Change is in the air in Jersey City. On Tuesday, City Councilmember Steven Fulop defeated incumbent Jerramiah Healy to become the next mayor of the Garden State’s second most populous city. This new development begs the question: when Fulop takes office, what types of transportation policies will he bring with him?
Healy’s administration made excellent progress on pedestrian and bicycle policies and infrastructure in Jersey City, so Fulop has some rather large shoes to fill. In 2011, the City adopted a Complete Streets policy, followed in 2012 by a temporary bike lane on Grove Street (which was made permanent earlier this month), and ultimately a plan to install 54.7 miles of bike lanes throughout the city in December. TSTC hopes that Mayor-elect Fulop will not only continue the implementation of these plans, but also step-up enforcement of vehicles that stand or park in bike lanes — a common complaint on Grove Street. Outgoing Mayor Healy also called for BRT during the Pulaski Skyway construction, a provision that TSTC hopes Fulop will also support.
The Mayor-elect’s transportation platform has some positive components: traffic calming measures, parking spaces set aside for car share, and increased PATH and bus service. But there are some red flags that could potentially lead to backsliding on the progress made during Healy’s tenure.
Fulop wants to increase the amount of parking in Jersey City, which he plans to do (in part) by eliminating the prohibition of parking within 25 feet of an intersection or crosswalk. In downtown Jersey City, a place that is incredibly walkable and home to several surface parking lots, one can question the actual need for more parking. More parking means more cars, which means more traffic and less safe roads. Any increase in parking in any part of the city should seriously analyze the very real incentive it creates for more traffic before it is implemented. Perhaps increased transit options, or a city-wide bike-share program could eliminate the need for this parking increase. Instead of adding supply, the Mayor-elect should consider demand-based parking pricing — something that might appeal to Fulop, a former Wall Street trader who holds an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.
In addition, as part of the Mayor-elect’s plan to improve bus service, he plans to create a Bus System Task Force that doesn’t include any residents, community groups or advocacy groups that ride the bus or focus on local transportation issues. If such a group is created, it must include these stakeholders.
How many of those intersections would have insufficient sight distances if they allowed parking up to the corner?
Sounds like a bad idea on even the most basic and conventional engineering terms.
“39:4-138.6 Municipal authority to set certain permissible parking distances,” was a crappy law passed in 2009 that allowed municipalities to pass an ordinances that would then allow parking that otherwise violate the NJ State standard of no parking within 50 feet from a stop sign or traffic signal. That law also states that “A municipality may not, however, permit parking within 25 feet of a crosswalk or side line of a street or intersecting highway”. Allowing ANY parking within 25 feet of an intersection of crosswalk would still be in violation of NJ Law.
So how would Fulop be able to get away with setting parking within 25 feet of the crosswalk if it’s a violation of NJ Law? I’ve biked in Jersey City many times, and I hope they keep up with the infrastructure improvement they’ve been making.
As a JC resident and (full disclosure) a Fulop supporter, I have yet to see any of the much ballyhooed Healey bike lanes materialize except for the so-called “experimental” bike lane on Grove Street. Hoboken gets their bike lanes in much faster. How much is a bucket of white paint and the appropriate stencils?
As for parking, I live in a neighborhood of “old school” one and multi family dwellings without the luxury of off street parking. Culling the herd of parking spaces will not discourage people from bringing their cars, it will only make Jersey City as hard to park in as Hoboken. Neither will the concept of letting developers slide on off site parking requirements, that will only impact existing middle class residents who cant afford to pony up $$$ to buy space in a parking garage like Joe and Jane Porsche Cayenne can afford.
The issue isn’t discouraging people from bringing a car in to the city, it’s discouraging them from bringing in the second car. Case in point is Crescent Point, the relatively new condo complex in the “Italian Village”. Residents there get a space in a garage, but have to buy a space for an addition car. Guess where the second car winds up? Guess who’s parking gets taken away? The resident living in an older, existing unit with no off street parking.
While I support the painful elimination of spaces 25 feet from a cross walk, which makes it safer for me as a driver to see pedestrians before they step out, there has to be balance.
Here’s a suggestion to help mobility in the city- allow cabs to pick up people who hail them on the street. More income for cabbies, better use of resource instead of an empty cab wasting fuel to go back to the cab stand.
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