US 1 under the Parkway - A highway for bike/ped traffic too

There's another!

I don't know why I was really all that surprised.  I've said before (to myself) that I see pedestrians and cyclists passing under the Garden State Parkway along northbound US 1 in Edison all the time.  But last night (Sunday, Jan. 23rd) the weather was so brutally cold.  And the conditions behind that guardrail under the Parkway must have been incredibly treacherous from the plowed snow and ice over the past couple of weeks.  Yet despite all the obstacles put before them, these intrepid men and women still push through what has got the be the most undesirable but critical bike and pedestrian corridor I know of anywhere in Central Jersey.  If your on foot or on a bicycle your choices in this area are far and few.

I pass through this area once or twice a week on my way up to Union County via Rt 1 and the Parkway.  I can honestly say that I see a pedestrian or a bicyclist pushing their way through this choke point on US 1 roughly 1 out of every 6 times I pass by, day or night.  That's really amazing when you think that it takes me about 20 seconds to drive through this point in a car at highway speed.  If my rough observations are correct then that means as many as 30 pedestrians and bicyclists (combined) are passing though this dangerous corridor every hour!


Pedestrians and cyclists passing through this corridor are so common that one was captured on Google Streetsview as I suspected they might.
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So why are so many so many people using this otherwise treacherous corridor?