Friday, November 23, 2012

New Jersey Bike Roundup: Gloucester County Accelerates Bike Lane Development

This week Gloucester County Freeholders will be voting on naming a planned bikeway in Clayton Borough in memory of Autumn Pasquale, a 12-year old girl who was murdered in late October over a bicycle. According to County officials the Autumn Pasquale bike path will be mostly on-road bike lanes with a possible off-road shared use path on the west end to connect with Route 47 on the borough's west side.

This facility, which is expected to be constructed in the spring, is part of a larger plan to create a county-wide on and off-road bikeway network. The east-west Autumn Pasquale trail will connect with newly created bike lanes on Fries Mill Rd near Scotland Run Park, which connect to the County's excellent Monroe Township Bike Path. Meanwhile further north, the NJ Department of Transportation has just completed a road diet in Woodbury Borough that included adding bike lanes. Next year the County will build a new section of the County off road path network in Glassboro and Elk Township.

Gloucester County planners and engineers want to do more. The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is finalizing a county trails plan and are investigating the feasibility of bike lanes on Route 47 (a state highway) between Clayton and Glassboro and Kings Highway (County Route 551). In total four miles of bike lanes have been completed in the last year along with 18 miles of bike lanes proposed for short term improvements.


View South Jersey Bike Lanes in a larger map

Mayors are also getting involved with bicycle planning. The mayors of several communities along the Route 45 corridor have signed a letter to NJ DOT asking that the bike lanes in Woodbury be extended to neighboring communities. Mantua Township was the first suburban community to adopt a complete streets policy and the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is working in partnership with Tri State Transportation Campaign, Cross County TMA, and Action Wheels Bike Shop to host an invitation-only Mayor's luncheon on complete streets next month.

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