A proposal to correct a 60-year planning mistake and tame one of the most dangerous bicycle and pedestrian stretches in New Jersey won an encouraging reception during a walking tour organized by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Transportation Alternatives and the New Jersey Bicycle Advisory Council.

The group of nearly 30 regional, state, county and local transportation, park, recreational, environmental, pedestrian, bicycle and fishing officials walked a half mile from the George Washington Bridge bicycle and pedestrian path in Fort Lee down Hudson Terrace and Main Street to the entrance to the Palisades Interstate Park at Henry Hudson Drive.

A coalition of cycling, hiking and fishing interests is calling on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Palisades Interstate Park to build a 14-foot path on the east side of that route to remove non-motorized users from the dangerous, steep and narrow roadway where many crashes occur.

All the land on the route is owned by public authorities.  Port Authority officials told the Star-Ledger that they would conduct engineering and feasibility studies.

Fort Lee has long recognized the danger of the intersections of Hudson and Main to cars and recently changed Hudson Terrace to a one-way (northbound) only street. This compounds cyclists difficulties, makes walking that area almost impossible but does help solve one factor in this crash zone. Fort Lee must continue to work against the dangers of the area by pushing for the off-street bicycle and pedestrian path.  The Port Authority and the Palisades Interstate Park have already shown interest in making the world’s busiest bridge and one of New Jersey’s greatest parks an improved asset for the increasing number of non-motorized users.

The path would be the terminus of the Hudson River Walkway, the greenway that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is stitching together from the south, starting at the Bayonne Bridge. It would also be the southern terminus for the northern New Jersey bicycling route being planned through to the New York state line.

New Jersey’s high number of bicycle commuters has doubled in the past ten years (MTR #360). The George Washington Bridge is a cyclist’s only Hudson River crossing for 35 miles and the only way Jersey walkers and cyclists can get into Manhattan. The other great boon is connecting the long, terrific, hilly cycling (a good thing to cyclists) in the Palisades Interstate Park with the Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan.

New Jersey, New York Leaders in U.S. Bike Commute Boom (April 8, 2002)

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