Outdated Standards are Allowing New Jersey to Avoid Designing Safe Streets for Bicyclists

Last week the New Jersey Department of Transportation announced plans to reduce the travel lanes and create shoulders on Black Horse Pike (Route 168). This will affect a one-mile section in Mt. Ephraim and Haddon Heights between Merchant Street and I-295.

On one hand, this will be a major improvement for bicyclists over the current wretched conditions on Black Horse Pike (many bicyclists used the sidewalk/driveways/parking areas). However, it continues a pattern of NJDOT claiming that shoulders are sufficient infrastructure to make a street bike-friendly and complete street-compliant. They are not. NJDOT is exploiting an outdated standard for bicycle infrastructure, one made further outdated by a 2012 NJ Supreme Court decision involving a bicyclist killed on the shoulder of an Essex County road.


View Larger Map