WalkBikeJersey releases super-accurate, interactive New Jersey campground map for your summer bike tour

Looking to do some bike touring this summer around New Jersey?  Want a cheap place to stay?  Like to go camping?  Take a look at the VERY detailed interactive NJ Campground Map that we put together for the NJ Bike Map a few years ago.  Both publicly (National, State & County Parks) and privately operated campgrounds have been included here. Click on the campground icons for detailed info about that campground including contact info, number of sites and amenities.  Only campgrounds that one could use for cycling touring have been included.  Members and RV only campgrounds have not been included (ones that appeared to be defacto trailer parks have also been avoided).  Each icon is VERY accurately placed on the map, usually placed either on the campground office or in the center of campground.  Have fun exploring New Jersey on your bike this summer! 

View New Jersey Campgrounds in a larger map

Really cool is the NEW campground on Sandy Hook! Opened by the National Park Service two years ago, this is the only place you can camp on the Jersey Shore AND it's right off the really nice Sandy Hook Bike Path.

Also note, unlike most State and National Parks in the American West, New Jersey Park Campgrounds do not have special "Hiker / Biker" sites for the "passing through" bike tourist (Hint, hint, NJ Parks and Forests!) and rangers will turn you away at nightfall even after a long day on the bike (yes, this actually happened to me).  Advanced reservations for State Park sites require a two day minimum stay which is not useful for the passing cycle tourist and VERY expensive at $50 for two nights ($60 for non-residents)!  NJ State Parks used to hold open a number of campsites for day-of arrivals.  One used to be able to call that morning and make a reservation for a campsite the same night.  We are not sure if that is still the case so do your own research and call ahead. 

Overall, weekends will likely be booked out, weekdays less likely. Some campgrounds might be worth two nights stay like those near rivers, lakes and beaches where one can take a break from the road.

While I've made some updates, please note that this map dates back a few years. Last we checked, the very popular campground at Bulls Island on the Delaware River, north of Labertville has been permanently close (updated on map). Some other campgrounds may have also closed since this map was put together. Call ahead!

NJ somehow hangs on to #7 in Bicycle Friendly States rankings

In a state where bike lanes remain a novelty, it's hard to believe that New Jersey continues to rank in the Top 10 of the Bicycle Friendly State rankings.  Yes, there are scores great people working on making New Jersey a better place to walk and bike including Sheree Davis and her colleagues at NJDOT,  the gang at the Voorhees Transportation Center - Bike/Ped Resource Center, Cyndi Steiner at the NJ Bike and Walk Coalition, Janna Chernetz at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, John Boyle here at WBJ and at The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and numerous local groups like Walk Bike Morristown, West Windsor Bike/Ped Alliance, Bike&Walk Montclair and Bike JC to name a few.  But still!  It just doesn't seem right. 

According to the League of American Bicyclists rankings, New Jersey is blowing away California ranked at #19 (Seriously?!?!) which has long been at the cutting edge of bicycle accommodation and has dozens of the best Bicycle Friendly Communities, Universities and Businesses.  We also outrank Wisconsin and they have Bike Share at the steps of their capitol in Madison!  

So lets review:

• Again, bike lanes are an extremely rare sight in New Jersey, never mind ones that are actually compliant with MUTCD and AASHTO standards.
• Our "Best in the Nation" Complete Streets Policies are routinely ignored, forcing advocates to waste valuable time on campaigns (1, 2, 3). This is a BIG DEAL right now as the state rebuilds from Hurricane Sandy. Even when NJDOT does build for bicyclists, the designs for on-street bike facilities are far from optimal. “Bicycle Compatible Shoulders,” aka “the same exact design we would have built if bicycles didn’t exist” is the go-to bicycle facility. 
• NJ TRANSIT is the only transit agency in North America that has actually regressed on bicycle access. It recently added weekend restrictions on it’s trains that never existed before. Bicycle parking at stations is far from accepted standards. NJ TRANSIT doesn’t have a bike/ped coordinator.
• New Jersey perennially ranks in the middle of most categories in the Alliance for Biking and Walking Benchmarking Report.
• Our Vehicle Code needs a major overhaul. It is so bad that the NJ Supreme Court recently passed a ruling on the code that correctly (in my expert opinion) concluded that bicycles CANNOT ride in the roadway shoulder (So much for “Bicycle Compatible Shoulders”). We have no safe passing law and it is unclear in the code if drivers can pass, or cross the double yellow to pass, bicyclists when safe.  The folks at VTC worked really hard with a number of advocates for over a year to remedy this, only to see the work languish.
• Not a single county or municipality in New Jersey has a full-time bicycle/pedestrian coordinator.

Yes, New Jersey does a lot of things very well. I won’t deny that, but progress is painfully slow and in many areas, non-existent. A wake-up call was sorely needed for the powers-that-be in New Jersey. A demotion out of the Top 10 would have done that. #20 seems much more appropriate. Treading water at #7 I feel is in most ways counterproductive.

Op-Ed: Hey, New Jersey's political leaders! Bicycling Means Business!

I am the mayor of a city.  As far as this discipline is concerned, it's about talent attraction.  It's about attracting business.  I have to create the kind of city that attracts talent.  And putting in bike lanes and trails is a part of that.  People in their teens, twenties and thirties are looking for bike lanes and trails.  They are looking for that kind of connectivity.  They are looking for multi-modal transportation and that's what we are trying to do.

Those are the words of the Republican Mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard, who gave a key speech at this years National Bike Summit.  If you've been following the bike advocacy news this past week you know that the National Bike Summit happened last week.  Maybe you were even lucky enough to go and if you did, you knew that the theme of this year's Summit was "Bicycling Means Business."  To get a good understanding of the gist of the Summit, take a look at this great (as always) rundown video by Clarence at Streetfilms.  Mayor Ballard's speech is in there.


Unfortunately, most New Jersey political leaders remain completely unaware of how bicycling is transforming cities and towns all across the U.S.  Yes there are our darling towns of Hoboken and Ocean City.  Political leader in these towns seem to be "full in," but leaders in other towns that talk a good game on bicycle issues, I believe, don't have a complete grip on what will be require of them and of their towns to make them truly bike friendly.

One major indicator of how serious a community or town takes bicycling is the presence of a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator on full-time staff.  Save for Rutger's University, not one town, county or other institution has a full-time, exclusive bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.  Meanwhile, not far from New Jersey, the City of Rockville Maryland (population: 62,334), is hiring a full-time bike/ped coordinator.  Yes, with only 62,334 people Rockville has there very own full-time bike/ped coordinator!  There are many towns in Jersey that have at least that many residents, and many others with much more.

So why are New Jersey's towns and so late to the table?  Why don't any of our towns or even counties have a full-time bike/ped coordinator?  Why are bike lanes still a rarity in our streetscapes?  NJDOT is an innovator in policy, and Rutgers University hosts one of the few centers in the nation dedicated to bicycle and pedestrian research and Rutgers is also home to John Pucher, the nation's leading bicycle and pedestrian scholar.  Why the disconnect between the state and it's agencies and our local governments where bicycle and pedestrian improvements would be of most use?  

Well one theory is that those other states have nothing better to spend those Federal Transportation Enhancement monies (soon, if not already Transportation Alternative dollars), while New Jersey spends almost all of it to help run and fund the nation's only state-wide transit agency, NJ TRANSIT.  But I think its more fundamental than that.  I just think local leaders still don't "get it." 

There are glimmers of hope outside of the usually places, namely in Jersey City, Newark and New Brunswick but change has been still been slow.  Bike lanes are still rare in these towns but some good ones have popped lately.  However, none of these places have yet made an investment in that big indicator of bike friendliness, a full-time bike/ped director. Even Hoboken and Ocean City haven't yet.

Significant, tangible change needs to happen soon and it will need to happen fast if New Jersey and it's towns hope to catch up.  Other cities outside of New Jersey have woken-up long ago to the power of the bicycle to transform their cities and communities.  Those cities outside of New Jersey are not just riding away from us but are breaking into a full sprint while our leaders are just starting to look at the bicycle, trying to figure out how the thing works, so to speak.  If we don't change fast, New Jersey will continue to see the drain of its young best and brightest to out-of-state cities and towns that do "get it" and know that Bicycling Means Business.

New Jersey Opens Up Round Of Transportation Enhancements

The following originally appeared on the Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News:

While the doomday clock on Transportation Enhancements (TE) is ticking, New Jersey has announced one more round of TE that can fund bicycle and pedestrian projects including Circuit trails.

Funds are available for design, right of way acquisition, and construction. Selection of TE projects involves the participation of civic and environmental groups, the transportation community, and other government organizations such as the state’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations. The solicitation letter from Commissioner James Simpson invites those with construction-ready projects.

The application deadline is July 17th. For more information, go to the New Jersey DOT Transportation Enhancements web page.

Marty announces New Jersey's first Gran Fondo in Morristion

Those of us in attendance at yesterday's NJ Bicycle Map workshop, we were given a bit of a scoop from Marty Epstein of Marty's Reliable Cycle as he let us know that he would be announcing New Jersey's first Gran Fondo cycling event today. Scheduled for Sunday, August 28th in 2011, the Gran Fondo will be the feature event of a three day bicycle extravaganza that Marty expects to attract 1000 to 3000 participants to Morristown.

For more, read the article in today's Morristown Green. More details to come as we get them at WalkBikeJersey.

NJBWC seek RSVPs for 2011 New Jersey Bike/Walk Summit

New Jersey's second bike summit - actually, it's first Bike/Walk Summit - will be held on Saturday, February 26, 2011, in Trenton, NJ. As the New Jersey Bike and Walk Coalition organizes the summit, that's happening in just over 3 months, they need to get a tentative count of the number of people that are likely to attend. The Coalition needs to know if they should rent out the 100 seat room or the bigger one that can hold 500 people.

From the response they already got from the Coalition membership, it looks like they will go with the bigger venue but to help them out (and to prevent jamming Jim Nicholson's email box) I would like people who plan on attending (and who haven't RSVP'd directly to Jim) to reply to blog message and simply say "I'm gonna' be there!" That way Jim can get an idea without getting a gazillion emails.

Please reply just once so we might be able to use the post count for a simple rough tally. DO NOT reply if you already told Jim directly that you will be attending the Summit.

New Jersey drivers the dumbest in the Nation

New Jersey may rank at the top in general education scores but that somehow doesn't mean a thing when it come to how stupid we are when it comes to our driving. GMAC Insurance again released its results on driver competence (see CNN story) where they polled drivers of their behaviors and tested them using questions from a general written drivers exam (not state specific). The results for New Jersey drivers were dismal; literally at the bottom of the barrel. Nearly 40% of New Jersey drivers would fail a sample driving test, which is 3.6% more then the next worst state. Unfortunately little has changed in the past 3 years GMAC has been doing the survey (see this GMAC Insurance web page).

U.S. Average Test Scores
(Source: GMAC Insurance)

Check out the below chart for the breakdown by state from this CNN sidebar. Naturally, you'll need to scroll all the way down to find New Jersey.

Powered by Tableau

New Jersey moves up to 8th in Bicycle Friendly Rankings: Also receives Bronze Level Award

Watch out #5, Oregon! Were coming for you next!

I don't know how the heck we managed to rank so high in the League of American Bicyclists, Bicycle Friendly States 2010 Rankings but we did. I'm just flabbergasted. Heck! Even California ranked a mediocre 19th.

Well, actually I do have idea why we ranked so well and here's how.

To start, NJDOT continues to work hard to make walking and bicycling safer in New Jersey. NJDOT has a full-time staff of 5 working on bike/ped issues and good track record over the past decade or so in helping local communities fund and plan bicycle and pedestrian projects. As an additional part of the Bike/Ped Program, NJDOT also has 3 consultant firms under contract to aid local communities come up with bike/ped plans and help NJDOT review highway projects for bike/ped friendliness. Even in our current budget mess and with a new administration, it seems like these NJDOT programs might be spared any trimmings from the budget axe. And not to be forgotten, late in 2009 NJDOT issued a Complete Streets Policy which is a really big deal and is something very few states can say.

Along with what NJDOT does in Trenton, it also helps to fund (with the aid of federal monies) the New Jersey Bicycle & Pedestrian Resource Center and the New Jersey Safe Routes to School Resource Center at Rutgers University which employs the equivalent of about 5 full-time staff working on these issues. Part of what these two centers do is research and education along with hosting the New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council amongst many other tasks.

To complement the work and improvements at NJDOT, there was the formation of the New Jersey Bicycle Coalition in 2009 and the first New Jersey Bicycle Summit this year that they helped to host with NJDOT. Both were critical in helping boost New Jersey's rankings. Without the Coalition and the Summit I'm convinced that New Jersey would have fallen in the rankings despite the Complete Streets Policy promulgated in December.

Overall, bicycling in New Jersey is better today than it was in 2009 or any year before anyone was keeping score. However, bike lanes are scarcer in New Jersey than zits on a supermodel's backside (but somehow we ranked 3rd for infrastructure) and New Jersey is one on only a handful of states that still don't have a single Bicycle Friendly Community even though there are at least one or two that could attain it if only they applied for it. If we have any hope to maintain or even improve our spot in these rankings these two area will need to see improvement which will require the full cooperation of both municipal and county governments. Also, we will need to move forward on a bicycle legislation agenda (something the NJBPAC has been hard at work putting together already) and work more closely with local law enforcement to better educate the police on the finer points of bicycle law along with proper and safe bicycle operation.

Here is New Jersey's 2010 BFS Rankings by Category:

Legislation - 15th: Tie with 10 other states (Ranking seems fair)
Policy & Programs - 3rd: Tie with 8 other states (Ranking seems fair, well deserved)
Infrastructure - 3rd: (Really?!?! I don't know how we ranked so high)
Education - 31st: Tie with 3 other states (Really?!?! That low, even with NJ BIKE SChOOL running in 2009?)
Evaluation - 9th: Tie with 9 other states (Ranking seems fair)
Enforcement - 25th: Tie with 12 other states (Ranking seems fair, I guess)

Below are the Top 20 (of 50) Bicycle Friendly States:

1. Washington - Silver*
2. Wisconsin - Silver*
3. Maine
4. Minnesota - Bronze*
5. Oregon - Silver*
6. New Hampshire
7. Iowa
8. New Jersey - Bronze*
9. Arizona - Bronze*
10. Delaware - Bronze*
11. Maryland
12. Florida
13. Kansas
14. Colorado
15. Massachusetts
16. Michigan
17. Wyoming
18. Virginia
19. California
20. Nevada