We’ve featured some of the region’s most popular bicycling routes each Friday during Bike Month. We’re nearing the end, but fortunately New Jersey’s best cycling routes stay open year-round.
The New Jersey Department of Transportation offers 28 different bicycle tour guides which feature bicycle routes (and nearby attractions) throughout the Garden State. For Bike Month, NJDOT released three new bicycling tours:
- Jersey City to Hoboken Waterfront Tour — a 14 mile loop which passes through historic and diverse neighborhoods, lively downtowns and spectacular waterfronts. The route is described as “easy and flat” and mostly utilizes on-street bike lanes and off-road paths.
- Gloucester County Country Tour — a 17 mile route which connects Pitman, Rowan University, Glassboro Wildlife Management Area and Scotland Run Park. About six miles of this ride are on dedicated bike lanes and another three miles are off-road on the Williamstown-Glassboro Trail.
- A Gorgeous Ride: The Columbia Trail — a 15 mile multi-use path which parallels the South Branch of the Raritan River in Hunterdon and Morris counties. The trail connects the small towns of High Bridge, Califon and Long Valley and passes through forests, farms and parklands. It is built upon an abandoned railroad corridor and named for the Columbia Gas Line constructed under the former rail bed in the 1990’s. The route is relatively flat and is mostly crushed stone with short segments of gravel or dirt (NJDOT recommends bicycles with wider tires for this tour).
These routes are a solid addition to NJDOT’s series of bike tours, but there are some popular routes that have yet to receive proper cycling safety treatments:
Route 35 from Bay Head to Island Beach State Park — After a year of intense advocacy, NJDOT announced in April of last year revised plans for the $265 million, 12.5-mile Route 35 Reconstruction Project. The project now includes 10 miles of bike accommodations — mostly dedicated bike lanes, with shared lane markings or “sharrows” in some locations. The project is still not completed but should be done by the end of June.
Sea Bright — In February, the town council approved a resolution allowing back-in angled parking, which would make way for the addition of dedicated bike lanes on Ocean Avenue from Sandy Hook to Monmouth Beach. This project is slated to begin in 2016.
Am I the only one that thinks that these guides are a less than wise use of limited state funds? There are already dozens of guide books out there for people looking for cycle tours in New Jersey. There are also countless online resources and routes ready for people to download straight to a navigation device. And with the Columbia Trail, there are already county produced pamphlets out there (http://www.co.hunterdon.nj.us/depts/parks/ParkAreas/ColumbiaTrail/brochure.pdf AND http://www.morrisparks.net/maps/pdfs/PatriotsPath-2.pdf).
And then there are parts of the suggested routes themselves. I’m considered a “bold and fearless” cyclist and I won’t ride some of the roads suggested in these guides. For example referring to the Columbia Trail guide again, I am beyond flabbergasted that they suggest riding up Schooleys Mountain Road from Long Valley. Not only is this road incredibly steep (one of the steepest in the state), it has high volumes of traffic all day (including large, heavy trucks), weekdays and weekends, and it is also notorious for crashes at several sharp and steep turns. Using the Furth Level of Traffic Stress rating, this road clearly ranks at LTS 4+!!! How do I know so much about this road? My brother lives on it and there have been 3 car crashes on this road just in the times I’ve been visiting over the past 15 years. I rode up this road once but purposely went up at 8am on a Sunday to avoid the traffic.