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Downtown Summit, NJ, near the NJ Transit station. Calling Summit, NJ “almost a poster for what a Transit Village is,” the Summit planning board recently approved a motion to recommend the City Council apply to NJDOT for Transit Village designation. Clearly, municipalities still see the benefit transit-oriented development can bring. But given the defunding of the [...] Dan Burden and volunteers conduct a safety audit along Black Horse Pike. He later said the four intersections surveyed on Wednesday "are among the worst of the many intersections in the 3,500 communities I’ve studied across the country." On Wednesday, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and AARP joined hundreds of residents, nationally known pedestrian safety [...] The percentage of NJDOT's capital program going to road capacity expansion has significantly increased in recent years. What’s the difference between NJDOT’s Final Transportation Capital Program for Fiscal Year 2012, made publicly available this month, and the agency’s draft program released in March 2011? A lot. And although the agency’s yearly capital programs [...] New Jersey’s public transit system links residents with economic centers both inside and outside the state. But the state has committed steadily smaller shares of transportation capital spending to transit, as shown by a review of its transportation capital programs. In fiscal year 2004, nearly half of the program was dedicated to transit. In [...] Gov. Christie and New Jersey state legislators have been wrangling for weeks over the budget. Lawmakers passed their own budget on June 29 in an attempt to reverse some of the governor’s cuts. The next day, mere hours before the state constitutional deadline to pass a balanced budget and avoid a state government shutdown, Governor [...] One reason to oppose the Christie administration’s plan to pull the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) cap-and-trade program is that this removes a source of funding for sustainable land use and transportation planning. But, as a reader correctly points out, the funding provided by RGGI for these purposes is quite limited. [...] Jersey City is the largest municipality in the state to adopt a Complete Streets policy. Jersey City and Ridgewood are the latest municipalities in New Jersey to adopt local Complete Streets policies saying that roads should be designed and built with pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders in mind, reports NJ Future’s Jay Corbalis. There [...] As MTR has reported extensively, Black Horse Pike (US-322/40) in Atlantic County, continues to be one of the most dangerous roads in the state of New Jersey. With little in the way of pedestrian infrastructure, fast moving automobile traffic and retail sites that lining the roadway, Black Horse Pike, is precisely the type of suburban ”arterial” road that tends to be particularly dangerous for non-drivers. Year after year, pedestrians are killed in alarming numbers while walking along or attempting to cross this roadway. In fact, due to the extremely high number of pedestrian fatalities, NJDOT Commissioner James Simpson has pledged to personally inspect Black Horse Pike in the coming days. There is a significant residential population within walking distance of Black Horse Pike (particularly in Pleasantville and Egg Harbor Township). Ideally, these residents would be able to safely access area businesses and local bus stops on foot, but the pike’s current design presents them with a number of major obstacles. Wanting to better understand the conditions that these and other pedestrians face, I visited Black Horse Pike in Atlantic City, Pleasantville and Egg Harbor Township and documented what I discovered. The following photographs illustrate the hazards, inconveniences and the, quite frankly, shocking conditions that I encountered while walking the Black Horse Pike. Atlantic CityBlack Horse Pike (known briefly here as Albany Avenue) begins its westward crawl across the Garden State in Atlantic City. I began my journey on a fairly wide sidewalk about a mile from the boardwalk and casinos–almost instantly, the paved sidewalk ended.  Sidewalks start and end with no apparent rhyme or reason all along Black Horse Pike. Pedestrians on this section of roadway in Atlantic City are forced to walk on gravel and turf. Continuing my westward trek, I encountered a crosswalk that was clearly added to the pike to make it safer for pedestrians to cross between local businesses on either side of the roadway. While this crossing is well-marked and has a pedestrian-activated walk signal, those who are unable to make it all the way across this wide stretch of road before the light turns red will be stuck in the middle of the roadway, with little clearance from passing vehicles:  Pedestrians who are unable to cross quickly are forced to wait in the center of the road, only inches away from speeding traffic. PleasantvilleWest of Atlantic City is Pleasantville. Pedestrian infrastructure here is extremely lacking. While school children, seniors and those with physical disabilities are probably most at risk, the conditions here are so deplorable that, even with extreme caution, it felt unsafe for me to walk here.  Sidewalks here are unpaved, narrow and dotted with obstructions like this post, making the pike difficult to walk along for even the most able-bodied individuals. Click to read more about Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township, and ways to fix Black Horse Pike. Downtown Cranford, just north of the train station. Municipalities in New Jersey continue to sing the praises of NJDOT’s Transit Village program, which helps towns support walkable, transit-oriented downtowns but has been cut out of the department’s fiscal year 2012 capital program. In the spring/summer issue of the Cranford Downtown Management Corporation’s Downtown [...] The above poll ran with an NJ 101.5 story recapping Tri-State's analysis of NJDOT's fiscal year 2012 capital program. Listeners of NJ 101.5 certainly seem to agree that the state needs to continue a “fix-it-first” approach to roads and bridges that prioritizes maintenance and repair. The poll above came at the top of [...] |
 
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