West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance

On Wednesday, Sept. 14,?from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., WWBPA volunteers participated in the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, an effort to accurately and consistently measure usage and demand for bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure.

We covered four locations around the train station, only missing the intersection of Wallace and Alexander roads. We also stopped before the end of the evening rush hour for New York commuters.

Our findings:
1. Cranbury/Wallace/571 (Rite Aid) – 20 bike, 38 walk
2. Scott/Alexander (Arts Center) – 31 bike, 56 walk
3. Vaughn/Alexander (bus stop) – ?9 bike, 31 walk
4. Station/571 (Rep. Holt Headquarters) – 14 bike, 6 walk

Total: 205 people,?74 who bike and 131 who walk

Thanks to our volunteers!

I also noted at our Main Street Cranbury/Wallace/571 location:

• 8 car horn beepings, including 1 of a cab at a walker and a biker along Route 571 by Sovereign Bank, where there is no sidewalk. Another volunteer reported most of the beeps he witnessed were by cabs; this might need looking into.

• 3 tractor trailers – there were also some delivery trucks but nearly all cars.

• 2 runs of a shuttle bus – Stoudt’s East Windsor to Princeton Junction train station.

• Eastbound congestion on Route 571 existed from a little after 5 p.m.?until 5:20 p.m., to the extent that cars waited on the bridge and had no room to cross the intersection at Cranbury and Wallace roads. During this time, people turned left from westbound Route 571 onto Wallace Road in front of the waiting cars, and most of the beeps were because of this, since it took two lanes to agree to stop to let left-turning traffic go in front. It would be calmer if the eastbound Route 571 right lane was right turn only onto Wallace Road, and only the center lane was straight through.

• 1 pedestrian was verbally harassed by a motorist waiting to turn (I couldn’t make out the exact words) as the pedestrian crossed Route 571 from Wallace Road to Cranbury Road. He responded with a loud expletive.

• 17 people crossed Route 571 mid-block, most at the driveway intersection of PNC Bank and Rite Aid. Some were going to Rite Aid, but most were going to the neighborhood behind Rite Aid, where there is a connecting sidewalk.

How does this compare to past data? The township bicycle plan also studied some of these or nearby intersections at somewhat similar times:

• Cranbury/Wallace/571 – Wed. July 21, 2004, 5-8pm – 9 bike, 43 walk
• Scott/Alexander – Fri. Apr. 16, 2004, 3:15 – 4:30pm – 2 bike, 13 walk
• Scott/Wallace – Fri. Apr. 16, 2004, 4:30 – 7pm – 5 bike, 63 walk
• Wallace/Alexander – Wed. June 23, 2004, 5-8pm – 5 bike, 16 walk

We hope to do the count again on one of the nationally designated days. Maybe we’ll see you walking and biking to the station!

Tags: arts center, bicycle and pedestrian documentation project, counting, demand for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, holt headquarters, princeton junction station, riteaid

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Advocacy, commuter, Complete Streets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.