u/HudsonAtHeart

So this is my controversial idea of the week, to fix a chaotic intersection at the border Bergen/Hudson counties.

This is the Nungessers intersection, where Bergenline turns into Anderson as it crosses Fairview Ave, Woodcliff Ave and JFK Boulevard as it enters the county park.

The southern part of the intersection is fully within Hudson county, while the northern part makes the border with Fairview (Bergen county)

This is a very popular bus transfer location.

Currently, the left turn lanes between JFK Blvd and Fairview Ave are too short (50ft), resulting in cars blocking traffic into the intersection, with nowhere to go until the green light cycle begins. This is substandard for current volume and and would be remedied by a slightly longer turning lane, more in line with others in the area. *see note

This whole intersection would flow more freely, and make more sense as a roundabout.

This change gives more space to the Fairview Ave left turn from Bergenline, without adding another knee of traffic. Left-turning traffic from Anderson Ave into the park will use the roundabout instead, reducing conflicts and creating order.

I moved some crosswalks so people don’t get killed.

I considered a ‘peanut’ roundabout but there is no space currently without knocking down buildings, which is highly unlikely. This seems the easiest solution to improve traffic flow - add a roundabout here without purchasing property via eminent domain (which would be unnecessary bureaucracy and expense imo)

Would love to hear some discussion from community members.

*Note: Before you all complain about induced demand, the current left turn lane is 50ft, that is barely one bus length. This is a bus corridor. A 150ft left turn lane would be useful and appropriate, and the redesign would result in traffic calming across the entire intersection. If you’ve ever walked, taken a bus or driven through here you will understand what I mean. This turn is crazy

Guttenberg NJ

This is an example of a site that I think we would all love to see redeveloped in some way, in River Edge, on Kinderkamack Road. This is the site of the former King Fung Grocery, and before that, it was a small-format ShopRite. Tenants come and go, and more than 50% of the mall is usually vacant.

This is the type of more dense infill development that should be encouraged closer to the historic downtowns, train stations, and bus corridors of our boroughs; rather than the places where dense housing currently ends up getting built, such as along busy highways, and on fragile ecosystems like marshlands and forests.

Every town in Bergen county has multiple strip malls, some with many vacancies, sitting underutilized for decades. If we could add a few hundred housing units to each town in a way that makes sense, in places that could benefit from the business, in areas that are desirable for people to live, and delivering units that locals would actually want to wind up living in - I think we could begin solving many of the housing issues we currently face in this area.

Where should they go? We all want em, let’s talk about it.

I have to meander up route 1&9 tomorrow morning to take my mom to chemo, and it’s going to take all of an hour for me to get to Hackensack from North Bergen. Even though it’s a 5 or 6 mile trip, the real journey is several miles longer, and requires traveling through several eastern Bergen County towns.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of cars doing the exact same thing, in a motionless line up broad Avenue. The left turn onto 46 becomes a chaotic free-for-all at every light cycle. All that traffic comes to a screeching halt through Ridgefield Park anyway, and then traffic becomes stopped again at the bridge in Little Ferry.

Anyone who has taken a bus ride along this route, knows the pain of sitting in this very convoluted line of traffic. I commuted this way for years, my father did it for years before me, and I’m sure many of you have scrolled Reddit while you sat (or stood) on these same roads. It is painful.

I really do believe that a relief route is necessary. Our local elected officials have enabled (necessary) zoning changes to (rightly) enable lots of development in this corridor - now it is time to make the public infrastructure match the level of private development that has occurred here.

Tonnelle Avenue is no longer capable of carrying a state highway level traffic through Hudson County - there’s a huge complex that draws many pedestrians at 91st, they’ve built a middle school at 83rd St, and North Bergen has one of the largest shares of cyclists, scooters, and other micromobility users in the state.

If a sufficient relief route was built to the west of Route 1/9 carrying traffic directly from the center of Bergen county down to the center of Hudson County, the state could voluntarily opt to improve route 1/9 with new crosswalks, lower speed limits, bike lanes, safer intersection designs, etc - which currently the volume of traffic prohibit.

Pedestrians and cyclists fight for space, seek alternative routes, and are sometimes hurt or killed in dangerous traffic that should not be routed through the center of small boroughs and a large city. The speed limits get ignored. The roadways out here are dangerous and frightening. The solution cannot be to do nothing. People will keep dying. Communities will keep suffering. Anybody who is currently afflicted by route 1/9 can agree to that.

This is why after 50 years, most of our roadways and train lines look exactly the same. Bus routes keep getting cut, not added. It takes longer every single year to go the same amount of distance.

And btw - before everybody tells me that the light rail is going to magically make all these problems go away, that’s absolutely not true. More residential development around the future light rail means that there will be more trips in and out of the area than ever. Historically there have been no homes built West route 1/9 (other than small vernacular housing on industrial blocks)

Now there are huge apartment buildings going up, massive developments (in sensitive ecological, flood-prone areas) so logically there will always be people commuting in and out of those garages, deliveries, occurring, people working at the building - this creates real, actual traffic on an already overburdened corridor.

Obviously this is not a sustainable trajectory. But it is still easiest, and most cost-efficient to just do nothing. I laughed because none of us find it acceptable, yet we are also spineless to just accept things the way they are. So let’s do something dramatic, let’s remove traffic from the source, which is the dangerous high capacity highways that rip through our suburban neighborhoods.

If the public does not want to manage these roadways into the future, improve them in any capacity, bypass them with new routes when necessary, etc, then we are always going to be stuck living in a regressive past, where the infrastructure around us does not reflect the volume of people using it, or their intentions.

One day, something will have to give.

Thanks to Reddit, I have learned for the first time about the concept of “induced demand”

This is the idea that if a roadway is built, people will abuse the shit out of it.

Nowhere in the world is this more apparent than Route 4.

Let’s return it to the wild

If you have ever had to commute from Bergen into Hudson County, you are aware that this is a missing link between the 2 counties, and by extension, NYC.

Currently, the traffic that would use this roadway, overburdens local streets and arterial roads like Route 46, Route 1&9, Route 5, Route 17, etc.

This traffic adds extra miles to everyone’s commute, especially Route 1&9 buses, not to mention it mskes those communities a living hell to walk around in or ride a bike, and impossible to do sensible traffic calming like lower speed limits, road diets and extra lights/stop signs where necessary.

Maybe it’s time to state or county started exploring ways to build this missing link.

Wonder if anybody has lived in Perth Amboy? And what is the vibe like?

I’ve traveled through and spent a couple hours on the beach, gone to ShopRite on 35 etc, it seems like a chill little city in New Jersey, looks/feels a lot like Passaic or Elizabeth with a beach. I love the very relaxed vibe on the waterfront, I think it’s fun that people go out there to eat and play music and stuff.

Can anybody comment on quality of life? Safety? Best food? Favorite parks? Thanks :)

What’s it like living in this circle? Safety, value, quality of life, I’d love to hear opinions from locals :)

“But we have ROADS!!!! You can’t just NOT PARTICIPATE in SOCIETY because your FOOD travels on ROADS!!” 🤡

There have been many discussions about Bergen County’s town lines, the history, the ramifications, and possible solutions. Some of us have even speculated which towns may merge back together one day.

This map can serve as a guide to the past, the present, and the future - revealing lost and current borders, hidden connections, and a hint of what the map may look like again one day.

This map dates from 1861, about the same time the city of New York was altering the commissioners’ plan to include a Central Park.

I always thought they were giving us the middle finger with that one

Love that this is what we’re using Route 4 for nowadays. The highway is our third space