On the verge of victory for restored bicycle access on NJ TRANSIT trains

... again with a bike?

If you been reading the papers lately you may have caught these two stories (Star-Ledger, Bergen Record) about the NJ TRANSIT board considering restoring complete station access for bicyclists on NJ TRANSIT trains.  We at WalkBikeJersey are very proud of this pending victory as we broke the story in late August of 2011, first testified before the NJ TRANSIT Board in September about the issue and started the petition that asked Commissioner Simpson to reverse this policy.

However we couldn't have done it without you!  Over 300 cyclists from all over New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and even beyond signed our petition which made Commissioner Simpson take notice.

Thank You!

Overall we are very happy with the results of the Bicycle Policy Subcommittee meeting and the recommendations they came up.  But the recommendations include one provision that is of concern. We suggest that NJ TRANSIT table the idea of a new bike permit and take time to explore other options. The restoration of bike permits (abolished by NJ TRANSIT in 2000) could hamper bike access for infrequent users of the rail system, such as tourists and casual riders. Imagine for example a cyclist who suffers a mechanical problem and attempts to get back home via the train and is denied boarding because they did not have a permit. We support the spirit of the permit's intention to enlighten cyclists on the rules for bike access. But this could be accomplished more easily by posting the rules at stations and onboard the trains themselves.

We at WBJ would like to thank Jerry Foster of the West Windsor Bike Ped Alliance and Charles Brown of the Voorhees Transportation Center who were both very familiar with our concerns and attended the Bicycle Policy Subcommittee meeting.  We were very happy to hear that they attended.  Also we like to thank Neile Weissman of the New York Cycle Club (NYCC) for making the Bicycle Policy Subcommittee meeting and testifying before the NJ TRANSIT Board back in February.  The role of the NYCC can not be underestimated.  Not only did they revive or petition after it ran out of New Jersey steam by adding dozens of new signatories but they showed the importance of NJ TRANSIT and cycling to New Jersey tourism.

Most of all we would like to thank Commission Simpson and the NJ TRANSIT Board for keeping an open mind on this issue.  We at WBJ look forward to continuing to help NJ TRANSIT and NJDOT to make bicycle access and cycling in New Jersey the best in the nation.  The potential is there!

Below is the list of recommendations by the NJ TRANSIT Bicycle Policy Subcommittee.  If you will notice they go beyond simple restoration of bicycle access.  It's a great start!

1. The Subcommittee understands the rationale for continuing the current bicycle boarding prohibition on peak-period trains.
2. Bicycles and Segways should be treated separately in the policy due the much heavier weight of the Segway.
3. The boarding and detraining of bicycles should be permissible at all stations, including low-level platform stations at off-peak times.
4. Conductors should be given discretion to allow bicycles to be moved through train cars based on individual situations and conditions.
5. Improve signage and use larger stickers on train doors and in the areas reserved for bicycles on trains.
6. Work with TMAs to better inform cyclists about bicycle boarding rules and procedures.
7. Issue lifetime Bicycle boarding passes that list NJT boarding rules and provide opportunity to better communicate with cyclists who use trains. (A small processing fee may be assessed.) 
8. Increase use of bicycle storage on multi-level trains to practical capacity available rather than limiting to two bicycles, as is the current policy.
9. Bicycle hooks for vertical storage should be included in future train equipment procurements when possible and without reducing train seating capacity. 

Finally, please come down to Newark on Monday, June 11th at 9am to the NJ TRANSIT Headquarters to show your support for these recommendations (save #7) and the thank the Commissioner and the NJ TRANSIT Board.  We'll keep you updated!

Are more cyclists getting hit from behind than ever before?

The following story first appeared on the Bike Delaware Blog and appears here with the author's permission.


Who is telling the truth?

Is it this one, claiming that 7% of bicycle-related accidents are hit from behind, or this one, saying cars run into bicyclists from behind only 3.8% of the time, or this one telling us getting hit from behind is extremely unlikely?

Or, is the League of American Bicyclists latest fact finding initiative “Every Bicyclist Counts” going to prove them all wrong, with current statistics showing that 1 in 4 crashes involve drivers hitting bicyclists from behind?

Since there is little about this on-line or in LAB’s website as of yet (nothing searchable, anyway) below is page 3 of a letter that came in the mail today, appealing for funds:

 

 

We already know how woefully inadequate the police and media are at reporting these tragedies. Do they accurately reconstruct the accident or crime scene before defaulting to bicyclist at fault? Most often, a hate-filled verdict is already delivered against the bicyclist in the comments section of a newspaper, even if the evidence clearly shows otherwise.

In reviewing the materials and website, we applaud the League for taking on this enormous challenge, to bring these depressing statistics up to date.

Reminder:  May 16th, 2012 is the Ride of Silence. The mission of the world wide Ride of Silence is to honor bicyclists killed by motorists, promote sharing the road, and provide awareness of bicycling safety.

This report first appeared in The Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News and appears here with their permission.

The Princeton Patch reported that a 58-year old Trenton man was struck by a motorist while cycling and killed on US-1. The crash happened just after 9:30 on Monday morning at the merge with the off ramp from I-295. Aguedo Cruz, 59, died shortly after the crash at Capital Health System Regional Medical Center in Trenton.


View PA/NJ Bicycle Crashes 2011-2012 in a larger map

Like many US Highway arterials in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, US-1 is inhospitable for bicyclists and pedestrians. However, Route 1 is also a commercial corridor where people work, visit the doctor, and shop. Thus bicycle and pedestrian traffic persists despite previous efforts of highway engineers to make it nearly impossible to do so. This tragedy is another reminder that re-configuring our existing suburban road network to make Complete Streets is not only desirable but a matter of life and death.

We mourn the death of Aguedo Cruz and offer our sympathy to his family and friends.

Is New Jersey Up For The National Bike Challenge?

Did somebody get the memo?

Bike Commuter Challenges have been a staple program of Transportation Management Agencies (TMA's) since the 1990's in order to encourage more people to ride to work. Prizes are awarded for people who commute the most times or the most miles. These efforts have been local affairs with each TMA or other alternative transportation group holding their own individual contest with prizes and drawings.

This year with the help of Kimberly-Clark, The League of American Bicyclists , Bikes Belong and the smart phone GPS tracking software from Endomondo that challenge has gone nationwide. The "Get Up And Ride" National Bike Challenge is reaching for the goal of getting 50,000 people to bicycle 10 million miles by August, 31, 2012. Since May 1st nearly 20,000 people have signed up and logged in more than a half of million miles.


One nice aspect of the challenge is the weight that is given for simply taking a bike ride. You earn 1 point a mile, but each day you ride, no matter how short the trip earns you 20 points. Earning more points puts you in a higher prize category (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum). So the über commuters and roadie cyclists can pile on the miles on to go for the better prizes (which are picked by random drawings) but even someone who takes their bike out on the boardwalk "down the shore" for three days this summer is eligible to win. Participants can also build teams using the Endomondo website and mobile Apps (ITunes) (Google Play) - which has a social networking component. You can for example invite your Facebook Friends to join you or find other people you know already enrolled in the Challenge.

The dynamics are impressive, you can see for instance how communities (metro areas) are stacking up against each other, you can also compare states and workplaces as well as teams.

To date New Jersey has not been a leader in this contest, ranking 43 out of 51 states in points (calculated by participants and miles per capita) tracking well behind the notable bike meccas of Arkansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Out of the 19,780 riders only 212 are from the Garden State.

New Jersey Needs You...To Log Your Bike Trips!

So do your civic duty, sign up for the Challenge and good luck!

Updated NJ Bike Map available to review and comment; Meetings to come

Even Lance needs to check the map sometimes

NJDOT is holding a series of meetings to introduce and discuss the final draft of the New Jersey Statewide Bicycle Map and Resource Guide. In addition to attending the meetings, interested members of the public can comment on the maps via the NJ Bike Map Project website.

The bike map is intended to be a resource for education, advocacy, and trip planning. It includes locations of bike lanes and major multi-use trails. Roads are graded as Most Suitable, Moderately Suitable, and Least Suitable. The three grades for evaluated roads is not unlike the ratings for the BCGP regional bike map, but  with a different methodology being used the road ratings may differ on the respective maps.

WalkBikeJersey has been on top of this project from the beginning with extensive analysis.  We were flattered to find out that NJDOT and the project consultants have taken almost all of our suggestions to heart even though that meant totally reworking the project.  The updated draft map is a great improvement from the original draft and has now become a useful navigation tool for cyclists.

That said, it could be even better (I know, always the perfectionist).  While we are very grateful of the massive effort that went into rating the bicycle suitability of hundreds of roads, the end results is still less than perfect.  Some roads that I know to be perfectly dreamy to ride a bicycle on, at any time and on any day, are rated as "Least Suitable" while others that I would only be caught dead on are rated as "Moderately Suitable" (at least they weren't rated as "Most Suitable").   The more I study the latest map, the more it seems apparent to me that only roadway width and speed limit was use to calculate bicycle suitability and the most crucial factor "traffic volume" ignored.  Maybe the data on traffic volume wasn't available but as I discussed in WBJ's prior analysis, traffic volume is the most critical factor when determining bicycle suitability. 

The result is that if one takes just a cursory glance at the map one would think that New Jersey is a horrible place to ride a bike as the red lines of Least Suitable roads dominate.  We all know that's not true.  Cycling in New Jersey rocks!  Whether that be on the bucolic roadways near the Sergeantsville Covered Bridge in rural Hunterdon County or riding high above the Hudson on JFK Blvd in Union City, Hudson County.  And where road conditions do suck, there is almost always a bicycle friendly alternative.

On a more positive note, the scale of the latest drafts has been enlarged so that fine details are easier for cyclists to read but I still wish it was larger.  And finally, for all you bike tourists out there, all public and private campgrounds that are tent camping friendly have been accurately mapped.  This is courtesy of yours truly here at WalkBikeJersey who spent nearly 60 hours of researching and digitizing a campground data layer for NJDOT and their consultants to use.

Don't forget to give you comments and to attend the meetings.  Three meetings will be held in the North, South and Central parts of the state:

Tuesday, April 24
1:30pm-3:00pm
The George Luciano Family Center
Cumberland County College
Vineland, NJ

Thursday, April 26
1:30pm-3:00pm
Frelinghuysen Arboretum
53 East Hanover Avenue
Morristown, NJ

Thursday, May 10
10:00am-11:30am
NJDOT Headquarters
1035 Parkway Avenue
Trenton, NJ
Tuesday, April 24

If you choose to review and comment you must register as a user on the bike map website.

The original version of this post first appeared in the Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News published by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.  It was edited and reposted in with their permission.

$27 million for Newark streets but barely a dime for bicyclists

Show me the bike lanes!

It's hard to believe that in this day and age, in New Jersey with the nations best Completes Streets policy no less, that a massive sum of money could be spent on improving the traffic safety in a major city and save for one small exception, bicycle facilities are left off the table.

On April 10th, the Newark Patch reported on a the infusion of $27 million to be spent on over a dozen roadway projects in the city.  While almost every one of these projects make major improvements in pedestrian safety, only a single project, the Irving Turner / Jones / Norfolk corridor will receive bike lanes and that's likely only because the roadway is part of the East Coast Greenway.  With the 12 other projects listed, there is no mention about the installation of a bike lane, bike path, bike parking or a bike route.  I find it highly unlikely that there are no other streets on this project list that couldn't use some bicycle infrastructure.  This is a real shame considering that every one of the streets impacted by this massive injection of capital improvement funds will likely not be looked at for another 10 years, if not more.

To put the poor state of "bicycling level of service" in the Brick City into perspective, I need to tell you a story.  Recently, I made an unlikely bicycle journey from New Brunswick all the way up to the Bike NY offices just off Columbia University in Manhattan.  No mass transit.  No ferry.  Just the GWB.  The trip was remarkably easy up until I entered the City of Newark.  From New Brunswick to Elizabeth, I was able to use quite residential streets and overly wide county roads that only have one lane in each direction, relatively light traffic and little parking.

Oddly enough, while Newark was built on a modified grid network, the are no clear north/south or east/west routes that are light on traffic and easy for cyclists to navigate.  Once I left relative calm of Weequahic Park, I was thrust onto mean Elizabeth Ave that was packed with rush-hour traffic.  It took all my speed (with a 30mph tailwind) and all my vehicular cycling skills for me to safely navigate up to Lincoln Park and then over to the relative safety of Iron Bound backstreets.  Once I made it across Truck 1&9 (on the new and "soon to improved some more" sidewalk) and into Jersey City, the riding again became relatively easy and enjoyable.  Riding across Jersey City, into Hoboken and northward to Fort Lee was fairly easy because the roadway network naturally has options that aren't choked with traffic.  Even major streets leading up to the Jersey City Waterfront were nearly deserted, even during rush-hour, due to smart planning policies long in development in Jersey City that are now proving their benefits by allowing residents to get to work by other means.

Again, I hope my judgement is off-base.  Maybe I just don't have all the facts.  Yes, the traffic calming measures will indirectly improve bicyclist safety by slowing down traffic.  However some of these could put bicyclists into jeopardy if the needs of bicyclists are not expertly and competently considered when these traffic calming measures are designed.  However, I still find it very unlikely that none of the other projects, besides the one listed above, couldn't benefit from some, if not a whole host of bicycle amenities.

Four cyclists hit Easter Sunday by suspended driver

Photo by John Degutis via NJ Herald

Some of you may have heard about this crash as we at WBJ were informed of it from the good folks down at the NJDOT Bike/Ped offices.  For details about the crash see this well reported story from The New Jersey Herald.

Despite the cyclists riding single file on the right side of the roadway, 25-year-old Robert Whitesell, of Frankford, struck all four of them, one after another in rapid succession.  Whitesell, who's license was already suspended, hit the four cyclists and then fled.  He was also involved in another crash earlier in the day.

Whitesell was charged with reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to report an accident and driving while suspended in this crash.  However once again an unlicensed/suspended driver hits a pedestrian or a bicyclist and is once again not charged with more serious charges like reckless indifference or assault with a deadly weapon.  How much more egregious must a drivers actions be before law enforcement starts charging drivers like the felonious criminals they really are?!?!  The laws need to change that make driving an automobile without a license a felony, period!  Crash or no crash!

As for a possible New Jersey "three-foot passing law," if it were written like most others across the country, it would have done little here except possibly increase the fines that Whitesell would be facing by a few hundred dollars.  Reckless driving is already an appropriate charge for hitting a cyclist riding legally on the roadway (buzzing a cyclist by less than 3-feet should be considered careless or reckless driving, no new laws need be required).  What would be truly helpful is a clarification in the New Jersey Vehicle Code about the legality of crossing the double yellow line to pass cyclists and a vulnerable user law that treats a crash with a bicyclist or pedestrian by a careless or reckless driver as a much more serious offense then that of a simple fender-bender.