For most commuters using DTJC as a short cut to the tunnel, the fake brick looks really nice when you're traveling at 60mph.

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I was happy to see something go up to slow down the Greene Street Raceway that starts at Montgomery and finishes at Second St. The random cones in the right lane add to the excitement of having to merge suddenly. Now with the rumble strips and the plastic poles dividing the lanes slow the cars a bit, but the speed bumps made them screech to a halt - thus the immediate removal of the speed bumps - apparently they cause cars to re-end each other.
I still see cars try to turn left on to Morgan from the center lane, because they were driving too fast to get in left lane before the plastic poles keep them from being able to change lanes suddenly.
Washington Street is a mess in the same area - no lanes and potholes to swerve around - old yellow lines still on the road; who would know that it is a one way street?! Two traffic lights on Washington St are being installed at Morgan and get this, Bay Street. What a waste of money on the Bay St intersection. IF 111 First Street was actually built and Butler Brothers building redeveloped - maybe one could reason for the traffic light. BUT put it at Marin and Second St instead - that's a messy intersection with four lanes reducing to two driving south, three lanes of traffic trying to enter Marin from Second - not to mention pedestrians crossing Marin and Second to get towards BJs/Shoprite... drivers never let pedestrians cross in the clearly painted (not faux brick) crosswalks.

I just want to reiterate that i had only heard from local business that it cost 120k per intersection. i have no proof.
Also, i do think it looks nice but the fact that on coles/varick the hallf they already did is almost completely wornd away wear the tires cross it. Im willing to but they dont last through winter.

Its probably just time to start throwing down shards of metal on Columbus. People will stop speeding down the superhighway when they have flat tires.

there have also been times when I've been on Coles trying to drive across Columbus and the light stays red for a good 5 minutes, creating huge gridlock. I think they might have fixed it, but I'm not sure.

And I think the brick walks look good, though I do doubt how long they'll last. And if they did cost $120,000 each, that's just ridiculous.

Let's look at the city's recent decisions around Columbus:

They put in new crosswalk signals that no longer cycle automatically with the traffic lights. Thus the onus is 100% on pedestrians to push the stupid button. If you get there 1 second after a light changes, you walk blind Ion the 1 way streets like Coles/Varick) as you have no idea when the light is going to change against you. The lights also change more quickly if no pedestrian has pushed the crosswalk button.

The light at Coles/Varick often does not turn red in sequence with Jersey. Yes if you try to cross at certain times you will think the light is about to turn red as the crosswalk (east/west) starts counting down; but no JC faked you out the light stays green so more cars can pile up at the Jersey intersection.

These were both conscious decisions by the idiots that run JC streets. Absolutely no concern for pedestrians and they somehow seem to have missed the hundreds of studies which correlate walkability to thriving cities with rising property values...

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I suppose I am in the minority here, but I think the brick crosswalks actually look pretty good. They do serve as a better visual reminder for drivers that it is a crossing area for pedestrians.

Regarding the deterioration over time, I was disappointed to see one of the new crosswalks already ripped up on Erie St where PSE&G laid the new gas lines (or whatever they were doing.) They patched it up with black asphalt and it looks terrible. Hopefully they will be required to go back and fix it properly when all the work is done.

It looks cheap now, and in 3-4 years, it will look awful. On a picturesque street (or potentially picturesque street, like Newark Ave), the brick stamping is OK and understandable, but on Columbus Superhighway? Looks bad; it's lipstick on a pig. I'm pretty much convinced that Columbus Drive will never be attractive, will never be safe for pedestrians to cross, and will always function as a dividing barrier of the downtown neighborhoods.

I feel the same way about Grand Street. REALLY hard to cross. But at least it's a fairly attractive thoroughfare/entrance to the city from 78.

Columbus looks awful, and they really missed a great opportunity to put in an attractive center barrier strip with plantings. This would be both attractive AND functional. It seems to me that today's visionaries of Jersey City do not have attractive or functional in their vocabularies, so it's no surprise that they missed out on both.

Glad to see I was not the only one who thought the face brick inlays at the intersections were a bad use of taxpayer funds. None of us (taxpayers) asked for this, right? So where did the idea come from? Who is making lots of money now installing them?

I think they look bad, and fake, and cheap now, but imagine after a year or two how bogus they will look as the stuff starts disintegrating.

Bike route signs were a similar waste of funds. We need budget hawks elected to the Council for this coming election. I suspect projects like these are just hand-outs for the well-connected.

the city needs to put a traffic light or stop sign at the the corner of eighth street and monmouth street. it took me 10 minuted to cross one day and there is always an accident there i casnt tell you how many cars went into the house on the corner and ruined fenced i was crossing one day and almost got hit by a speeding car you need to do something about this its very bad. someone is going to get killed one day.

Ah Biscuit, you're correct, they were rumble strips & not speed bumps.

Yes, rumble strips are useless.

Has to be proper speed bumps.

Robin.

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weren't those rumble strips? and placed just beyond each intersection, instead of before it? complete waste of resources. legitimate speed bumps would do wonders for downtown JC traffic.

Several years ago speed bumps were installed on Jersey Avenue & the noise drove me crazy. Be careful what you wish for.

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Those (plastic) speed bumps really worked to slow down the traffic. But for some reason, they were removed in a real hurry. I think they lasted all of 4 days!! All that is left now is the painted stripe bumps.

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I know the reason: money

Yes it bothers us. Especially when Downtown is getting this special treatment and the rest of the city is lucky to get the potholes and sidewalks fixed. I am still waiting for the city to do curbs on our block and commission a fire hydrant. its been 6 years now and counting. It is what it is. FOr some unexplained reason DTJC is I think the only sections getting this. If anyone has a reason why please clarify....thank you

I couldn't believe how long it took them to do this faux brick intersection at Columbus and Warren. It was easily a couple of months with 2 cops there everyday.

Jersey City gets faux everything from the faux bluestone on Newark Ave to this faux crosswalk brick. This city council hasn't wanted to create anything with lasting curb appeal or style for decades and decades. The stairs at Grove Point are perfect example - these schmucks saw the GP plans and said nothing when it was completed. It's as if the stair builders quit on the job.

For years I have heard through the HPNA and Steve Fulop that speed bumps are opposed by Jersey City government who refuse to install them for various spurious sounding reasons (damage to old buildings, slowing down emergency access, not approved by Traffic department, etc.)

So I was interested to see some speed bumps spring up overnight on Greene Street.

They are such an easy and cheap solution, we should push to have these deployed throughout downtown.

Robin.

Brick might be pretty and all, but marked intersections increase visibility and are much, much safer for pedestrians. (Not to mention cheaper to implement: $100 to $3,000 per intersection, depending on the treatment - http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/engineering/marked_crosswalks.cfm )

The City had a perfect opportunity to improve pedestrian safety on Newark Avenue when they redid the street a year or so ago. I can't count the number of times I've nearly been hit by speeding cars at the oblique intersections (where Newark hits streets at an angle, like Newark/Bay, Newark/1st, Newark/2nd). They should have at least installed some safety islands for pedestrians, especially at Newark/Bay and Newark/1st where the streets are insanely wide. In fact, there was once an island on the north side of Newark/2nd, but that was removed when they redid the street a few months ago.

What are they thinking?

JC is pedestrian unfriendly. These stupid faux brick numbers are the ol lipstick on the pig trick, compliments of the JC taxpayers.

Put up speed humps or other things to physically slow cars down JC, nothing else works especially with the speeding/distracted commuters...

Oh, that reminds me, I was also told they want to build a 2.9 million dollar parking garage by the hospital for columbus dr residents and ban parking on Columbus for the superhigway

I would rather see them install a slightly raised cross-walk that would slow motor vehicle traffic. Oh wait... I forgot the city wants Columbus Drive to be a quick way for the Goldman workers to get out of the city.

It would be a lot cheaper, as well as more visible and therefore effective, to paint bold black and white stripes across the cross-walks as they do in England.

Robin.

Does it bother anyone else that JC is spending so much money on really shitty fake brick paneling on the intersections of Columbus? I was told This is costing approx $120,000 per intersection. Real Brick wouldnt cost that much and this crap material is already worn down after 4 weeks.