While I'm sure you had the best intentions when you decided to close the NJ state and county parks, let me offer a few reasons why this is a bad move:
1. You are incentivizing the very thing you are trying to prevent. Now instead of taking a walk in the uncrowded county park one hundred yards from my house, I'm driving around to other towns to find open municipal parks and spaces, where I can run, walk my dog, and bike with my wife and kids. So you are causing more movement and forcing people into smaller spaces.
2. You don't want to make it hard for people to exercise. Obesity and heart disease kill FAR more people than Covid-19 ever will. Over 600,00 people a year in the United States die of heart disease. Hundreds of thousands more die from obesity-related diseases. Then there's high blood pressure, depression, etc. And running on the road hurts my knees! The benefits outweigh the costs.
3. Stress and anxiety reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. Nothing combats stress more than exercise (especially in green spaces).
4. You are punishing poor people. People with smaller houses. People that live in apartments. People who don't own large swaths of land. People who live with a large number of people. This is class warfare.
5. With fewer options, people are going to get bored and head to where the virus is actually being spread: Costco, Walmart, convenience stores, and grocery stores. Would you rather have people walking around in parks or convening in those spaces? You're going to cause more people to cough on the soup cans.
6. You are punishing everyone because a few bad apples that congregated in the parks Issue the offenders a steep fine and allow the rest of us-- who are practicing social distancing-- open space in which to walk. These people are going to find other spaces in which to illegally congregate, anyway. At least if they are in parks they can be ticketed and monitored.
7. You are forcing little kids to bike in the streets. You are also encouraging people to drive around more. That's a recipe for disaster. Do you want that on your soul?
8. Without the parks, some people may lapse back into addictive, obsessive, and abusive behaviors. You may see a rise in alcoholism, gambling addiction, spousal abuse, suicide, gun violence, etc.
9. You've seen The Shining, right?
If you agree, send a message to the Governor . . . and sign this petition.
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