New Recreational Bike Ride Guides Available

Gleaned from South Jersey News Online

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) released three new, electronic bicycle guides.

The Burlington County Bikeways , Cape May Shoreline Ride and Cumberland Salem Revolution guides encompass over 168 miles of bicycle routes.

The Burlington County Bikeways guide features an eastern loop and western loop that encompasses over fifty miles with views of the scenic Delaware River, historic sites and cranberry bogs in New Jersey's largest county.

The Cape May Shoreline loop route begins and ends at the Cape May Lighthouse. The forty-six mile route encompasses the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, the beaches of Stone Harbor and the Victorian architecture of Cape May City.

The Cumberland Salem Revolution route begins and ends at the historic Fort Mott State Park then passes the historic Hancock House in Lower Alloways Creek and through several New Jersey's farming communities.

All NJDOT bike guides can be downloaded here.

While recreational ride guides are valuable publications they are no substitute for actually signing the roads. New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware all have signed regional bike routes. Signing these roads would have a marked impact on the bicycle tourism industry in NJ.

New Jersey Ranked as 41st Worst State For Bicycling

I congratulate the State for being ranked number 9 among the Bicycle Friendly States, although that is impressive it is also a reflection of a nation that has not invested in bicycling, another words we are the best of a bad lot.

So as King of NJ here is what I will implement to leave the top 5 states in the dust. And while my wild dreams are focused on bicycling, similar strategies could be applied to pedestrian and transit issues. The approach should be that this is part of an infrastructure Marshall Plan that transportation reformers keep talking about, we should not be fighting for the crumbs on the floor.

A - Increase local aid dedicated bikeway funding tenfold. It is only $4 Million annually and it is only for off road projects, Portland Oregon estimates that to build out their bicycle network they will need $150 Million, how much will an urbanized state that has a tiny fraction of that city's infrastructure have to spend? Award bikeway funding only to governments that have adopted bicycle plans. The Governor wants $3 billion to widen the Turnpike and the Parkway. $40 million a year is chump change.

B - Identify and eliminate the existing barriers and hazards.
1- Expand the rapid design team's mission to include fixing bicycling hazards on state roads.
2 - Implement a comprehensive inlet grate replacement program, this should be easy since thieves are stealing these things in earnest.
3 - Require every road engineer in the state complete a bicycle and pedestrian design course. The recent road work that I have seen going on in Camden is appalling: multi lane ramps and turn lanes in front of the Campbells Soup site, a crosswalk in the middle of a right turn lane between Cooper Hospital and Walter Rand TC, push button signals in front of Rutgers at the RiverLINE station, right turn on red is everywhere.

C - Expand the Bicycle and Pedestrian Department
1 - Each of the four district offices should have a full time bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

D - Improve the County's and Municipalities

1 - A complete streets requirement that is tied to local aid money
2 - A requirement that all county and municipal comprehensive plans adopt a bike/ped section or chapter. The state could offer guidelines and planning assistance and review to assure that the county/municipal plans are sound.

E - Improve School Districts
1 - A statewide school siting policy is desperately needed.
2 - Federal Safe Routes to School Funding should be matched by the state.
3 - Implement a statewide bicycle education program

F - Make Transit 100% Bike Accessible
1 - Every new rail car has interior bike racks.
2 - Retrofit buses so that the state is 100% bike accessible by 2010. Every bus has an exterior bike rack (including long distance coaches and contracted carriers).
3 - Eliminate the silly holiday restrictions (short term) and only restrict bicycles on the most crowded trains (long term).
4 - Work on bike parking siting (under cover and close to the platform) and design (no more ribbon racks!).
5 - Increase safe routes to transit funding or at least give transit access weight in expanded bikeway funding

G - Create a State network of signed bike routes

H - Create stronger laws and codes to link land use and transportation planning.

For all it's flaws the Bicycle Friendly States program is a great way to start a conversation on what we need to do.

New Jersey Near Top of Bicycle Friendly States List

As a companion to the Bicycle Friendly Community Program the League of American Bicyclists announced their rankings on Bicycle Friendly States which focuses on policies, laws, funding and implementation on the state level.

Surprisingly New Jersey came in 9th place, the highest ranking on the East Coast. The state was given praise for it's dedicated bike funding (albeit a paltry $4 million), a statewide mountain bike plan, a hands free cell phone law and an exemplary Safe Routes to Schools program.

On the deficiency side the lack of three foot passing law and a complete streets policy show room for more improvement. And let's face it, infrastructure on the ground is sorely lacking, we'll need our 21 counties and 580 municipalities to step up to the plate.

Common Ground Leadership Seminars

Save the Dates!!!

October 29, 2008
Common Ground Leadership Seminar: Walkability (morning)
9am to 12pm
Common Ground Leadership Seminar: Bicycling (afternoon)
1pm to 5pm
Special Events Forum, Rutgers - New Brunswick
Keynote speaker: Michael Ronkin

November 13, 2008
Common Ground Leadership Seminar: Community Trails (morning)
9am to 1pm
Special Events Forum, Rutgers – New Brunswick
Keynote speaker: Craig Della Penna

This fall the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center will host a series of
three Common Ground Leadership Seminars. The seminars build on the
foundation of the 2004 Common Ground Conference, which explored how
community design can support healthy lifestyles, specifically through the
advancement of biking and walking. Each event will feature a presentation
by a national expert on the topic, followed by a local panel discussion.
The seminars are intended to empower local officials, municipal staff, and
advocates with the knowledge to address common political, design, and
funding barriers to creating active, healthy communities. This free event
is sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

The speakers:

Michael Ronkin is a nationally-recognized expert on bicycle and pedestrian
design. Formerly the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager at the Oregon
Department of Transportation, he is currently an independent consultant,
working on everything from individual sites to state and national
guidelines. He is a frequent speaker on roadway safety, aesthetics and
health, and forgotten elements of highway design in America.

Craig Della Penna is the Executive Director of Northeast Greenway
Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in helping communities
develop rail-trails and greenways. He is also a realtor specializing in
properties near rail-trails and greenways, the owner of a bed and
breakfast in Northampton, MA, the general manager of a land conservancy,
an author and a lecturer on the topic of rail trails and greenways.

We are excited to have Michael and Craig speaking at the Common Ground
Leadership Seminars. If you would like to participate, please make these
dates available. A formal announcement with a detailed agenda and RSVP
information will follow. Space is limited. If you have any questions,
please contact us at bikeped@rci.rutgers.edu.

We are still looking for panelists for each of the three sessions. If you
would like to be a panelist, or would like to suggest someone who has a
story to tell about walkability, bicycling or trails, please send us an
email at the above address.

Issue 4 "NJ Walks and Bikes" now available

The good folks in the Voorhees Transportation Center, Bicycle & Pedestrian Resource Center at Rutgers University have released their next installment of the New Jersey Walks and Bikes newsletter. As usual it is a great read.

Read the newsletter at:
http://policy.rutgers.edu/VTC/bikeped/Walks_and_Bikes/Vol2_Issue1/index.html

New Jersey Walks and Bikes will keep you informed about issues, policies, resources, and case studies dealing with the bicycling and walking environment in New Jersey.

Also if you don't already know, make sure to check out the New Jersey Bike/Ped Recourse Center at http://www.njbikeped.org/ . The center is loaded with thousands of documents, photos, design manuals, videos, etc, related directly to bike/ped issues. Also you'll be able to link to back issues of the newsletter as well.

New Jersey is really lucky to have such a great resource focused on bike/ped issues. The website and the center is one of only a few in the entire US and is specifically tailored to the needs of New Jersey which makes it truely unique.

Finally while you are there, make sure you sign up for their bike/ped listserv (It may be hard to find the link so here it is). Once signed up you'll really be "in the loop" about what's going on related to bike/ped issues in New Jersey. Only a few messages a week are posted to the listserv so it won't fill up your in-box either.

One of the best things about signing up for the listserve, is every 5 days or so you'll a get rap up of all the bicycle and pedestrian related news from New Jersey and beyond with their "New Jersey Bike/Ped News Digest." It covers just about every news article, opinion and crash report covered by the New Jersey and nearby media and will also keep you abreast of the most important news reports, articles, etc. regarding bikes and peds from around the US and the world!

Walking School Bus Training Anouncement

The NJ Department of Transportation invites you to a free Walking School Bus Training. The training will be on Thursday, September 18th from 6 pm to 9 pm at the Midstreams Elementary School in Brick TownshipJ.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, September 9th to Leigh Ann Von Hagen at
srts@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-6812 Ext. 613. You can download and share
the announcement at http://tinyurl.com/57wnvk

By the end of this training, participants will have the tools to be able to plan and organize an effective Walking School Bus program in their own communities. The training will be presented by NJ Department of Transportation and the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers.

For more information about the NJ DOT Safe Routes to School Program,
visit http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/community/srts/

Two In A Row and More!

WOW!!!

Even the mainstream NEW JERSEY media is really starting to "Get It" about bikes. First it was NJN News with their favorable coverage on Monday and now The Asbury Park Press with an editorial that pretty much demands bicycle and pedestrian facilities in no less than the strongest terms I've ever heard from a newspaper!

Way to go Asbury Park Press!! I hope you put this editorial in all of your New Jersey Gannett newspapers this week (I've included it below too).

But it even goes back earlier than this week. In fact The Asbury Park Press ran another editorial last week on the topic of bike / ped funding that prompted this response from Kris Kolluri, the NJDOT commissioner.

But that wasn't all. The Home News Tribune also ran a good editorial last week as did the Gloucester County Times (editorial). Then the Courier-Post ran this article last week that had a heavily in favor of bikes.

All of this brew-ha-ha in the news started with the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's recently released report Skimping on Sidewalks 2008: An Analysis of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatalities in New Jersey. So again, another "hats off" to the folks at TSTC for getting this issue into the spotlight.

Now in all fairness the NJDOT does really "Get It" about bikes and peds. Unless you've living under a rock for the past couple of years, you've got to realize that financial times are really tough in New Jersey. Despite such tight state budgets the NJDOT has had the wisdom NOT TO CUT bike/ped funding. It could have been much, much worse. I remember reading a few months ago that some states totally eliminate their bike/ped funds (A big state that begins with a "T" comes to mind but I'm not really 100% sure).

However, the real issue is starting to become a lack of inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities by town and county governments when building a new development or designing and rebuilding roads (I'll have a great fresh example of this from the Trenton Area that I'll hopefully cover next week). The latest Asbury Park Press editorial (the one below) is the first one however that starts to make this connection.

Editorial: Increase funds for bike paths
Asbury Park Press • Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The importance of fighting to change the state's decision to cut funding for bike and pedestrian programs was put into clear focus last week on Long Beach Island, when a 47-year-old Highland Park female on a bicycle was struck by an automobile on Long Beach Boulevard. After treatment on site and at Southern Ocean County Hospital, she was airlifted to AtlantiCare Trauma Center in Atlantic City with a reported head injury.

The establishment of pathways along busy streets could never be more important than today, when so many people are turning to two-wheeled transportation instead of four as a way to save money on gasoline. Riding a bicycle is not only good for the rider, it's also good for the environment and means fewer dollars going into the pockets of Middle East potentates or fat cat oil executives.

Anyone who doesn't think funds are needed to install bike lanes in streets, sidewalks in housing developments and to bolster intersections near schools, needs to talk to the families of the woman run down on Long Beach Island last week, or the 14-year-old boy who was hit by a car in Manchester as he was riding his bike in July, or the 28-year old hit in Toms River in June.

Please write to your state legislators and get more money allocated for bicycle and walking paths and insist every developer who does work in New Jersey be required to include bike paths and sidewalks in his development.