Saturday, March 29, 2014

On the Eve of Bike Share Hoboken Seeks to Build Out its Bike Network

According to NJ.com Hoboken is about to vote on expanding its bike network to near build out status.

"The City Council on Wednesday will consider a $13,000 planning contract for new lanes on six Hoboken streets: Willow Avenue, Park Avenue, Garden Street, Hudson Street, First Street and Newark Street,according to council documents. The council plans to vote on whether to award the contract to Boswell McClave Engineering, which would prepare lane striping plans for the streets..."

If the measure passes and the lane markings are completed then 10 of the 14 north-south streets in the City will have some type of on-road bicycle facility (bike lanes or sharrows) with the only major gaps remaining being the interruptions of the Hudson River Greenway along Frank Sinatra Drive (and arguably Steven's Tech).

With only about 2 months before the debut of (the tentatively named) HudCoBikeShare, Hoboken is set to be well ahead of its other bike share partners (Jersey City and Weehawken) in getting the needed infrastructure on the ground. If data collection is as good and open as other bike sharing operations (including CitiBike) we should get a good picture on how this contrast affects the usage patterns of the program.


Nextbike kiosk in Germany. Nextbike is the supplier for HudCoBikeShare

1 comment:

Andrew J. Besold said...

Hmmm... The 800lbs gorilla in Hoboken remains Washington Street which will again not be given any bike lanes. While VERY busy with a myriad of traffic modes, it is sill the primary commercial destination in town so if you want to use your bike to do any shopping or other commerce you will need to ride on it at some point.

I applaud Hoboken for being the leader in bicycle and pedestrian facilitation in New Jerseys but Washington Street needs to be addressed. It is also the only street that I regularly see other bicyclists when I've been in town. Latent AND active demand!