Please attend the Ben Franklin Bridge ramp public meeting

What:
          Stakeholders Invited to Provide Input on Camden Access Ramp 

When:
          Tuesday, May 14, 2013 
          6:00pm until 8:00pm 

Where:
          One Port Center, 2 Riverside Dr, 11th Floor,
          Camden, NJ 

The Delaware River Port Authority is inviting bicyclists, walkers, advocates for people for with disabilities and other stakeholders to a public meeting to discuss design options for the access ramp proposed for the south side of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge's New Jersey landing.

The meeting will take place on Tuesday, May 14 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. in the 11th Floor Board Room at One Port Center. A brief presentation will begin at 6:30 pm.

"The project will replace a stairway on the south side of the bridge in Camden with a ramp that meets all accessibility requirements outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act," said Dan Cosgrove, the project engineer. "We expect a completed ramp to encourage more commuter and recreational bridge customers to bike or walk between Philadelphia and Camden."

Participants will be able to examine several conceptual design options. DRPA engineers and design consultants will be on hand to explain the design concepts, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each and answer questions or address concerns.

Stakeholder feedback will be conveyed to the DRPA Board of Commissioners, which will make the final decision about which design to accept. Public inquiries or comments about the project can be emailed to the DRPA at bikeramp@drpa.org.

If you plan on attending please let John Boyle of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia know by registering via this FaceBook event page.

Hoboken announces pilot launch of a new style of Bike Share

The City of Hoboken announced yesterday that it will participate in a six month pilot of a new style of bike share that does away with the docking stations.  Likely to be first application anywhere, Social Bicycles (SoBi) use a "Smart Lock" (pictured below) that eliminates the need for the "Smart Dock" commonly used in most bike share systems like those currently being installed with CitiBike in New York City.

Photo: City of Hoboken / Social Bicycles

According to the Hoboken press release:

Almost all existing bike sharing systems rely on a “smart dock” approach for storing bicycles, which requires expensive infrastructure for the docking stations. The “smart lock” approach relies on bicycles with built-in locks and communications equipment at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems and can be locked to standard bicycle racks.

Sandy Repairs Will Put NJ's "Complete Street Cred" To The Test

Six months after Hurricane Sandy damaged roads and bridges in New Jersey's coastal zone, plans are moving forward to make repairs on major roads.  Most notable is Route 35 between Point Pleasant and Island Beach State Park that was severely damaged to the point of obliteration in Mantoloking. Concurrently Sandy repairs are also helping to expedite planned improvements to the Route 72 Manahawking Bay Bridge between Stafford Township and Long Beach Island. At various points NJDOT officials and press releases have indicated that complete streets treatments will be included in both projects. But the slowly emerging project details are pointing to marginal improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians, and it looks likely that this once in a lifetime opportunity to make significant safety improvements for non-motorized users on these corridors will be punted decades into the future.

Bike and Walk Morristown wins bike corral in national contest!

This is likely old news to many of you but I've been busy.  If you haven't already heard, Bike and Walk Morristown has won the Saris bike corral after a long fought national contest hosted by Saris.  Thanks goes out to all of you that voted via Facebook to help Bike and Walk Morristown win.

Final Score:
645 Morristown, NJ 
595 Concord, Ma 

Yay!!  Their huddled bikes will have a secure place to rest.

112 Wheat Ridge, Co

Besides it just being plan cool that Bike and Walk NM Morristown won this contest, that they garnered so much support from all around New Jersey proves that there is a very passionate, strong, active demand in New Jersey for bicycle transportation amenities.  Bicycle parking is an important part of a bicycle transportation system but it is only one part.  Bicycle lanes and modern, well marked bicycle routes need to be a part of the solution as well and when it comes to on-street bicycle amenities.  Unfortunately, when looking at most towns across the county, in this regard New Jersey communities and towns lag far behind.

Congrats again to Kendra and the Bike and Walk Morristown gang!

Bike on Rail Access Calendar Update Helps Decode Complicated Time Restrictions

As we reported in June of last year NJ TRANSIT made major changes to bike on rail access policies. While the policy did address the issue of low level platform stations and expanded weekend bike capacity on select lines it also created weekend time new restrictions and further defined (and muddled) some holiday restrictions. The access policy is so complicated that conductors and NJ TRANSIT supervisors have a hard time correctly enforcing the policies.

In response we created a calendar page that allows viewers to look at the bicycle policy for the day they wish to travel. We also added the restrictions for the Hudson Bergen Light Rail and the Newark Subway. Today we added bike on rail time restrictions for PATH and SEPTA Regional Rail (for Trenton and West Trenton Stations).

The published bike on rail rules are not always a catch all for exceptions. For example PATH's restrictions do not account for holidays, it seems unlikely that operators will be kicking off cyclists on Christmas. On the opposite end Hudson Bergen Light Rail does not have bike restrictions on state holidays. Most alarmingly NJ TRANSIT has posted on their printed timetable that bicycles are not allowed on the "Last Business Days Before Holidays". The language used to describe the holiday restrictions on the website and the printed timetables are different . Our calendar assumes the worst, that you cannot bring your bikes on those days. We will be asking NJ TRANSIT to clarify this.

Consider yourselves lucky South Jersey, there are no time or holiday restrictions on the PATCO High Speed Line, RiverLINE and the Atlantic City Line. All the buses have bike racks or luggage bays.

Vote early and often for Morristown bike corral

If you haven't done it already, get your Facebook account humming and place your vote for BikeWalkMorristown's quest to win a bike corral in a national contest from Saris Bicycle Racks.  To their credit already, WalkBikeMorristown is one of only three finalists in the contest.  Vote soon for our BikeWalkTown friends, as the contest ends on April 5th.

Look at that motley crew and their forlorn hapless bicycles yearning to be safe and secure with a nice bicycle corral.  Why don't you help make sure that their bicycles have a safe place to rest as their owners go grocery shopping?

As of the time of this post Morristown was trailing a bunch of Yankees from Concord Massachusetts 215 to 196.  Are we going to let a bunch of baked bean eating, Red Soxs and Patriots rooting, "Paaaark da chaaahhh  in Haaarvard Yaaaard" Concordians beat our New Jersey,"How ya' goin'" compatriots?!?!  No way!