley, who is vying for a seat on Maplewood’s Township Committee in this Tuesday’s primary, awoke one morning last year to find a bag of excrement in his driveway. Ceperley was one of the more visible faces of a group pushing for bike lanes on Parker Avenue where he lives and had apparently roused someone’s ire.
The proposed bike lanes faced backlash, but in the end, the Township Committee voted to approve the village’s first-ever bike lanes. The gift left in Ceperley’s driveway was delivered two days after passing that legislation.
Bike lanes are a thorny issue, not just in Maplewood but all across New Jersey. Jersey City also saw similar pushback toward bike lanes on Bergen Avenue. The issue tends to awaken rage in people who believe bike lanes cause congestion, steal coveted street parking, cause more accidents than they prevent, and are a waste of municipal money. These were only a sampling of the public comments from residents on the night of the vote.
Ceperley, a father of three, said he just wanted to make traveling on bike safer for him and his children. “It’s pretty shocking that there is such animosity for a simple bike lane, but it brings up a lot of larger issues that people get upset about,” said Ceperley after a short bike ride from his home to Maplewood Station along the Parker Avenue bike lanes.
“I was raised in Illinois where you hop in a car if you’re going anywhere, even if it’s a half a mile,” he said. “It’s an outdated idea that in a suburb, the only way to get around is a car and every inch of curb space needs to be devoted to parking.”
Parker Avenue was a good candidate for the village’s first bike lanes. It has the look of a quiet, residential side street, but at peak hours it has the traffic of “buses and big trucks,” as one resident described it. It also has one of the highest incidents of crashes in town. While a series of committee meetings was being held last year to design the lanes, one of Ceperley’s friends, John Speck, was caught in a hit-and-run on Parker Avenue that dragged him for a block and landed him in the ICU.
Speck survived, but other cyclists in New Jersey that same year didn’t. Nico Lombardi, 13, was killed while riding a bike. Two Cranford teenagers were fatally injured doing the same. However, as safety concerns about cycling grew, oddly, the acceptance of bike lanes diminished in some places and the state government has made bike ownership more restrictive with new license and registration requirements.
Meanwhile, an interesting thing happened during Ceperley’s push for bike lanes that converged with helping Congresswoman Analilia Mejia’s campaign during the past year — he considered a run for local office.
“I needed to be a community organizer to defend these bike lanes because if we didn’t get people to show up to these meetings, the bike lanes could have been killed by the Township Committee,” he said.
Dressed in a black hoody, Ceperley, 42, may not fit the traditional mold of a staid politician. His Instagram page is chock-full of sarcasm meant to expose, and troll, those who spread online hate for cyclists, which apparently is well supplied. But for his supporters, his candidacy represents more than bike lanes, but a willingness to break the mold and consider new ideas about what his town could look like.
“He has painted a picture of Maplewood — safe street for kids, thriving small businesses, third spaces to congregate — that reflect the type of place I want to live,” Sara Kirkwood, who is helping with his campaign.
Ceperley did assure our publication that if he eventually wins the seat, he’s not going paint bike lanes on every street in Maplewood, despite what some may fear.
“I don’t think every street needs a bike lane,” he said. “The busier roads are the highest priority to address like Prospect Street and Parker Avenue.”
