NJ Bike - Ped Advisory Council Meetings for 2011

While we are talking schedules here is the list of New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council (NJ BPAC) Meetings for 2011.

Wednesday, March 23 (Room 253)
Thursday, June 9 (Room 253)
Thursday, September 8 (Room 261)
Thursday, December 8 (Room 261)

All meetings will be held from 10:00am – Noon at the Edward J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.

Meeting reminders and agendas will be sent out in advance of each meeting from both the good folks at the Voorhees Transportation Center that host the meetings and from us at WalkBikeJersey.

East Coast Greenway Plans Spring Walks

The East Coast Greenway Alliance is challenging people to walk 100 miles this year along the ECG in NJ. People can walk the miles anywhere along the Greenway but the Alliance is hosting three specific events that you can attend. To sign up click on the corresponding link.

• April 9, 2011 – “Great Canal Walk” Trenton to New Brunswick – www.TR2NB40.org
• April 16, 2011 - New Brunswick to Metropark – www.nb2mp10.drupalgardens.com
• May 21, 2011 – “The Big Walk” - Metropark to Penn Station, NYC – www.NJ2NY50.org

How is your town handling the needs of pedestrians in all this snow?

So despite being hammered with snow this winter and facing a difficult budget, my hometown of North Brunswick has been paying special attention to the needs of pedestrians this year for the first time.  Bravo!

By the typical nature of plow operations, snow gets piled up extra high at corners right where pedestrians need to cross.  For many, many years huge piles of snow were left on these street corners without any concern as to how pedestrians were to navigate the area.  Local residents, whose responsibility it would be to clear the sidewalk, just couldn't handle clearing a path for peds when heavy dense snow was piled anywhere from 6 to 12 feet high.

However this year, North Brunswick's DPW has been going out and clearing pathways through the massive corner piles with a NEW special piece of equipment.  They are doing so a day or two after the streets have been properly cleared of snow.  It does seem that they are concentrating their efforts in neighborhoods like mine which are in walking distance to schools, which would make sense and is a wise use of limited resources.

The new snow blower to the rescue after last weeks storm.  They've been back since to clear the spoils from the latest storm.

Good old- fashioned shovels work well too.

How are things going along in your town?  Are pedestrians and cyclists left to fend for themselves or are sidewalks and multi-use trails that are popular commuting routes being cleared?  Let us know!

New buses with bike racks gradually coming to NJ TRANSIT north fleet

At this months meeting of the Middlesex County Transportation Coordinating Committee Meeting this past Tuesday, there was a representative from NJ TRANSIT present.  I took the opportunity to ask the representative about the status of the new, low-floor buses entering the North Jersey Region bus fleet owned and operated by NJ TRANSIT.  Earlier this Winter, I had seen one of these new buses with an unoccupied bike rack while visiting family in Nutley, NJ.

Bike on older style NJ TRANSIT bus.  Photo John Boyle, BCGP.

The NJ TRANSIT representative told me that NJ TRANSIT has received some of the long-anticipated new low-floor buses and that those received, are already in service with the bike racks installed.  However, NJ TRANSIT will continue to operating many of their older style buses in the Northern Fleet WITHOUT bike racks installed as the new buses continue to be delivered.  Since an individual bus is not reserved for a single route, and may be used on different routes on different days and times, NJ TRANSIT cannot guarantee that individual routes nor particular scheduled buses will be serviced by the new buses with bike racks.  As such, passengers should not rely on buses having the capability to carry bicycles until all the new buses are received and the old buses retired.

No date was given as to when all the new buses would be received and the old buses retired.

NY/NJ Trail Conference Annual Winter Meeting, Feb 18th

The below come to WalkBikeJersey via the NY/NJ Trail Conference website as is reproduced here for your information.  More information about the meeting can be found on this NY/NJ Trail Conference webpage:

Accessible by walking from Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Port Authority Bus Terminal and all subway lines. To make a donation to the event, please click on donatenow.

Please RSVP by February 4 by contacting Joanne Reinhardt, Membership Manager, at jreinhardt@nynjtc.org.

Sponsored by New York Hiking Club with special thanks to Robert Ward

3:00pm: Hikes
A Hike Through Midtown: "New York Seen and Unseen" Robert Ward, New York Hiking Club, and Pat O'Malley, Urban Trails Conference, will lead. Meeting on the southwest corner of 34th Street & Seventh Avenue.
Walking the East River: Cy Adler, author of Walking Manhattan's Rim: The Great Saunter, will lead.  Meeting at Staten Island Ferry Terminal, at the foot of the escalators.

3:15-4:40 pm
Trails, Hiking and New York City
A workshop on projects in New York
City open to all NYC members of the
Trail Conference
4:45-6:00 pm
Open Space Advocacy in 2011
A workshop with Jan Barry, activist, journalist, poet. Learn more about Jan at www.janbarry.net
6:00-7:00 pm
Food, Drink, Social (Please RSVP!)
7:00 pm
Meeting
Keynote Speaker: Tony Hiss
Author of In Motion: The Experience of Travel. Learn more about Tony at www.howwetravel.org
Chris Connolly, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Trail Conference, presiding 

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.
View Larger Map

So why are so many so many people using this otherwise treacherous corridor? 

People for Bikes asks Americans to write Congress

The following message comes to WalkBikeJersey from Time Blumenthal, Director at People for Bikes.org:

We need you to send a short email today to your U.S. Representative that:

• Bicycling and walking are essential to our communities.
   

• Federal transportation investments that support these activities boost our economy, help individuals and government agencies save money, and directly address key societal challenges such as obesity and road congestion.
   

• Biking and walking currently total 12% of the trips that Americans make but cost just 1.5% of our transportation spending. That’s the type of cost effectiveness we need now!