West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance

Mercer First to Complete Streets (Policies)

Saturday, January 10 by JerryFoster

Five years after Montclair and NJDOT adopted New Jersey’s leading Complete Streets policies, this week Mercer County became the first to have all roads covered – state, county and every municipality. Congratulations to Mercer County for reaching this very important milestone toward making our communities more bicycle and pedestrian friendly!

Complete Streets policies require road improvements to support biking, walking and transit for users of all ages and abilities as the rule rather than the exception, and provide for incremental improvements without mandating retrofits.

Complete Streets benefit everyone, e.g. better safety (not just for cyclists and pedestrians, but mainly for motorists), higher property values (see walkscore.com) and improved security (more eyes on the street). Those who walk or bike feel better, are healthier and live longer – students who bike or walk to school score better on standardized tests.

Realizing these benefits will take time, as responsibility for our roads is divided between the state (for federal and state roads), counties and municipalities. Even a short trip can include roads and/or bridges under the care of many jurisdictions – for example, biking around Princeton’s Carnegie Lake involves traversing 3 counties and 5 municipalities, plus a state and maybe even a federal road.

What does a Complete Street look like? It depends – Complete Streets are not cookie-cutter. All of these pictures might be considered examples in some sense, while each may have additional possibilities to make them even more complete.

See if you can pick out which picture shows which Mercer County municipality – Trenton, Hamilton, Ewing, Hopewell Township, Pennington, Hopewell Boro, Princeton, Lawrence, West Windsor, East Windsor, Hightstown and Robbinsville.

Tags: Carnegie Lake, Complete Streets, complete streets policy, East Windsor, Ewing, Hamilton, Hightstown, Hopewell, Hopewell Boro, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, Lawrence, Mercer County, Pennington, Princeton, public safety, Robbinsville, Safe Routes to School, standardized testing, trenton, West Windsor
Posted in Advocacy, Complete Streets, Uncategorized |

Complete Streets Adopted in Mercer Municipalities

Thursday, March 15 by JerryFoster

Complete Streets policies are being adopted in municipalities throughout Mercer County. Since March 1, Trenton, Hopewell Borough, Princeton Borough and Princeton Township have all adopted Complete Streets, joining West Windsor and Lawrence townships. Will Mercer County be next?

As of this posting, only Monmouth County has adopted a Complete Streets policy, although Essex County was asked to consider the policy last night.

Complete Streets policies make clear that bicyclists, pedestrians and other roadway users are to be accommodated by default, rather than by exception, and will greatly increase safety for all users.

NJ DOT Commissioner James Simpson calls it the Way to Zero Fatalities. NJ DOT’s Complete Streets policy was ranked as the best of its type in the nation, though New Jersey Future’s report shows several ways to improve its implementation.

Please join us to encourage Mercer County to adopt Complete Streets – since nearly every major road in West Windsor is a county road, our state and municipal policies are not enough.

Tags: Complete Streets, Essex County, Hopewell Borough, James Simpson, Lawrence, Mercer County, Monmouth County, New Jersey Future, NJDOT, Princeton Borough, Princeton Township, trenton, West Windsor, Zero Fatalities
Posted in Advocacy |