Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop endorsed a proposal to make a Jersey City Heights bike lane on Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street permanent earlier today.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Bike infrastructure is important + we have been leaders on this. I think it is another key option for mobility and I’m not sure the next mayor will do anything as none have leaned in. I’ll be clear on this – I’m a supporter of the bike lane full design Manhattan/Franklin,” he wrote on X this morning.
“We need some political courage from some on local level to get it done. The response on the council has been mixed with some on the council saying NO to everything + several saying just yes to Franklin (not 5 votes). Our intention is to put it up for a vote shortly + try to move forward on some infrastructure here. Help from the public will be key[.]”
Back in October, street safety advocates urged the city council to make the aforementioned Heights bike lane permanent before a $670,000 New Jersey Department of Transportation grant expires.
The following month, Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh said during an episode of HCV Live & Uncut that the city had received an extension that will run through the end of the first quarter of this year.
“THANK YOU for supporting the full plan!! 🙏 Safety should always be paramount when making these decisions, and the full plan is by far the safest option, providing a full E-W connection across the Heights,” Bike JC President Ayla Schermer replied to Fulop.
“Plus—it’s fully funded! Any scope reduction would leave $$ on the table.”
A Bike JC Action Network petition generated 8,808 letters being sent to the city council.
“This route was identified as a critical east-west corridor that crosses the high-injury network,” the description says.
“It connects two major parks and PS 8, and it is the only east-west route in the Heights identified for a protected bike lane by the Jersey City Bike Master Plan. It provides a route to the future Hudson-Essex Greenway to the west and Hoboken to the east.”
If the proposal includes turning Manhattan Ave or Franklin St into one way traffic, I am very much opposed.
Mayor Fulop,
It is laudable that you are promoting healthy exercise, as well as a proposed means for bicycle riders to travel on a height east/west corridor road. However, given the existing very high population density in Jersey City, and the very real fact that many motorists who depend on their vehicles to get to work, medical appointments, etc. also have depended on this vital vital artery, I urge you to reconsider.
Hudson County ranks as 6th most densely populated county in our Nation, and most densely populated county in our State, which is, the most densely populated state in our Nation. At 19,835.1 people per square mile, Jersey City’s population density ranks 7th highest in Hudson County, and 10th highest in New Jersey. If your aim is an alternative to personal motor vehicle transport in this area, then certainly increase mass transit offerings there. If your aim is to promote healthy aerobics ( a noble aspiration) kindly do so not at the expense of motorists. Why not offer incentives to Jersey City residents to own stationary bikes with timers and odometers (and maybe heart monitors, too, so they can track their progress on the road to health without exacerbating road conditions for the motorists who very much depend on them? Good luck in your run for Governor.
People use bicycles for commuting and business. Bicycles are a form of transportation that deserve protected separated space from 1.5 ton death machines moving at speed.
Not to mention the fact that you live in WNY. Stay in your lane car brain.
The world does not revolve around bicycles, bike brain. Perhaps you are of Dutch ancestry? This area was settled by the Dutch who bought the land for a song. They also “brought in”10 slaves from Africa to do their dirty work. There are tons of per capita bike riders in the Netherlands who indeed do utilize bikes for recreation and transit. I notice you didn’t say that you specifically commute. My comments about the exceedingly high population densities in this area fell on your deaf ears. So how do you take your spouse, child, or elderly relative or friend to a medical appointment or to shopping? strap them in in a bicycle built for two? Take your selfishness and stay out of my lane, bike brain
And yet, for all their bike infrastructure, Dutch people have better health outcomes for less money than the US. Maybe there’s more to emulate there! I have also been thinking about getting myself a cargo bike. What great suggestions!
Obviously Fulop is seeing the initiative spawning the expansion of others in the same “environmental” grift that NYC has initiated, such as his ultimate goal of initiating a “Congestion Tax” that is imposed on cars that use the roads. He is using the ideas that people riding bikes are the reason for the need to remove parking spaces, and to do so to create a corridor across the city, whereas all that will be done is the repainting of lines that will inevitably take control over the roads and steer people on bikes through specific parts of town in corralled lanes. This removes the parking spaces from normal residential areas along this corridor and opens up the area for the lanes, but it creates a serious inconvenience for the residents. It also sets the stage for Bike Rental companies to integrate their stations in these areas. I am sure you can see the influence leading to more commercialization of this effort in these same areas.
As far as the need for more driver awareness to curb the accidents that are happening between cyclists and vehicles, the first step is to merely add a stenciled “share the road” image where it has an image of a bike and arrows added, helping drivers to remember that it is a residentially-zoned area. This should be first in consideration, as the low cost of these stencils will allow for the money provided to add them to almost all of the areas that are in need of these dual-use lanes of travel. One bike lane vs. the whole city with stenciled signage is the gist of the argument.