the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Paramus NJ, The borough will soon install its first-ever bike lanes, aimed at improving safety for cyclists using the busy Midland Avenue thoroughfare. The bike lanes will run from Paramus Road to Country Club Road on Midland Avenue. Striped lanes will be added on both the eastbound and westbound sides of the road. The stretch of Midland Avenue,which has a speed limit of 35 mph, is home to the public library, Midland Elementary School, the municipal swimming pool and an access road to Bergen Community College.
According to Mayor Richard LaBarbiera ,” the presence of bicyclists will make vehicles slow down on Midland Avenue, making the area safer for both pedestrians and bicyclists.”
The project will not widen the road or require new sidewalks. Right now, travel lanes on Midland Avenue average about 17.5 feet wide. The 5.5-foot bike lanes will narrow the car lanes to 12 feet. In a Facebook post about the project, LaBarbiera said, “Studies will tell you that wider lanes encourage higher rates of speed. By choking down to smaller lanes driver tendency will be to reduce speed. Reducing lane width is a very effective design tool to reduce speed without effecting capacity in residential areas.”
Did you mention “traffic calming”, Traffic calming consists of physical design and other measures put in place on existing roads to reduce vehicle speeds and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. … Closures that obstruct traffic movements in one or more directions, such as median barriers, are intended to reduce cut-through traffic
Sounds like traffic and congestion nightmare in the making . Take one look at the bike lane fiasco in the Village of Ridgewood ,the change from two lanes to one under the train trestle now backs traffic up West Ridgewood avenue all the way to Godwin Avenue in Midland Park ,making it almost impossible to get in or out the the Central Business District. By cutting off a main traffic artery in and out of the Village ,it created a huge safety hazard and of coarse this is all before the high density housing is finished in the CBD which will because of congestion eliminate access to and from the west side of town ,
WE ARE SOOOOO STUPID.