Bike to All Points West Festival at Liberty State Park

Not the most important topic I could be blogging about at the moment but I thought this was pretty cool and worthy of a mention.


The All Points West Music and Arts Festival is advertising that they will have bicycle parking available at the festival and are encouraging people to arrive be bike. From their webpage:

It's now easier than ever to walk, roll or ride from the Jersey City/Hoboken area to Liberty State Park! You can drive or ride the Light Rail, too, but the most scenic route is along the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway. Biking along this route leads you past many landmarks, such as the LeFrak lighthouse, Marina Park, and the old Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse.

There will be bike racks at the main festival gate; all you need to do is bring your own lock!

Hopefully they'll have more than this but I'm confident they will since they barely mention driving to the festival. It's the last means to get there that they mention on their website.


Do you know why its called "All Points West?"

Monmouth County's Trail Network Coming Together

Monmouth County is edging towards becoming a bicycle tourism Mecca. Just three small gaps need to closed to create a nearly continuous trail from Freehold to the northern tip of Sandy Hook, much of it offering views of the seascape and the bay shore. The two segments in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands will place bikes on low traffic streets.

The Route 36 Bridge which should be complete by early 2011 will feature a fly over bike/ped bridge that will connect directly from the Bridge to the Sandy Hook and Sea Bright multi-use paths.

Following the beach road and/or local boardwalks you can ride to Manasquan and connect to the Edgar Felix Bike Path over the Garden State Parkway to historic Allaire Village. Experienced cyclists could then pick their best route back to Freehold to complete a full circle. In the distant future the Capital to Coast Trail would connect the Edgar Felix path to the East Coast Greenway in Trenton. Transit connections are fairly good with ferry service and train service to Manhattan and could be improved even more with bike racks on buses.

Bob Lucky has a fantastic bike photo tour of the loosely connected routes in Monmouth County. Hopefully the County will fully harness this potential regional attractor by adding signage and creating a route system.


View Monmouth Heritage Trail in a larger map

Atlantic City Plans for an Auto Friendly Community

As reported in the Mobilizing the Region Blog Atlantic City's Regional Transportation Plan "trumps" sprawl over sustainability and virtually ignores bicycle and pedestrian improvements in a city where 40% of the households do not have access to a car.

Much of the plan calls for widening of major highways, new interchanges, the blowing out of intersections and local city streets as well as the addition of even more parking garages. The total for these improvements is an eye opening $3.7 Billion Dollars.

The $23 Million Dollar proposal for bikeway on the boardwalk can't be more than a joke and the report even acknowledges the shortcoming of bike planning in the City. The lack of designated bicycle routes, lanes, or trails anywhere in the City suggests that safety for bicyclists and other slow speed vehicle users has not been given sufficient consideration.

No Kidding....

Time to go back to the drawing board and come back with an environmentally just and sustainable plan that envisions a livable Atlantic City. Perhaps the planners should take a look at the cities rich past for some clues.

Camille Savoy's Killer Gets off Scot-Free

Benepe's Bicycle Blog is reporting that the killer of NYC cyclist, Camille Savoy got off scot-free in a New Jersey court even though the evidnece indicated that the driver was a foot and a half over the fog line when she hit him in the shoulder of Rt 9 in Alpine.

Even a pathetic careless driving ticket couldn't stick to this killer!

Would the results have been the same if she killed the driver of another car?!?!

The Giro Comes to Jersey!

Not THAT Giro! The Giro Di Jersey. Maybe a little more "Bada Bing" than la dolche vita but it does claim to be the biggest stage race on the East Coast with 5 stages and $20,000 in prize money.

Unfortunately the weather has hampered a few of the stages including the Sourland Mountain Road Race which would have had racers riding some of the best and most scenic roads for biking in all of New Jersey.

The Giro ends this weekend but there is still an opportunity to see a stage with the Rock Hill Cycling Classic (with the great climb up Copper Mine Rd ) on Saturday and the Corner House Grand Prix in Princeton Township on Sunday.

Cool New Jersey Bike Biz

I wouldn't normally post about business but this is too cool not to share. Best of all it comes straight out of Jersey and NOT Portland!

The Hopewell Valley News ran a report recently about Anthony Corrado of Trenton and his new business BicycleBanner.com. According to the Hopewell Valley News, Anthony says, "I’m not sure how far I want to take it. I have no employees. It’s just me. I think I’ll keep it that way for now. I enjoy it. I love to ride a bicycle."



We love to ride bikes too Anthony and we wish you the best with your new business.

PS - He also sells the trailers too!

Jersey City Hit-&-Run Driver Caught on Video!

NJ.com has traffic cam video of a hit-&-run driver running a red light and hitting a pedestrian crossing at a crosswalk with the walk signal.

Hit-run driver injures Jersey City man

The crash happens right at 1 min into the video, at the bottom of the screen. The pedestrian is wearing dark clothing. However this crash happened at 1:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, June 13th. If you look closely the man starts to cross about 1/2 second after he gets the "Walk" signal. All of a sudden this black pickup truck slams into the poor fellow. The crash happened at the corner of Marin Blvd and 6th Street in Jersey City. Another newspaper reports that the police estimating the driver's speed at 35 to 40 mph in a 25 zone.

The victim is 51-year-old Ricardo Torres who was listed in critical condition at Jersey City Medical Center according to the AP report.

The Hudson County Prosecutor should throw the book at this guy!

Oh yeah. One more very important thing. This is a good (bad) example of roadway design standards originally developed for freeways causing havoc on city streets with a large number of pedestrians. A quick look at the Google Maps shows a large residential neighborhood just to the west of this intersection with the Newport Center Mall and the waterfront just to the east. The video itself shows the constant pedestrian traffic at this site. So with engineering designs that allow drivers to greatly exceed the speed limit is it no surprise that drivers do?


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