Spend any time at all in Camden, New Jersey and you’ll notice people getting around without cars. Rutgers students flood out of PATCO and RiverLINE stations in the mornings and afternoons. Residents walk to work, transit hubs and local restaurants and shops. Whether by choice or out of necessity, locals rely on travel modes other than driving. To serve this large population, funding for transportation networks that accommodate Camden’s non-drivers must be prioritized by state and local agencies, and must be reflected in New Jersey’s Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for the region.

A recent study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Frontier Group showed that millennials accross the country are choosing to live and work in places where they don’t have to drive. This is also true in Camden, where students who either commute to Rutgers University-Camden or live nearby are shunning cars in favor of commuting by public transit, on foot or by bicycle. According to the US Census, just 4.9 percent of workers nationwide aged sixteen and older commute by public transit and 2.5 percent walk to work. Compare that to Camden, where nearly 16 percent of workers aged sixteen and older take public transportation to work, and 6.5 percent commute on foot.

Nearly 35 percent of occupied housing units in Camden do not own a motor vehicle–a rate nearly four times higher than the national average of 8.9 percent. This largely carless culture is due in part to factors like the high cost of owning and maintaining a motor vehicle. Regardless of the reasons behind low car use, these numbers clearly show that additional investments in transit, sidewalks, bike lanes and trails will improve the safety and convenience of getting around Camden for all residents, and will surely help convince more people to ditch their cars.

Accommodations for pedestrians and bicyclists are improving in Camden–there are now more bike lanes, multi-use trails and plans to enhance access to the Ben Franklin Bridge–but there is more work to do. There are several projects that would grow the bike/pedestrian network:

• Existing local segments of the Circuit, Greater Philadelphia and South Jersey’s regional trail network, must be connected to form a continuous, coherent non-motorized transportation network that connects locals to work, transit and entertainment destinations.
• Plans by local non-profit Cooper’s Ferry Partnership to stripe new bike lanes on a number of Camden streets must be supplemented by the City with safety improvements on additional city streets, especially in locations with high numbers of bike crashes and pedestrian fatalities.
• And in the future, the use of prime Delaware River waterfront property for surface parking lots must change. While tourists use these parking lots to visit the Camden Waterfront attractions, these destinations are within easy walking distance of rail and bus transit, as well as the Ben Franklin Bridge walkway. Options to better connect downtown to the river and existing waterfront promenade should be explored by local leaders and community groups. In North Camden, such efforts led to the successful transformation of mistreated waterfront property into the newly revitalized Pyne Poynt Park.

All of these improvements would not only improve the safety and convenience of walking and biking, they would also contribute to growth in the local economy. In New Jersey, infrastructure, businesses and events associated with walking and biking contributed $497.46 million to the state economy in 2011.

Whether locals cannot afford a car or are simply choosing not to drive, investing in walking, biking and transit infrastructure in Camden is critical. State and local leaders have the power to utilize federal transportation funds on projects to accomodate these modes of travel. The transportation funding priorities for the region will likely be updated in 2015, which will give the region an opportunity to plan to further serve the large and growing number of non-drivers in and around Camden. Only through these investments can local leaders improve daily travel conditions for existing residents, while also providing a welcoming environment for visitors and potential new residents alike.