Dozens of outraged Jersey City residents denounced a potential south side bike lane at Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore’s community meeting that lasted two-and-a-half hours last night.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Gilmore hosted the meeting at Four Jackson Square, a public session that came about one month after the Jersey City NAACP and activists came out against a bike lane possibly being installed on Martin Luther King Drive and Ocean Avenue, as HCV first reported.
“We’re gonna go through a quick presentation of what we have prepared so that everyone can see visually how this idea would actually work on the ground, what the pros and cons are, logistics, existing conditions, all of that stuff, you can see that on the screen presented by the team,” Department of Infrastructure Director Barkha outlined.
She also indicated that this was a preliminary step and it was unclear if this would ever come to a city council vote or not, therefore it was likely they would not be able to answer every question they posed.
Jersey City Senior Transportation Planner Lyndsey Scofield then spoke about the city’s transportation goals, which includes creating an inclusive transportation system, achieving and maintaining zero traffic deaths, increasing resiliency to extreme weather, and supporting the growing population.
” … It’s really these north-south streets that are really connecting our key destinations, the streets that we all want to use, and so we find that these streets are the ones that are used by us the most heavily,” she began.
“So it’s whether your driving, whether your taking the bus, whether your bicycling, whether your walking or rolling, these are the streets you’re using the most often. And so what we’ve done is just highlighted the corridors that we’re looking at.”
A citywide analysis by the Department of Infrastructure revealed that the city’s private vehicle capacity per hour is 600-1,600 cars; 1,000 to 2,800 instances of mixed traffic with frequent buses; 7,500 riders utilizing two-way bike lanes; 4,000 to 8,000 dedicated transit lanes; 9,000 pedestrians, and finally 10,000 to 25,000 on-street transit, bus, or rail commuters.
Scofield also spoke about reallocating space, converting a two-way street into one northbound and one southbound street – which wouldn’t impact parking – and adding a dedicated bus lane to a two-way street – which would eliminate parking spots.
She was heckled several times, with Gilmore asking the crowd not to speak out of turn in a few instances, with tension in the audience growing as the presentation went on: ‘F*** your mother!” one audience member yelled out.
Next up was Jersey City Division of Transportation Planning Director Mike Manzella, who revealed that the early bus lane plans had already changed a bit.
Although Mayor Steven Fulop’s July 9th post on X mentioned potentially adding a bike lane on Martin Luther King Drive and Ocean Avenue, Manzella said after the infrastructure team reviewed the city’s high injury network – the most dangerous north-south streets – they felt MLK and Bergen Avenue was a better fit.
” … We took a look at these seven corridors and we took a look at the distance between them, the walking distance between the various streets. We looked at the transit routes that are running on those streets, and we also have data, because as Barkha had mentioned, we are kicking off the Master Plan update, we have data from NJ Transit …,” he stated.
He said when all of that information was reviewed in totality, MLK and Bergen was a better one-way pair since they are a shorter walking distance from each other and the bus routes run nearly concurrently.
Manzella indicated that this would eliminate turning conflicts, get rid of bus stops on one side of the street which could be then create up to 120 parking spaces, while the two similar NJ Transit bus routes would have the ability to be combined into one.
During the question and answer session, which lasted for about an hour-and-a-half, there was not a single speaker who had something positive to say about the proposal, with several unhappy that Mayor Steven Fulop did not attend.
“My question is, on this dream team for the one-way streets, is there anyone besides you [Patel] that looks like us?” Rev. Tami Weaver-Henry, a city council at-large candidate who said she was speaking as a Ward F resident, said to loud applause.
She said she would actually like an answer since one slide mentioned having inclusivity of Black and Brown people, to which Patel said “This is the team.”
“With that being said, I want to be very, very clear: We’ve spoken, this will not happen. We will mobilize, we will strike, we will stand in front of anybody’s house that is necessary. No longer will we allow changes to be made for our community without our community’s input,” Weaver-Henry said to more cheers and applause.
Patel responded that she understood Weaver-Henry’s point of view and reiterated that this was not an endeavor solely by the Department of Infrastructure, if it even gets green lit to move forward.
” … You’re right, there are a lot of things we don’t have answers to right now because of the time that was given [approximately one month] from when this was announced to us coming to this meeting and putting this together,” Patel explained.
“You’re 100 percent right that there’s a lot that hasn’t been thought about, there’s a lot of studies that haven’t been done, there are a lot of questions that we don’t have answers to, I acknowledged that, and that’s the reason why.”
Despite her remarks, several in attendance remained hostile towards Patel and her team.
“And while I understand this is just a discussion and you guys are just the messengers, we all saw ‘300’ and you guys saw what happened to the messengers: y’all get shot! I’m just like, this is not what we do, it is insulting to come in front of a room full of people and not be prepared,” Shemika Austin remarked.
Carleton Lewis, who lives on Bergen Avenue, said he was shocked when he heard the plan had changed from MLK to Ocean to MLK to Bergen, both of which he panned as terrible ideas.
“You come here with these cookie cutter ideas about ‘oh well the traffic patterns are gonna speed up the traffic on Martin Luther King and on Bergen: No it won’t! … I know what Vision Zero is about: It’s about getting money from the federal government, it’s not about us!” he declared.
” … You talk about transportation from here to Communipaw [Avenue], you obviously ain’t ever been on Communipaw! You have traffic backed up for hours because you can’t get to the bridge because there’s a three-second turn signal at [Route] 440 …”
He added that in the past two years, there have been over 24 accidents in his neighborhood, including two cars – one that exploded after hitting another car – ending up on his property, as well as his neighbor’s parked car getting totaled.
Sandra McIntyre also expressed dismay with the process to date and called on the city to do better.
“We’re in the midst of thinking this stuff is going to be implemented. And for everything we ask you basically said, no idea. No studies done. We don’t know. We want your ideas. You go in about this after letting the you getting the horses are out of the barn,” she began.
“You know you’re not supposed to be doing it that way. And then, according to you, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority is responsible for the traffic flow. And I guess the sidewalk being repaired. I still haven’t heard anything about a study for my street or how to be kept informed about what what you have said you would pass on to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.”
The next Jersey City Council meeting is Wednesday, August 20th at 6 p.m. and the agenda has not been finalized yet.
My question is, on this dream team for the one-way streets, is there anyone besides you [Patel] that looks like us?” Rev. Tami Weaver-Henry, a city council at-large candidate who said she was speaking as a Ward F resident, said to loud applause.
That kind of BS should disqualify her for office.
The absolute nerve of the city council to have the audacity to even be a part of this nonsense and try to pawn it off as a spectacular idea? The whole council should be voted out of office.
As an alternative, I propose they start with downtown, as a pilot program. Because it could really benefit from it and create more parking and beautiful bike lanes and maybe even a Green Space or two!!
Starting East of the Turnpike, make Grand Street, Montgomery Street, Christopher Columbus Drive and Newark Avenue all one ways. Once THAT proves successful, THEN revisit the MLK and Ocean proposal.
Fair?