Shore Towns Need To Do More For Bicycles

In the Wildwoods (North Wildwood, Wildwood By The Sea, Wildwood Crest and West Wildwood) bike traffic exceeds car traffic on weekday nights. Lights and helmets are so rare that obnoxious car passengers often yell comments at the cyclists that are using lights and wearing helmets.

The resort's service workers are generally composed Foreign Exchange students from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia as well as the local Hispanic population and all rely on used bicycles. So what are shore communities doing to make them bike friendly? Very little and what little is done is very substandard.

This is not a problem confined to the Wildwoods, the same can be said resorts along the Jersey Shore. Lots of bikes with very few amenities.















No Bike parking is provided on the Wildwood Boardwalk, and there are regulations that ban bikes from locking to the boardwalk railings, but the many bicycle dependent employees park to the railings simply because there are no other options.














Surf Ave, has the only marked bike lane in the Wildwoods, but its location in proximity to angle parking and the outdated road markings make these bike lanes clearly substandard. In order for this bike lane to work the parking needs to become back in angle parking and modern bike lane paint and signage are needed.















A couple of men with a truck could literally take away this unsecured bike rack with bikes attached without any tools. Perhaps 90% of the racks on the island are set up this way.












Bike Racks at Morey's Pier Raging Waters demonstrate the importance of the bicycle for transportation at the shore.
















Hourly bike rental places provide instant access to tourists who wish to ride on the boardwalk or the adjacent multi use paths to the north and south.

Wildwood By The Sea which is the commercial center of the island is perhaps the most hostile place on the island to bicycle. The city has no bike lanes and the north-south thorofares are nearly all 4 lane roads with no shoulder.