In a letter to the editor, Jersey City resident Kevin Davis explains why a protected lane pilot on Hoboken’s Willow Avenue is the responsible next step.
To the Editor,
Recently, I wrote about the new shared-use path coming to the 14th Street Viaduct and why it’s such a significant development for safe biking and walking in Hoboken and beyond. That project didn’t happen by accident.
It happened because Craig Guy and the Hudson County government took the time to get it right.
They didn’t rush or cave to pressure. Instead, they studied the area, listened to different points of view, and came up with a plan that balances safety with how the road is actually used.
Some activists have claimed credit for this project, but the reality is more complicated. The only thing they can genuinely take credit for is getting Hoboken, Union City, and Jersey City to pass resolutions of support. That helped, but it didn’t determine what got built.
In fact, their push for no study and immediate traffic lane removal nearly sank the entire project. Hudson County rightly rejected that approach.
They conducted a formal analysis and moved forward without bike advocates at the table. The final design kept all travel lanes and added a shared-use path.
Hudson County is also one of the few counties in New Jersey with a Vision Zero Task Force and Plan, committed to eliminating serious traffic injuries and deaths.
The next step in making Vision Zero a reality for Hudson County is in developing and implementing a street redesign for Willow Avenue in Hoboken.
Willow connects Hoboken to Weehawken and the Viaduct, which connects Hoboken to Union City and Jersey City. For cyclists on the Viaduct shared-use path, without a Willow Avenue redesign, once the Viaduct ends, so does the protection.
Suddenly, cyclists are riding in wide, fast-moving traffic, on a road that feels like a highway despite a posted 20 mph speed limit that’s rarely followed.
I don’t own a car. I bike, walk, or take transit every day. I also occasionally give bike tours professionally in New York City, where I’ve seen how smart design can transform streets, and how bad design puts people at risk.
That’s why I’m calling for a protected bike lane pilot on Willow Avenue from 16th Street to 11th Street to be part of the Willow Avenue redesign study.
A pilot gives everyone a chance to stop guessing and start observing. If you think it will make the street more dangerous, this is your chance to prove it. If you think it will improve safety, as I do, this is how we test that belief.
Here’s my theory:
Even though protected lanes sometimes raise concerns about visibility or wrong-way e-biking, the overall reduction in car speeds and sidewalk biking will be a net positive, especially for kids, seniors, and pedestrians trying to cross the street.
We don’t have to speculate. We can try it. Measure it. Adjust it.
At a recent community meeting, Hoboken’s school superintendent and Wallace Elementary’s principal raised concerns about drop-off safety and street visibility.
Those concerns are real. But the status quo isn’t safe either. Speeding cars, wide lanes, long street crossing distances for pedestrians, and chaotic conditions already put people at risk, especially around schools.
A pilot is a responsible next step. It would:
• Require dismount zones during school hours;
• Use temporary barriers to separate bikes and cars;
• Measure speeds and traffic volumes;
• And gather public feedback from people who experience the changes firsthand.
• This isn’t about ideology, it’s about safety, process, and learning from what works.
Let’s give Willow Avenue a fair test, and give people who rely on it every day the infrastructure they deserve.
Kevin Davis
Jersey City resident
Editors Note: The views of the author do not reflect the views of any companies that he works for.
This guy is a kook!
I think the current design which encourages speeds much greater than the 20 mph speed limit is kookier than the proposed redesign.
Kevin you’re intentions might be noble – but these bikers are absolutely out of control. You complain about cars going over 20mph which might be a problem but not nearly as bad as 90% of bikers ignoring every rule/law/common courtesy under the sun. Our streets are too narrow and our town is too crowded to have protected bike lanes all over the place. Constructing protected bike lanes on one of the busiest thoroughfares to “see if it works” is not a realistic proposal. Sorry!
I get where you’re coming from, I have been one of the most vocal people in Hoboken calling out unsafe biking behavior, especially from e-bikes. In fact, I was kicked out of Bike Hoboken precisely because I pushed them to take e-bike safety seriously. Another person even got kicked out of Bike Hoboken for giving me a fist pump.
Their leadership didn’t want to hear it. Since Andrew Wilson took over as “executive director,” the group has doubled down on dismissing community concerns and pushing one-sided narratives that ignore the real problems residents are dealing with.
They fought the Take a Test, Wear a Vest law and published a report that basically gaslit the public about how serious the e-bike issue is. That denial has done real damage. Instead of building public trust and expanding support for bike infrastructure, they’ve helped create a narrative that all bikes are reckless, when in reality, the data shows that cars are far more dangerous.
That’s why I support a pilot protected bike lane on Willow, not as some permanent change forced on the community, but as a reasonable next step in an ongoing study. The County and City are already studying Willow for redesign. Testing a protected lane in just part of the corridor gives us real-world data and community feedback before anything becomes permanent. That’s just good policy.
We can support safer infrastructure and demand better behavior and enforcement. Ignoring either side of that equation gets us nowhere.
“Our streets are too narrow and the town is too crowded” so let’s prioritize the largest, least space efficient, most dangerous form of transportation possible. Yeah, real big brain logic there.
You’re not getting rid of cars, and you’re not slowing down development and the influx of people. Streets are too crowded as is. Pretending that you’re going to get rid of cars is naive to put it politely. Prioritizing anything that will limit the flow of traffic is not in the city’s best interest – that includes protected bike lanes.
Or…Our street are too narrow and town too crowded to have protect CAR Lanes.
Dear Mr. Kook, automobiles are responsible for 99% of road deaths and injuries, bikes due to the smaller size and slower speeds contribute much less to the carnage on our roads today.
The cars speeding might be a problem? it’s a clear and present danger. Adding a bike land will show significant benefit in aiding the car speeding problem.
Stop with the blanket conclusion. It’s vapid nonsense much like Christine Johnson who only wants to make it easier for parents to double park outside the school.
This town turns every possible common sense solution into a seamless noise of dreck. There’s no good reason to keep that Willow Avenue area as dangerous as it is. It’s seen horrible maiming and death.
Dismount Zones? What joke.
Almost all bike riders follow zero rules in Hoboken.
Another totally unenforceable regulation being proposed by someone who knows it is ridiculous unenforceable .
If anyone witnessed his recent Hoboken ( not Jersey City where he lives ) circus act where he threw real fruit in the air and ate a banana while speaking, you’ll agree, IGNORE this clown
Yes, I threw a banana, because the Bike Hoboken’s proposal to hike annual residential parking fees from $60 to $245 a year is bananas. Kimley-Horn’s proposal for “dynamic pricing” is even more bananas as it could lead to even more drastic cost increases for residents. But people aren’t paying attention, because the plan is buried inside something called a “curbside management study.”
That study, by Kimley-Horn consultants, used loaded language and biased survey questions to manufacture fake consensus. It’s being promoted by insiders at BikeHoboken who have a clear anti-car bias despite many of them owning cars themselves and they’re selling it as equity when it’s really a regressive tax on working people.
I use humor and props to cut through the jargon, because without some theater, no one notices when they’re about to get steamrolled by planning buzzwords and policy gaslighting.
And as for this anonymous comment… the tone’s familiar. It sounds like someone who I talked to yesterday.
Kevin Davis strikes again, not to entertain you, but to wake you up.
Some questions and thoughts.
A picture of this proposal would help. Is there one online?
Is this meant to be both sides of the street or one side with 2 way bike traffic a la Observer Highway?
I have doubts about the use cases but no data to support my doubts. Is there expected to be significant bike traffic from the Heights to Hoboken? Or is it an “if you build it, they will come” idea? Not that it makes the idea wrong, just trying to understand the thinking.
Same question for cycling from Hoboken to Weehawken. Are cyclists really doing it? I tend to hug the waterfront passing through Weehawken. The buses and jitneys do not love us 2-wheelers up there.
This will inevitably become a thoroughfare for food delivery guys – especially Hoboken/Weehawken. But that’s life in the urban US – a gym on every corner but somehow too lazy to drag our asses down to the restaurant to pick up dinner.
I personally find the food delivery guys aggressive but predictable – much like NYC cab drivers. When you have the right of way and assert it they tend to back off. This cannot be said of private citizens on e-scooters. This is why I am referring to food delivery separately rather than treating all motorized bike lane inhabitants as a single class. They definitely are not. The e-scooter people are decidedly more reckless and more prone to a video game mindset where all other humans are viewed as inanimate obstacles in a game. You will never hear “on your left” from an e-scooter pilot. That could lower their final score….
It’s not hard to envision ending up with a situation like 2nd Ave in the 80s – 5 or 6 delivery bikes to every cyclist. It requires a secondary set of skills – much like driving in a city generally. You don’t just get in the lane and go. You get in the lane and understand that you’re going to get passed a lot and need to make yourself predictable to the beefier residents of the bike lane. Not a very leisurely ride, but I do it all the time.
Also need to be aware of pedestrian safety. Hoboken is perhaps the most preoccupied population imaginable. 7 out of 10 (unofficially) wearing headphones and/or carrying on a profound discussion on their phones. Ergo clueless regarding the little bell on your bike and not always used to thinking of the first 8′ next to the curb as a dangerous place to step without looking. They are more likely to get drilled by the video game enthusiasts on the e-scooters who expect their inanimate objects to remain inanimate. But there’s a learning curve either way. Any cyclist worth a damn is constantly studying the faces of pedestrians and motorists and asking himself “is this guy paying attention? does he see me? is he turning without using his blinker?” No, no, and yes typically.
We are late to this game. Europe is much better at it (and not hopelessly dependent on having someone bring dinner from the apparently-too-far-away restaurant in the mile square city). Retrofitting our cities is harder, and we lack the will and financial appetite to do it holistically. So we’re stuck with an incrementalism that successfully irritates everyone. Which is how our democracy works generally.
Just some stuff to consider.