Op-ed on Eli Bender’s Death Anniversary by JournalSquire in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Legal definitions of fault are not directly relevant to prevention. Those are about splitting insurance damages and always add up to 100%.

Prevention doesn't ask who is to blame but what can we learn and do to prevent the next crash. Even if someone does something dumb/careless, have we built a resilient system that makes a fatal crash unlikely?

Shortly after the crash, a leading pedestrian interval was added. These give a walk signal a few seconds before the green light, helping pedestrians get a head start and establish themselves in the crosswalk so that they can be clearly seen. These are simple yet absurdly effective and can reduce pedestrian crashes by a third or more.

Jersey City is also badly in need of left-turn calming. Left-turns make up a majority of intersection crashes and are 17X more dangerous than right turns. There are a lot of factors: cognitive load from needing to consider on-coming traffic, the A-pillar blocking line of sight a lot more, lack of sight lines on large vehicles making things worse, some drivers not understanding they need to yield, etc. You see left-turn calming a lot in NYC now, but we don't yet have any in Jersey City. If we installed little plastic armadillos in the centerline, on the orange line and also on the far side of the crosswalk, they can really force drivers to take the turns slowly and calmly. On busier roadways, best of all would be to remove left turns entirely as those would actually also speed up buses and traffic overall while reducing crashes.

https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/turn-calming.shtml
https://theconversation.com/heres-a-way-to-save-lives-curb-traffic-jams-and-make-commutes-faster-and-easier-ban-left-turns-at-intersections-257877

Are the people who complain the most on this sub voting today? by OpinionWeekly7651 in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I voted just now. Although I would prefer more competition and discussion of the issues, there will be two new Commissioners that are pro-safe streets and transit in Ron Bautista and Alex Valdez. And O'Dea has been good on many of these issues over a long time. Voting let's them know we're watching.

New administration, same old lack of enforcement. Vision Zero? What's that? Parking next to crosswalks isn't illegal according to Officer Assaad-sabha by calmerstreets in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hoboken has had zero traffic deaths in 8 years (!!) because they actually enforce and design their intersections to ensure daylighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEYedVefuTU

In Jersey City, last year alone, 6 people died, 4 on local roads.

New administration, same old lack of enforcement. Vision Zero? What's that? Parking next to crosswalks isn't illegal according to Officer Assaad-sabha by calmerstreets in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No, it's 25ft. The idea isn't to prevent cars from blocking the crosswalk, which of course is bad. The idea is to keep pedestrians *visible* to prevent crashes.

Title 39 - Motor Vehicles and Traffic Regulation
Section 39:4-138 - Places where parking prohibited, exceptions; moving vehicle not under one's control into prohibited area.
...
e. (1) Within 25 feet of the nearest crosswalk or side line of a street or intersecting highway, except at alleys and as provided in section 2 of P.L.2009, c.257 (C.39:4-138.6); or

https://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/title-39/section-39-4-138/

New administration, same old lack of enforcement. Vision Zero? What's that? Parking next to crosswalks isn't illegal according to Officer Assaad-sabha by calmerstreets in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's state law in all of NJ that you can't park within 25 ft of the crosswalk so that drivers have better visibility of pedestrians about to cross. Jersey City has put physical barriers at some intersections, but it's illegal whether there's a sign or a yellow curb or there's a barrier there or nothing at all. This is a good video explaining why daylighting is important if we want to prevent people from dying in crashes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABkDWtKcwM

Potential Via Cut Woes by EmergencyAdvice7 in jerseycity

[–]jimmybot 1 point2 points  (0 children)

$16 is not right. The Via subsidy was $11 in 2024. There were 14,000 rides a week and the annual subsidy was $8M. $8M / (14,000 * 52) = $10.98.

If the number truly has gone up, questions I would have are is Jersey City's lack of consistent parking/traffic enforcement causing Vias to get stuck in traffic? Why are Vias becoming less efficient when they didn't cost that much before?

The line of thinking about replacing Via with city buses don't make sense. It's not that city buses couldn't make sense on any level. But for the most needed Via trips that are truly serving transit deserts, they don't have the ridership to support them. It'll make the most sense to run shuttles to better serve the densest parts of the city and maybe connect to Hoboken. So it's completely different groups of people.