Bicycles belong. Bicycles make life and cities better. Healthy exercise, fossil fuels free transportation and great for social distancing. Ebikes are bringing many older adults back to cycling. Cities need to do more to encourage adults and children to ride bicycles by providing more safe protected bike lanes.
@@eiypo Coming from the Netherlands i find this a weird discussion, it seems that there is a bike vs car "fight" going on. I think this should be a discussion about effective traveling where both cars and bikes can exist next to each other and even better complement each other. In my city there are still a lot of people that travel by car to work. A good amount of those people however park at the edge of the city and then continue to their destination either by Public Transport or by bike. With less people driving cars in and into the city itself it means a win for everyone. No car driver likes congestions or having to pay top dollar for parking space or sharing its driving space with a bike. Bikes can help bring the need for people to be in a car down but they need their own infrastructure. Most important imo is reducing the amount of times that cars and bikes share the same space. The difference in speed and size makes it so that those two do not get along sharing it. While i think that separated bike paths are a good thing even better would be to remove bikes from the car road. So have one road exclusively for motorized traffic why not have a parallel street one block further down exclusively for bikes (with slow driving residential cars). Make both roads priority roads with as few interactions between them as possible and both will be happy.
The trick is to have cycleways on boundary roads, and Low Traffic Areas in between. You can easily create a type of disentangled routes (Hooftdnetten) using the LTAs, underpasses, convient crossing, etc. Similarly you can create 'off-road' main cycling routes closer to homes through neibourhoods. There also cycling street. Tho note, you can have short cycleway and such being using in Hooftdnetten. You need to have all of this. As BicycleDutch says: through-routes of automobiles need to be controlled, bicycles can go mostly through anywhere harmlessly (tho should be guest in pedestrian streets). Having lots of main route choices bring safe main infrastructure closer to homes. Also LTAs are the best thing to do first, and are the best way to add non-main route choice for local journeys (and allow you to get to main routes and local destinations straight from the door.)
Cities and streets are build for cars in europe too. Only unique and well designed cities for the most part in the nederlands stand out as for cyclist.
Hearing that this is coming from Amsterdam gives it so much more gravity than with any other city. Jersey City will be America's Amsterdam, this I'm sure of.
Awesome! This is beginning to look like a network that will actually safely take you from A to B without interruptions in bike infrastructure. It is nice to see more people riding outside!
Please extend this into the Heights! JFK/Central Avenue could use protected bike lanes! Especially since the people in the Heights are utilizing bikes more due to their socioeconomic limitations. Thank you!
Bravo! I applaud you all for having recognised the importance of good cycling infrastructure. Clearly, you have implemented a well-conceived plan with success. Cycling is healthy and ecological. Let's hope that you have established a trend that others will replicate across the US. I am watching from the Netherlands. (If you have not already done so, visit my country to see how best to create a cycling infrastructure.) "Fijne Feestdagen!" ("Season's Greetings!")
From a Dutch perspective: Good to see protective bike lanes. keep up the good work. Also from a Dutch perspective: There might be a good reason but... The intersection crossing shown at 2:07 is designed wrongly. It unnecessary creates a conflict situation for pedestrians walking in the same direction as the bicycle lane goes. This conflict is easy to solve by switching the pedestrian and bicycle lane on this intersection. As shown in the following picture, see: encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_yrUdLIrUjV7JhcBaUcTO3FZHGMz5u28K2w&usqp=CAU A second design error. At 3:08 the continuous green bicycle lane on the intersection is interrupted. That gives the wrong signal. It tells car drivers that the bicycle lane ends and therefore that car drivers rule this intersection. If you continue the bike lane on this intersection then you tell car drivers "be aware, cyclists here". It is psychology. And makes the intersection safer. As you can see with the continuous red paint shown on the previous picture. But also illustrated by the following picture where cyclists have priority over motorised traffic, see: eenvandaag.assets.avrotros.nl/_processed_/3/c/csm_7125b6c8066d420f05b3_5f04e81997.jpg In contrast, motorised traffic has the right of way on the following intersection (2 Dutch major arterial roads most likely outside city limits), see: d14uo0i7wmc99w.cloudfront.net/_processed_/d/5/csm_Kruising_Westtangent_met_Zuidtangent_fd2a0b32c2.jpg Notice the deliberately interrupted cycle paths on this intersection (missing red paint) to indicate cyclists that they are crossing a major arterial road here. Again, psychology. Trivia: The red paint I talked about actually is not red paint but red asphalt. I used the word "paint" here because anywhere else in the world it is paint. E.g. green in Jersey City and blue in the UK and Denmark. Reason: paint wears out, red asphalt doesn't.
@@StreetfilmsCommunity Not that it is important but I don't think so. I expect my amateurish personal reply to drown in all other replies. However, maybe you can help by introducing the good folks of Jersey City to a professional like Meredith Glaser (among others). See: www.uva.nl/en/profile/g/l/m.a.glaser/m.a.glaser.html Meredith Glaser is an American citizen, specialised in infrastructure, and (currently) living in The Netherlands. No doubt the good folks of Jersey City followed the local infrastructure guidelines and the NACTO guidelines. I don't know about the local guidelines but I do know about the NACTO guidelines. NACTO is a disaster when it comes to bicycle infrastructure. Though NACTO did adopt some guidelines from the Dutch CROW manual, it does deviate on some crucial bicycle infrastructure guidelines. And not in a good way. References: nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/ www.crow.nl/publicaties/design-manual-for-bicycle-traffic ruclips.net/video/Ku9ZlG8FYGc/видео.html .An infrastructure tour guided by Meredith Glaser. twitter.com/dutch_ish .Some random but relevant tweets from Meredith Glaser. Note: I referred to, and recommended, Meredith Glaser exactly because she is an US citizen with Dutch infrastructure knowledge. She can relate to both. And bridge both infrastructures.
@@peterslegers6121 The reason for the use of paint (as well as the plastic bollards and Jersey barriers) is that cities can quickly and cheaply set up the infrastructure needed. To install colored asphalt is a major project that takes time and money that many city budgets don't have. However I would imagine that as this takes off and money becomes available, when these streets are repaved/rebuilt, permanent pavement for the bike lanes whether it be colored asphalt, pavers, bricks or other material will be used. Remember that this is a relatively new area for North American infrastructure which up until recently has been almost completely car focused.
I agree, I think the pedestrian crossings where already there and they added the bike crossing on the other side. The speed that they use is great! But taking a tad more time to "fix" the crossings so it get's less conflicts is probably better.
Great work! Getting separated space down on the street is the first critical step! Those buffer areas and protected intersections can certainly be improved over time and this has the potential for a bike network designed for all users. I’m working on an updated bike/ped plan in my town and looking at some similar separated options to get things down on the road and then improve over time.
@@AnthonyBrusca whatever colour they want to use is not the problem, it is the painted parts itself, London (UK) started to paint blue bicycle lanes on the roads, but the paint was fading quickly due to wear and tear, mostly becaus cars and busses could still drive on or over the bicycle lanes to reach busstops and parking spaces. While the painted asphalt is less slippery than what they used before, it can still be more slippery than normal asphalt. If you use coloured asphalt, yes it cost more than paint, but it will keep its colour till the next road maintenance, in the Netherlands this would be 20-30 years unless something has happened like a burst pipe.
outstanding way to go now if they did this up here in Alaska it would be Great wow keep doing this in all the USA city's way to go more the Marrier yes
I like the network plan! Now you have to keep the lanes clean, nothing is worse than a bike lane filled with leaves and gravel. Do you have street sweeps that fit in the bike lane? What if it snows?
From what I've seen in Google Street View (not a JC resident _yet_ so I can't attest with my own biking), a good number of the protected bike lanes are as wide as a car lane because they're repurposed car lanes, so it's just a matter of getting a snow plow truck down them, rather than finding special small snowplows.
John...Ive only been to Jersey City a couple of times. I lived in Union city...very scrunched grid..it wouldnt work there. However, I will keep an open mind to it..it sometimes seems to work when its fits the area. If I remember correctly, the city, maybe Newark?, canceled the scooter program because of the danger and teenage death. That says to me, the city actually cares for safety and the general welfare of its residents. Unlike NYC, where they refuse to acknowledge that its a disastrous space mistake, I have much more trust in Jersey city assessment.
All of the main streets that lead to Jsq or downtown are pretty sketchy. I usually take Hancock down because it's fairly wide and calm but it's just a painted lane. I'd love protected lanes in that direction
Those grates at 3:36 need to be turned 90 degrees. I literally know of people that died riding a bike over that sort of grate, cause their wheel got stuck and they hit their head on the ground. There was a brazilian photographer that died like that some years ago. Yep
Those buffers waste too much of the width of the total available space. Instead, you can use obstacles, like cement separators, vegetation, bushes, that can be much narrower and accomplish the job, at the same time making the bicycle path even wider with that extra space previously being wasted to create a buffer.
Next step is changing the education. Improve the education for your driving licence, because that is really terrible. And also give traffic education ad school. Only infrastructure, doesn't solve it all.
How about the majority of jersey city residents that been living here for generations and have to drive 40 min for work. City keeps developing and not solving the traffic issues or parking just making it worse for us.
And it will continue to get worse. The solution is fewer people driving. Where would you build more bridges? Widen roads? Build parking? And IF you did that you would just have MORE cars MORE congestion and your trip would get longer and even more frustrating. What would be YOUR solution?
I know...when I was typing, it occurred to me that the cancellation of a scooter contract after a teenagers death may not have been in Jersey city..maybe Newark...So, I thought I should put a disclaimer there that it may not have been in Jersey city...it doesnt detract from the overall argument of..its being tried..lets see if it works here
Something tells me..this is not a safety upgrade for pedestrians and probably hell for drivers. Love the way you threw in pedestrians as almost an afterthought. ‘Quality of the infrastructure’ ‘safe experience for the riders’ etc..all centered on the cyclist perspective ..not the pedestrian or the motor vehicle driver...well time will tale the tale..will upper income leave...
As a 3 year resident who drives, I can say that it's better for pedestrians and cars too. Before, there were bikes flying in any direction from any place, but the green streets provide a better flow, and people know where to expect the bikers from.
@@douglasjgallup by ‘discouraging the car’ you are making the area less desirable to live work and play in.. parking issues signals to people..go elsewhere for everything...dont rent, dont buy, go elsewhere for errands, entertainment, shopping and eating. If you think Im exaggerating, all you need to do is watch the exodus out of NYC and what happens in the next three to five years.
@@johncross116 That is something that anti-bike car drivers should realize. It nicer to drive with bikes on a separate path than with unpredictable bikes on a car lane.
@@helengigante4038 i bet it is just the opposite, design for livability is key. The geometry of space shouldn't favor one very large mode of transportation over others that need room to grow and flourish. Cars have their place in cities but the place of people in cities needs to be given a more central role, reduce the primacy of vehicles.
Share this video with transportation planners in your city.
All adults and children should be able to ride a bicycle safely on a protected bike lane.
Bicycles belong. Bicycles make life and cities better.
Healthy exercise, fossil fuels free transportation and great for social distancing.
Ebikes are bringing many older adults back to cycling. Cities need to do more to encourage adults and children to ride bicycles by providing more safe protected bike lanes.
Amazing! Our cities should be built for people, not cars, just like countless other European cities.
Added incentive : usa.streetsblog.org/2020/12/14/four-ways-cars-pollute-our-places-besides-the-tailpipe/
@@eiypo Coming from the Netherlands i find this a weird discussion, it seems that there is a bike vs car "fight" going on. I think this should be a discussion about effective traveling where both cars and bikes can exist next to each other and even better complement each other. In my city there are still a lot of people that travel by car to work. A good amount of those people however park at the edge of the city and then continue to their destination either by Public Transport or by bike. With less people driving cars in and into the city itself it means a win for everyone.
No car driver likes congestions or having to pay top dollar for parking space or sharing its driving space with a bike. Bikes can help bring the need for people to be in a car down but they need their own infrastructure. Most important imo is reducing the amount of times that cars and bikes share the same space. The difference in speed and size makes it so that those two do not get along sharing it.
While i think that separated bike paths are a good thing even better would be to remove bikes from the car road. So have one road exclusively for motorized traffic why not have a parallel street one block further down exclusively for bikes (with slow driving residential cars). Make both roads priority roads with as few interactions between them as possible and both will be happy.
The trick is to have cycleways on boundary roads, and Low Traffic Areas in between. You can easily create a type of disentangled routes (Hooftdnetten) using the LTAs, underpasses, convient crossing, etc.
Similarly you can create 'off-road' main cycling routes closer to homes through neibourhoods. There also cycling street. Tho note, you can have short cycleway and such being using in Hooftdnetten.
You need to have all of this. As BicycleDutch says: through-routes of automobiles need to be controlled, bicycles can go mostly through anywhere harmlessly (tho should be guest in pedestrian streets). Having lots of main route choices bring safe main infrastructure closer to homes.
Also LTAs are the best thing to do first, and are the best way to add non-main route choice for local journeys (and allow you to get to main routes and local destinations straight from the door.)
Cities and streets are build for cars in europe too. Only unique and well designed cities for the most part in the nederlands stand out as for cyclist.
It makes me happy to see that the protected bicycle lanes are coming to the usa.
congrats from Amsterdam - you are on the right track - keep the good work up!
Hearing that this is coming from Amsterdam gives it so much more gravity than with any other city.
Jersey City will be America's Amsterdam, this I'm sure of.
Not only New York and Montreal are moving forward.
This is great change.
This should be a given in all US cities well done Jersey.
Awesome! This is beginning to look like a network that will actually safely take you from A to B without interruptions in bike infrastructure. It is nice to see more people riding outside!
3:44 yay ponytail cyclist markings! 4:14 citibike station.
Nice work. Love how fast you have done this. I live in Maryland, but travel to ride and will check out your bike lanes next summer for sure!
Please extend this into the Heights! JFK/Central Avenue could use protected bike lanes! Especially since the people in the Heights are utilizing bikes more due to their socioeconomic limitations. Thank you!
Tactical urbanism
This is beautiful😃👍🚴
Inspiring. Really like the intersection design and the approach of lane -> parking -> bike-lane -> sidewalk.
I love this!
I just started to bike to work last year. This came at the right time 😂 this is the best, love Jersey City.
Bravo! I applaud you all for having recognised the importance of good cycling infrastructure. Clearly, you have implemented a well-conceived plan with success. Cycling is healthy and ecological. Let's hope that you have established a trend that others will replicate across the US. I am watching from the Netherlands. (If you have not already done so, visit my country to see how best to create a cycling infrastructure.) "Fijne Feestdagen!" ("Season's Greetings!")
From a Dutch perspective: Good to see protective bike lanes. keep up the good work.
Also from a Dutch perspective: There might be a good reason but...
The intersection crossing shown at 2:07 is designed wrongly.
It unnecessary creates a conflict situation for pedestrians walking in the same direction as the bicycle lane goes.
This conflict is easy to solve by switching the pedestrian and bicycle lane on this intersection. As shown in the following picture, see:
encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_yrUdLIrUjV7JhcBaUcTO3FZHGMz5u28K2w&usqp=CAU
A second design error.
At 3:08 the continuous green bicycle lane on the intersection is interrupted. That gives the wrong signal. It tells car drivers that the bicycle lane ends and therefore that car drivers rule this intersection.
If you continue the bike lane on this intersection then you tell car drivers "be aware, cyclists here". It is psychology. And makes the intersection safer. As you can see with the continuous red paint shown on the previous picture.
But also illustrated by the following picture where cyclists have priority over motorised traffic, see:
eenvandaag.assets.avrotros.nl/_processed_/3/c/csm_7125b6c8066d420f05b3_5f04e81997.jpg
In contrast, motorised traffic has the right of way on the following intersection (2 Dutch major arterial roads most likely outside city limits), see:
d14uo0i7wmc99w.cloudfront.net/_processed_/d/5/csm_Kruising_Westtangent_met_Zuidtangent_fd2a0b32c2.jpg
Notice the deliberately interrupted cycle paths on this intersection (missing red paint) to indicate cyclists that they are crossing a major arterial road here. Again, psychology.
Trivia:
The red paint I talked about actually is not red paint but red asphalt. I used the word "paint" here because anywhere else in the world it is paint. E.g. green in Jersey City and blue in the UK and Denmark. Reason: paint wears out, red asphalt doesn't.
Whether or not they had a reason for doing it, I am sure they will be reading every comment and taking the feedback seriously. Thanks!
@@StreetfilmsCommunity
Not that it is important but I don't think so. I expect my amateurish personal reply to drown in all other replies.
However, maybe you can help by introducing the good folks of Jersey City to a professional like Meredith Glaser (among others). See:
www.uva.nl/en/profile/g/l/m.a.glaser/m.a.glaser.html
Meredith Glaser is an American citizen, specialised in infrastructure, and (currently) living in The Netherlands.
No doubt the good folks of Jersey City followed the local infrastructure guidelines and the NACTO guidelines. I don't know about the local guidelines but I do know about the NACTO guidelines. NACTO is a disaster when it comes to bicycle infrastructure. Though NACTO did adopt some guidelines from the Dutch CROW manual, it does deviate on some crucial bicycle infrastructure guidelines. And not in a good way.
References:
nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/
www.crow.nl/publicaties/design-manual-for-bicycle-traffic
ruclips.net/video/Ku9ZlG8FYGc/видео.html .An infrastructure tour guided by Meredith Glaser.
twitter.com/dutch_ish .Some random but relevant tweets from Meredith Glaser.
Note:
I referred to, and recommended, Meredith Glaser exactly because she is an US citizen with Dutch infrastructure knowledge. She can relate to both. And bridge both infrastructures.
Asphalt / Tarmac can be red, green, blue, yellow, purple... So it doesn't need to be just a layer of paint. See for instance: ventraco.nl/uk-en
@@peterslegers6121 The reason for the use of paint (as well as the plastic bollards and Jersey barriers) is that cities can quickly and cheaply set up the infrastructure needed. To install colored asphalt is a major project that takes time and money that many city budgets don't have. However I would imagine that as this takes off and money becomes available, when these streets are repaved/rebuilt, permanent pavement for the bike lanes whether it be colored asphalt, pavers, bricks or other material will be used. Remember that this is a relatively new area for North American infrastructure which up until recently has been almost completely car focused.
I agree, I think the pedestrian crossings where already there and they added the bike crossing on the other side.
The speed that they use is great! But taking a tad more time to "fix" the crossings so it get's less conflicts is probably better.
very inspiring. less fuel emissions, less traffic congestion, healthier lives, better earth.
They should offer safe bicycling as a gym elective in schools
Great work! Getting separated space down on the street is the first critical step! Those buffer areas and protected intersections can certainly be improved over time and this has the potential for a bike network designed for all users. I’m working on an updated bike/ped plan in my town and looking at some similar separated options to get things down on the road and then improve over time.
Slowly replace those paint with coloured asphalt, like the Dutch.
They'd probably use green or blue, instead of red if they did.
In the US, it seems to be reversed from Europe, with red being for busses and green being for bikes
@@AnthonyBrusca whatever colour they want to use is not the problem, it is the painted parts itself, London (UK) started to paint blue bicycle lanes on the roads, but the paint was fading quickly due to wear and tear, mostly becaus cars and busses could still drive on or over the bicycle lanes to reach busstops and parking spaces.
While the painted asphalt is less slippery than what they used before, it can still be more slippery than normal asphalt.
If you use coloured asphalt, yes it cost more than paint, but it will keep its colour till the next road maintenance, in the Netherlands this would be 20-30 years unless something has happened like a burst pipe.
Yes, but the paint is a good start. Get the network up first, then start the upgrades.
outstanding way to go now if they did this up here in Alaska it would be Great wow keep doing this in all the USA city's way to go more the Marrier yes
This is the blue print for other American cities to follow. NYC should be next.
It's not hard and it's not expensive
I like the network plan! Now you have to keep the lanes clean, nothing is worse than a bike lane filled with leaves and gravel. Do you have street sweeps that fit in the bike lane? What if it snows?
From what I've seen in Google Street View (not a JC resident _yet_ so I can't attest with my own biking), a good number of the protected bike lanes are as wide as a car lane because they're repurposed car lanes, so it's just a matter of getting a snow plow truck down them, rather than finding special small snowplows.
I love this!!!
Need this in San Francisco
Looks ok as a start!!!
The ponytail bike lane symbols are such a great idea!
Jersey City Great city
Impressive!
If you have the will it can be done!
This is an amazing example of how much can be done within just a couple of years. Great stuff, folks.
Way to go 👍
John...Ive only been to Jersey City a couple of times. I lived in Union city...very scrunched grid..it wouldnt work there. However, I will keep an open mind to it..it sometimes seems to work when its fits the area. If I remember correctly, the city, maybe Newark?, canceled the scooter program because of the danger and teenage death. That says to me, the city actually cares for safety and the general welfare of its residents. Unlike NYC, where they refuse to acknowledge that its a disastrous space mistake, I have much more trust in Jersey city assessment.
Jersey City ain’t Newark!!!
@@jamiecann2485 thankfully.
Why are bike crossings ( like on Grand Avenue) set further from the intersection where is further out of motorists view?
We need help in the heights. No protected bike lanes up here!
All of the main streets that lead to Jsq or downtown are pretty sketchy. I usually take Hancock down because it's fairly wide and calm but it's just a painted lane. I'd love protected lanes in that direction
Wow!
Very Nice.
More protected bike lanes are needed especially areas south of downtown Jersey City. There is no real save travel past Montgomery to Beyonne
Those grates at 3:36 need to be turned 90 degrees. I literally know of people that died riding a bike over that sort of grate, cause their wheel got stuck and they hit their head on the ground. There was a brazilian photographer that died like that some years ago. Yep
3:44 check out that drain gate tho...
2:20 the soft underbelly shows itself
Those buffers waste too much of the width of the total available space. Instead, you can use obstacles, like cement separators, vegetation, bushes, that can be much narrower and accomplish the job, at the same time making the bicycle path even wider with that extra space previously being wasted to create a buffer.
Good first step, but still not inviting. Hopefully they take some criticism and stop focusing on putting ponytails on paint markings on the pavement
Do not ride like that in 2:58! Wait for the cement mixer to clear the turn before proceeding.
Next step is changing the education. Improve the education for your driving licence, because that is really terrible. And also give traffic education ad school. Only infrastructure, doesn't solve it all.
How about the majority of jersey city residents that been living here for generations and have to drive 40 min for work. City keeps developing and not solving the traffic issues or parking just making it worse for us.
And it will continue to get worse. The solution is fewer people driving. Where would you build more bridges? Widen roads? Build parking? And IF you did that you would just have MORE cars MORE congestion and your trip would get longer and even more frustrating. What would be YOUR solution?
I know...when I was typing, it occurred to me that the cancellation of a scooter contract after a teenagers death may not have been in Jersey city..maybe Newark...So, I thought I should put a disclaimer there that it may not have been in Jersey city...it doesnt detract from the overall argument of..its being tried..lets see if it works here
Talking points vs fact and reality.
Huh?
Something tells me..this is not a safety upgrade for pedestrians and probably hell for drivers. Love the way you threw in pedestrians as almost an afterthought. ‘Quality of the infrastructure’ ‘safe experience for the riders’ etc..all centered on the cyclist perspective ..not the pedestrian or the motor vehicle driver...well time will tale the tale..will upper income leave...
Well, yeah, we want to discourage auto use. That’s the idea.
As a 3 year resident who drives, I can say that it's better for pedestrians and cars too. Before, there were bikes flying in any direction from any place, but the green streets provide a better flow, and people know where to expect the bikers from.
@@douglasjgallup by ‘discouraging the car’ you are making the area less desirable to live work and play in.. parking issues signals to people..go elsewhere for everything...dont rent, dont buy, go elsewhere for errands, entertainment, shopping and eating. If you think Im exaggerating, all you need to do is watch the exodus out of NYC and what happens in the next three to five years.
@@johncross116 That is something that anti-bike car drivers should realize. It nicer to drive with bikes on a separate path than with unpredictable bikes on a car lane.
@@helengigante4038 i bet it is just the opposite, design for livability is key. The geometry of space shouldn't favor one very large mode of transportation over others that need room to grow and flourish. Cars have their place in cities but the place of people in cities needs to be given a more central role, reduce the primacy of vehicles.