Rutgers resource center working to make New Jersey more bike, pedestrian friendly
Archived article from Apr 24, 2006
By Steve Manas
With the price of gas creeping upward, concerns about the effect of car emissions on the Earth’s climate, and a growing interest in physical fitness, bicycling and walking are becoming increasingly attractive options for many.
But beyond the practical reasons for eschewing cars lies something more intangible – the sense of community that comes with walking to buy a quart of milk, for example.
“When you are in a place that’s walkable, it just feels right,” said Ranjit Walia, project manager at the New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center. “We have tons of highway miles in New Jersey, tons of cars, lots of people. I think there is some dissatisfaction with that. People think it is patently reasonable that they would want to walk somewhere in their communities.”
Part of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the center was established in 2000 to help local officials, decision makers, transportation professionals, activists and the public understand and address the needs of bikers and walkers. It is a partnership of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center and the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
The center’s Web site, policy.rutgers.edu/njbikeped, serves as an electronic clearinghouse, offering one-stop information shopping. “The Web site contains hundreds of resources, including databases, documents and electronic files, as well as images of bicycle and pedestrian projects, links to other helpful sites and a search engine,” said Walia, who holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Bloustein and a bachelor’s in human ecology from Cook College.
The site’s interactivity allows visitors to “talk the walk,” Walia added. “They can ask questions, inform us of announcements or events, submit materials to our online or offline libraries and sign our guest book,” he said. Interested parties also can drop off materials at the center, Room 479 of the Civic Square Building in New Brunswick.
The center received about $350,000 this fiscal year from the state DOT, funds that were passed through the Federal Highway Administration. A separate, but related contract was awarded to the Voorhees Center to assist the state Department of Transportation in putting together a statewide “Safe Routes to School” program to encourage children in grades K-8 to walk to school. That supplemental contract was for $87,000.
While their mission is broad, Walia and his cohorts, project coordinators Keri Tyler and Peter Bilton, focus on myriad specifics that are integral to the development of public policy around bicycle and pedestrian transportation.
The trio attends industry panels and conferences to learn best standards and practices
and determine their adaptability to make New Jersey more bikeable and walkable. They also engage in original research and promotional and educational activities, such as presenting roundtables.
“We focus on issues analysis,” Walia said, “for example, street lighting. The majority of documented car-pedestrian crashes occur at night, with street lights in operation. Now you must take into account that street lights are often located where increased pedestrian activity is anticipated, therefore increasing the number of pedestrians in the area.
“So is the lighting meeting the needs of the pedestrians or the drivers? Through our research we have concluded that the process for providing pedestrian lighting is fragmented. We hope to hold an expert roundtable this year to validate our findings and possibly come up with some next steps to improve the process of providing pedestrian lighting,” Walia said.
– Ashanti M. Alvarez contributed to this article.
Return to the Apr 24, 2006 issue
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