One of the proposed cut-through traffic calming measures is to re-close Barrow St and unify the pedestrian plaza. This would fix one of the biggest problems with the pedestrian plaza which is split by traffic in two, and imo would be the strongest measure for calming down Erie St. The current proposed one-ways would help with the northern end, but leave the southern half still used as a rushing cut-through to get to Marin.

If all this makes sense to you, please ask for that in the survey and reaching out to electeds asking for the same.

This maybe doesn't help you in the short-term, but FYI, 12th and 14th are controlled by the Port Authority, and the Port Authority appears to have set the traffic light timings to be the average walking speed of an adult, which is obviously very hostile to pedestrians. Seven lanes is also four too many lanes now that toll collection is all electronic now. The Holland Tunnel is only two lanes. They should cone off the extra lanes in the short-term and redesign 12th and 14th St in the long-term.

Regarding their corridor report: Anything undertaken by NJTPA or Hudson County traffic engineering must be taken with a grain of salt. Daylighting, curb extensions, and tallying past crash data and reasons are of course all great. But otherwise they simply don't have a pro-safety or modern approach to street design, especially in comparison to Jersey City and Hoboken.

One of their recommendations for improving safety is adding slip lanes, what they call a "channelized right turn". But dedicated right turn lanes and slip lanes are known to be quite dangerous for pedestrians because they are about speed and driver convenience, not safety. Jersey City has looked to eliminate them where possible. This is one of many good articles on why they are bad: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/11/5/slip-lanes-would-never-exist-if-we-prioritized-safety-over-speed

Another problem is the lane widths they have continued to use and even recommend in long-term concepts. Car lanes should be 10ft and bus/truck lanes can be 10.5 or 11ft. The 12ft lanes that exist along many JFK straightway segments tell drivers 50mph is safe even while the posted speed limit is 25mph.

Overall, Hudson County needs to adopt Vision Zero and pilot safety improvements regularly and quickly instead of always waiting for grants. Some of their safety projects are from Obama-era grants, and it is not an effective way of getting things done.

Here is the project website for improvements in the vicinity of Journal Square: https://www.jfkblvdproject.com/ The front page shows the JSQ bike rack. The public comments are pretty pro-safety and pro-bike facilities but of course the final plans provide none. Here's a recording of comments from one of the public meetings: https://www.jfkblvdproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/JFK-PIC-Minutes-07-15-20-Comments-Responses-FINAL.pdf

There has been an effort for traffic enforcement on JFK by JCPD West District that appears to have had some effect, but it's tough given how high the design speed is and how much bad driving occurs on the Boulevard.

It would be nice if there was regular release of stats on locations, times, severity of injuries for crashes but right now, the only regularly reported public data is the state police fatality data: https://nj.gov/njsp/info/fatalacc/index.shtml

SafeStreetsJC regularly posts/forwards about crashes in Jersey City, but it is based on citizen activity and is not comprehensive in any way: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23jccrashes

Hudson County Complete Streets is a good group to get in touch with: https://hudcostreets.org/

Newsletters:

• SafeStreetsJC: https://mailchi.mp/838f1050d7c6/keep-up-with-safe-street-advocacy
• HudCoStreets: https://buttondown.email/hccs
• BikeJC: https://www.bikejc.org/news/#subscribe

NJTA doesn't receive Federal funding. In fact, a drop in the bucket when we're talking statewide line items, but NJTA is sending a few hundred million per year to NJTransit. The state is free to do as it pleases with NJTA revenue as long as it is able to make payments on its bonds.

That's wrong. NJTA is a public authority whose board is selected by the NJ Governor and whose minutes, meaning their legal decisions, can be vetoed by Murphy. In fact, there is some money going to NJ Transit already although it's payback for past diversions and also temporary. It's NJ's money.

If you're not familiar with the details of the Newark Bay-Hudson County Extension, what people also call I-78 or just the Turnpike Extension – it's only 8.1 miles long and ends in two lanes heading into the Holland Tunnel. So we're talking about over $1.3 billion per mile. No, no, not paved in gold, same as all the other Jersey highways.

Good thread discussing Turnpike's own admission their plans are going to result in a parking lot highway to wait for the same Holland Tunnel bottleneck: https://twitter.com/robhisme/status/1593298482546212865

Induced demand is a thing, but also have you considered what is on the other side of the Holland Tunnel?

If you think this $5 billion Turnpike boondoggle is not making environmental or transportation sense, please join a broad coalition including EmpowerNJ, EnvironmentNJ, Hudson County Complete Streets, BikeJC, SafeStreetsJC, City Council, many neighborhood associations, and others at a rally this Saturday 11/12 at Mary Benson Park to tell Murphy to stop this highway and invest in so many better alternatives instead.

Bike ride at 10am starting from Grove St
Rally at 12pm on the ball field at Mary Benson

RSVP here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/rsvp-now-to-join-us-for-a-solidarity-rally-and-bike-ride-in-jersey-city

Rain date of Sunday 11/13, same time, same place.

"The report said making $260 million in structural repairs would extend the useful life of the span by more than 40 years. The report said the cost to demolish and build a new bridge is estimated at $2.7 billion."

The process is they put a sticker on it with a reasonable deadline (a month or two or something like that for the person to come back and claim). Have personally seen a bike get stickered but then they didn't come back to remove until over a year later.

Have also seen claims for work completed that they definitely did not do. WOTS has gotten this way to where the parking enforcement officers don't even show up to the location and still close out tickets pretending as if they were there. Their excuses used to be lame. Now they are just lies.

I have less of a problem with saying the city is under-resourced if that is what's happening in some cases though it's still the politicians' jobs to figure it out. But I don't know why we should ever accept lying by public employees.

It's a good point... but should we be forgetting about the elderly, handicapped, vision-impaired? Anyone could easily trip over that if they are distracted or it's night or any number of situations.