It's amost laughable that Jerry is now seeing the light of day on this bicycling issue as the election and his future as our mayor looms. Pretty convenient considering that for years he has been against even the slightest whisper of bike lanes and being a bike friendly city. Sure, he throws a bone to the bike advocates now and again but in general he has never had the mindset or forethought of most forward thinking city mayors.

Look at how the powers that be in great cities like Mpls, Chicago, Portland, and NYC have embraced the many benefits of a vibrant bicycling community. They have been championing these beliefs and ideals for many, many years. In otherwords, it will be a long time before JC lands in the top 50 of www.bicycling.com's "America's Best Bike Cities."

Not to place all the blame on Jerry. Every sitting mayor before him did nothing as well.

To give you some idea of just how in the dark Jersey City is and has been for decades look at this from the 1890's.

"Bicycle advocacy has been present in Chicago since the early days of the city. Carter H. Harrison II, a mayoral candidate, was an advocate for cyclists. One of his campaign posters presented him as "Not the Champion Cyclist; But the Cyclists' Champion." Harrison won the mayoral election and attributed his victory to strong support from cyclists, and rewarded his supporters with a bike path along Sheridan Road from Edgewater to Evanston...."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Chicago

I guess it takes an election to finally wake up to reality. Pretty typical of Jerry and his admin really.

The guaranteed election winner is to impliment an on-street bike lane into Manhattan. If any politician could make this happen, they would be seen as a hero by many commuters.

This is a historic day here in Jersey City, I am really proud of my city to finally include bicycle lanes in every ward. Thank you Mayor Healy for seeing the light it is a step and pedal stroke in the right direction. And special thanks to the members of Bike JC for their action in getting this accomplished.

Quote:
They allow it in Hoboken so maybe they are the ones to confide in with this issue.

This is wonderful news. We should make the mayor stand for re-election every year.

Only young children and people over 75 should ever ride on the sidewalk. Also I would trade any number of miles of bike lane for the pedestrian bridge to Liberty State Park to be rebuilt. Rebuilding that bridge would probably be of more actual benefit to Jersey City cyclists than painting lines on pavement.

"In addition to bike lanes, Healy has submitted revisions of cycling ordinances to the City Council for consideration at its Dec. 19 meeting. Some of the revisions include adding bicycle passenger safety requirements, allowing cyclists to ride on sidewalks, provided pedestrians are given the right-of-way and allowing the city engineer to specify certain sidewalks where cycling is prohibited."

This part--"allowing cyclists to ride on sidewalks"--is just another way to keep bicycles off the road and not have to deal with implementing actual bike infrastructure in the street.

This is great news for us riders out there. I just wonder how "allowing cyclists to ride on sidewalks, provided pedestrians are given the right-of-way and allowing the city engineer to specify certain sidewalks where cycling is prohibited" is going to be implemented?

Move over, drivers: Jersey City plans to add 54 miles of bike lanes

By Sarah Nathan/ The Jersey Journal
on December 07, 2012 at 9:45 AM

Jersey City plans to create 54.7 miles of bike lanes and shared bike routes as part of the city's 365 Days of Green initiative, Mayor Jerramiah Healy announced Thursday.

Besides expanding the number of bike lanes in the city, the bike plan would help merchants purchase bike racks at a discounted price.

Planning Director Bob Cotter, supervising planner at the Department of Housing, Economic Development and Commerce Douglas Greenfeld and assistant city engineer Lee Klein joined Healy at the news conference.

Mayor Healy credited the city's young residents as a driving force behind the initiative.

?There's a new movement,? he said. ?It's a new goal and we thank a lot of our new people who have come to Jersey City in the last 10 to 15 years and their youth and their energy and their ideas. We know they've done it in Newark and it's being done in Hoboken and we're going to do it here in Jersey City.?

The 54.7 miles of designated bike paths will include 35.2 miles of bike lanes and 19.5 miles of shared lanes marked with "sharrows": arrows and bike symbols painted in the middle of a street to indicate a cyclist can use the entire lane. The experimental bike lanes on Grove Street will be made permanent this spring.

?We're obviously not going to put them in high-density traffic areas,? Healy said. ?But a lot of our side streets can accommodate bike lanes and we intend to do that.?

Although each neighborhood will have bike lanes, a large proportion of the lanes will be located in the Journal Square and Downtown areas.

The city has applied for a $1.4 million grant from the state Department of of Transportation to fund the program.

The project will be be implemented gradually each year until the city is saturated with bike lanes, Cotter said.

Sheree Davis, a state Department of Transportation representative from the Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs, praised the city for its Complete Streets initiative.

?There is passing a policy, but more better and more sweeter is implementing that policy,? Davis said. ?The bike lane and bike sharrow program is essential, not only for the city but for the state. We commend Jersey City for actually implementing this and putting their money where their mouth is.?

In addition to bike lanes, Healy has submitted revisions of cycling ordinances to the City Council for consideration at its Dec. 19 meeting. Some of the revisions include adding bicycle passenger safety requirements, allowing cyclists to ride on sidewalks, provided pedestrians are given the right-of-way and allowing the city engineer to specify certain sidewalks where cycling is prohibited.

To emphasize bicycle safety, the mayor also showed a public service announcement after the conference that discusses bike safety in the city. The PSA features a young woman riding around the city committing a variety of offenses such as not giving pedestrians the right-of-way and riding against traffic in bike lanes.

Members of Bike JC, an advocacy group that worked with the city on the program, were present at the meeting.


?I am confident that this is a step forward toward a more effective and safe street network in Jersey City,? Bike JC board member Matt Ward said.

Ralph Sinisi, owner of Grove Street Bicycles, said he's enthusiastic about the program.

?When we started the shop almost five years ago, there wasn't much knowledge about bikes at all on the streets,? Sinisi said. ?We've seen the amount of riders grow drastically. I'm really positive and happy about the city actually putting in the lanes.?



http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... y_announces_jersey_c.html

Quote:ugh god I know. I bike on a daily basis and was thrilled to see new racks but as soon as the first farmer's market happened I realized what a terrible place they were in. Trying to walk around in the farmer's market with bikes jammed in the walkways is a nightmare.

Racks are most definitely needed in and around major shopping centers/transit hubs. Real racks, not the crap that you'll find outside Barcade. That thing is locked to a tree using a $5 Home Depot chain. Nice try though.

@tern & @heights

I agree! More racks are needed! All over the city!

When I said the new Grove racks are a mess, I meant that as an everyday-biker _and_ pedestrian.

It seems no research/design went in to planning the placement of racks. They block the flow of pedestrians at the best of times -- never mind when the farmers' market / groove on grove is set up.

(side rant)
Do not get me started on the Downtown Special Improvement "No Parking" stickers that have been stuck to bikes. New sign on pole says no bike parking over 24 hours around the time new racks went in (presumably for the city to clip abandoned bikes to make more room; sounds good!) but then someone puts a sticker on my bike locked to same pole with a handwritten "No Parking"?!

And ugggghhh they are really sticky and a pain to remove, too.

I know it used to be an ordinance you couldn't lock to city poles "when bike racks are available" but I can't find a current link to it now ...

http://www.bikejc.org/road-rules

(/side rant over)

Lanes are needed. Racks are needed. Just with REAL planning/research/design.

Quote:
Bike muscles
Car muscles
Beer muscles...all the same mentality.

Quote:
Can't do it up in the Heights on Central Ave. anymore, they took away the meters ! The post only have a smally flat metal sign depicting the number of the parking spot which this will allow a thief to slip off the bike.

A few weeks back I saw a bicyclist in Hoboken pitch a fit after he caused a driver to slam on his brakes. The bike rider was traveling the wrong way on a side street. The driver had stopped at a perpendicular Stop Sign and was just starting to accelerate when the bike appeared at a high rate of speed coming the wrong direction. Stupid cyclist almost met his demise. Of course, I recently had to confront a neighbor who thinks he doesn't have to stop his car at Stop Signs and blasts his horn when the vehicles in front of him do stop. He did this to me twice so I chased him into his building on Pavonia where he cowered. Tough guy in his car. Not so tough outside of it. Lesson is that there are bad drivers on all kinds of vehicles everywhere.

Heights wrote:
> I would like to see as many bike racks as we have parking meters.

Surely we do in fact have precisely that?

I lock my bike to a parking meter every day, nobody has ever complained.

Robin.

Quote:

And pedestrians should wear helmets and be required to have insurance too. You are fighting a losing battle. Yes, bikes have to follow the rules of the road, just as pedestrians and autos do. But police are not writing J-walking tickets, tickets to bicyclists riding the wrong way down one way streets, riding on the sidewalk. Here on planet Earth, things are not perfect, and probably never will be.

Quote:
I would like to see as many bike racks as we have parking meters. It would be nice to take the bike out so I could run to the store for something as simple as a quart of milk or a loaf of bread.

I just hope that whoever designs any future bike lanes is *not* the same person/committee who decided where the new bike racks should go at Grove PATH. What a mess.

Quote:

See Yvonne, there's actual numbers out there. Anecdotes are not statistics. Houses are occasionally hit by meteors too. Getting worked up over the rare occurrence of an uninsured cyclist hurting a pedestrian is absurd, particularly when insurance will make no difference to you if you're killed by a car, which is FAR more likely. 4,000 pedestrians in the US are killed by cars EVERY YEAR! That's a 9/11 every 9 months, where's the "war on drivers" instead of your "war on cyclists"?

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

Yvonne - You make many valid points and I agree with you on so many of them. We definitely need to encourage responsible bicycle riding. If your main frustration/fear is auto insurance rates, I don't know how we would go about making them better for Jersey City. Since bicycles don't have motors and they so rarely kill or injure, it doesn't seem practical to require insurance. As far as bicyclists being privileged, please consider that Jersey City motorists have been very privileged for over 100 years. Maybe this one small step, in the form of a bicycle lane, is simply a chance for other forms of transportation to get some respect.

Before you start writing letters, please consider sitting down for a chat with one of our community leaders on these issues, such as Levin or Fulop. I suspect they have a vision for a refreshing "complete streets" model in Jersey City, which will be far safer for seniors, children, the disabled in our community. Please consider the children who play on the sidewalks and the seniors who are trying to cross the street safely before you attack the bicycle lane. There is an impressive body of well-respected research on the power of bicycle lanes to slow down drivers and save the lives of our most vulnerable citizens.

Basically, you are saying you want to privilege of biking in the streets and if an accident happens, it is too bad. I am looking forward to more cameras placed along our streets. We live in a visual society. I guess when people are injured by bikers perhaps common sense will prevail. By putting in bike lanes, JC is giving a privilege to bike riders and holding motorist more accountable if an accident occurs. Cars owners have insurance, so even if it is the bike owner is at fault, guess who pays, the person with insurance. Rates rise in cities where there are more accidents. I will definitely be writing to our legislators on a local and state level. Motorist, regardless of vehicle should have insurance. An pedistrian who is injured by a biker and doesn't have insurance will be on taxpayers' dime.

Yvonne - I agree that bicyclists can be reckless and we should encourage safe and respectful riding. But as I see it, motorists have the biggest "princess mentality". In the early 20th century, when people began to buy cars in larger numbers, they started leaving them next to the curb, "parking" them on land they did not own. Free curbside parking is something that so many people take for granted, and also something that we as as a dense, growing city can no longer afford to simply give away. As a cyclist and pedestrian, I find it bizarre that thousands of people leave their giant multi-ton hunks of steel on most Jersey City streets at little or no cost but will howl and protest if they are asked to pay more for this privilege. Imagine how humane, pleasant, and good for business it would be if we removed curbside parking from Grove Street. Or, more practically, placed the bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars. Even when we do ask people to pay for parking through meters or permits, the amounts they pay are a pittance compared to the true cost of this valuable city-owned land. I would also reiterate the comments of previous posters about the relative dangers of bicycles vs. cars. NY Post hyberpole notwithstanding, the documented number of pedestrians killed or seriously maimed by cyclists in the entire history of the bicycle is probably lower than the number killed or seriously maimed by motorists in Hudson County this year. Or maybe even this month. Bicyclists may frighten us pedestrians on occasion, and we need to promote respectful riding, but it is the motorists who are killing us.

Cars are required to have insurance. My point is bikes should also have insurance. They are moving vehicles, some which do not follow traffic laws. I have seen old people and families with children especially with baby carriages 'jump' at the last moment when a bike comes from no where down the street or sidewalk. Like I expressed before some people on this blog want the benefit with the responsiblity. They have a 'princess mentality.'

Quote:

Good thing people in cars never kill people.

Quote:

http://www.streetsblog.org/

Here is an from San Francisco of a bike rider killing someone.
http://www.asianweek.com/2012/06/15/b ... derly-chinese-pedestrian/
The article I read in the NY Post some years ago, listed 6 deaths caused by bicyclist on NYC's streets in one year.

Quote:

Why don't you link to that, I can't find it. Meanwhile between 1996 and 2005, 225 bicyclists died in crashes, 26 in 2008 alone, almost all with cars. And usually 130 plus pedestrians are sent to their maker by cars. http://blog.tstc.org/2010/01/29/nyc-t ... trian-deaths-hold-steady/ A google of "new york city" "killed by cyclist" only comes up with 1 case.

Cars are clearly the real danger on the streets, with drivers in need of better training in yielding right of way, whether it's to cyclists, pedestrians or even other cars. A regular occurrence is a turning car or truck kills a pedestrian crossing with the light. They're often not even given a ticket.

So it is OK, for a biker to knock down a pedestrian, causing injuries and not pay the medical bill? Is it OK for a biker to scrape a car and not pay the bill? While I don't normally buy the NY papers, I do remember the NY Post publishing the number of of deaths caused by bikes. A pedestrian knocked down by a biker and that person hits his/her head on concrete is just as dead if that person was hit by a car. I have seen many bikers who do not stop at the red or drive against the flow of traffic. Bikers are ready to sue if they are injured, then they such also be heald accountable if they caused an accident. Apparently, JC bikers on this blog have a "princess mentality." They want the benefit but they do no want to be held accountable.

Quote:

If we are going to condem all bicyclists for the misbehavior of a few, then anyone with a driver's license should already be in jail.