According to a Rutherford Police report, a 45-year-old man was struck and severely injured while crossing Orient Way on Saturday. The incident occurred near the intersection at East Pierrepont Avenue, in a location where the now stalled Rutherford Bike Ring should have been in place.
The Rutherford Bike Ring plan, which was three years in the making and cost $115,000 taxpayer funding, was designed to improve bicycle and pedestrian facilities and enhance car-free access in and around the Rutherford/Meadowlands area. But the plan was suddenly derailed in November.
Orient Way, which was a key component of the Rutherford Bike Ring plan, currently has 13 foot travel lanes (wider than the maximum width recommended for freeways) with no bicycle facilities, pedestrian amenities or traffic calming features like curb extensions and high-visibility crosswalks — all of which were called for in the Bike Ring plan. This most recent incident should have Borough officials scrambling to rethink their hasty decision.
The accident occurred at 4:53am early Saturday morning. I don’t think a bike lane would have prevented this unfortunate accident.
The problem with Orient HighWay is and had always been SPEED.
Traffic calming measures are what the NJDOT and their traffic engineers called for. The site of this accident was one of the intersections targeted as most dangerous and residents back up that fact.
Traffic calming measures are narrow lanes, better signage, high visibility crosswalk with bump outs into the roadway and bike lanes. All of these things contribute to safer more complete streets. Better lighting could have helped too.
TG it was not one one of the hundreds of school children that cross this road twice a day that was do badly injured.
Ignoring expert recommendations and traffic planning studies is not a smart course of action.
I’m do sorry someone was so badly injured.
Rutherford is surrounded by high speed super highways. It does not need one cutting through a residential neighborhood.
John
Again I will say this. Do not make statements with out the facts. Bike ring is one thing. Collisions are another. Get the traffic data. How many collisions at that intersection. How many pedestrians struck. Traffic control is based on statistics not on one collision
I am all for bike lanes in Rutherford, but I would want them to be part of a bigger plan that incorporates other towns and actually goes to more places than the town’s perimeter. Look at the Saddle River Pathway or the Northern Outer Banks of N.Carolina for examples to emulate.
I’m not sure if bike lanes would have helped the injured pedestrian, especially in the dark. A middle island in Orient Way might be the way to go to protect pedestrians.
Brian,
I disagree, the amount of people killed or injured on Orient Way is irrelevant. Streets are public places that are for everyone to use; motorist, pedestrians, bike riders as well as the elderly or disabled. Not one person should have to be hurt for there to be consideration for nonmotorists. As it stands now cars on Orient Way speed passed a 60ft wide street at an average of about 50mph, sometimes exceeding 60mph. By any rational measure this is a very dangerous street to cross on foot or bike.
Studies show that wide streets = fast streets. In addion to providing space for bike riders, bike lanes narrow the street which limits traffic speed. Add in other components like extended curbs, turn only lanes or pedestrian islands and Rutherford can be a much friendlier and safer place for everyone on the road.
Brian – Anyone can see that Orient Way’s current alignment is wholly inappropriate for its context. Let’s say there had been no actual crashes there. Is that still the most efficient use of space? Is it not a deterrent to the more efficient and environmentally responsible modes of transportation? Any planner or engineer not stuck in the 1960s can see that improvements to that stroad were needed without even reading the report. Plenty of study went into developing a plan to improve it. Even if you don’t agree with the details of that plan, you can’t really defend that type of configuration as acceptable for a densely populated residential environment.
Brian,
You are not following:
Two years ago Rutherford asked the NJDOT for a traffic study. DOT appointed a traffic safety and engineering firm to study our streets. They spent an entire year compiling the accident statistics and studying our roadways and traffic patterns. They made their recommendations last year. The total taxpayer cost of this report was $115,000 and it came from a grant that I wrote.
These are not my recommends – I am not expert – they are the NJDOTs. The Boro Government and Boro Engineers made the decision in November to follow NONE of the recommendation one of which is a redesign of Orient HighWay and this intersection in particular. The full report is available here: http://rutherfordgreenteam.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Rutherford-FINAL-Report.pdf
Brian – read the FACTS and the EXPERT ANALYSIS as I have. Then once you know the facts and recommendations please feel free to opine on this my friend.