Bayonne, Gem of the Hudson

Our parks and open spaces can help improve our mobility and power the sustainable development of our future.

The Bayonne Green, inspired by the prompt, “Bayonne Gem of the Hudson”, envisions a network of streets and open spaces designed to support recreation and active transportation. The network features a small loop for getting around town and a big loop around the bay.

This system provides an overhauled user experience, prioritizing safety, user comfort, and unparalleled connectivity.

The Bayonne Green is designed with everyone who relies on wheels in mind and shaped entirely by public input.

THIS IS OUR TURN, BAYONNE

We have a unique opportunity to determine the future of our city.

Bayonne is on the move. You are in just the right place to benefit from the record new development, infrastructure investment, and demand for alternative mobility modes that we are seeing in Bayonne.

Balancing traffic and open space is essential to ensure that development benefits us and does not come at the expense of your quality of life and safety.

Finding the right fit for bikes and scooters in our city through more innovative mobility and space usage can turn conflicts into synergy and problems into prosperity.

1. We’re at a crossroads. Let’s meet the moment.

Bayonne is changing rapidly 

Traffic is growing. There are more and more cars on the roads and more and more bikes and scooters on the sidewalks. Sometimes, it can feel like there’s a traffic “free for all”. Concerns about safety and quality of life are also growing.

Without attractive transportation alternatives, parking and traffic problems will only continue to get worse, deteriorating quality of life, jeopardizing your safety, exacerbating stress on our infrastructure, causing financial strains, and stripping away the benefits of urban development. 

Micromobility is an increasingly popular choice to travel car-free, but there is no space for micromobility users in our streets today. As a result, micromobility users are exposed to crash risks on the road and pedestrians are exposed to crash risks on the sidewalk. There’s a missing middle.

We need a new equation for street space use.

2. How you move is how you live

We all depend on our streets: we use them to get around, conduct business, hang out, exercise, play, go for walks and gather. Our vibrant, dignified streets are one of Bayonne’s defining features. 

In Bayonne, first came the street, then came the road, and yet, all our streets are currently officially treated only as “local roads”. This implicit space use policy can benefit from being revisited given today’s context and challenges.

Zoning our streets to promote different kinds of traffic for different kinds of needs allows us to craft streets with more functions. Otherwise, if all streets are zoned for thru-traffic, thru-traffic is all we’ll get. 

In Bayonne we have the unique ability to zone our streets using a more efficient traffic plan ie. a new circulation plan, thanks to the geometry of our traffic grid. We can use our traffic corridors, which run perfectly parallel, to complement one another and distinguish local traffic from thru-traffic. 

Shifting rather than disrupting traffic can make getting around and quality of life in Bayonne better for everyone, while simultaneously providing the needed space for a safer, more attractive bike and scooter alternative.

The choice of zoning some streets for local traffic distinct from thru-traffic balances pressures from traffic with demand for open space and alternative modes of mobility as Bayonne develops. This choice contributes to the freedom of movement, sense of belonging, and need for safety that supports everyone living and working in Bayonne to thrive.

3. More Value for More People

The Bayonne Green is an urban development proposal focused on strengthening Bayonne’s economic position and safeguarding quality of life, with an emphasis on accessibility and safety.

For many people, bike lanes do not provide a more attractive car alternative. The biggest barrier to adoption is risk. People on bikes and scooters do not feel safe next to cars. Bike lanes demand that vulnerable users operate in traffic conditions, from which they need “protection”. Intuitively we understand this to be unsafe, such as when parents tell their kids, “Don’t play in traffic.”

Our parks and open spaces are already widely popular. Instead of forcing bicycles and scooters into traffic and letting traffic go unchecked, the Open Space System builds on what already works to provide better connections, more convenience and more benefits than bike lanes, promoting attractive spaces for different mobility users to operate.

In addition to restoring choice, expanding the mobility options residents have in the city, and delivering significant cost savings, the Bayonne Green also links to other modes of transportation, enhances our neighborhoods, and supports everyone living, working and doing business in our city.

By encouraging ridership and considering multiple issues with one solution, the Bayonne Green aspires to create more value for more people for a highly in demand and sought after world-class amenity.

Together, we are Bayonne Strong

We need to balance traffic and open space if we want to keep Bayonne a livable place for our families and generations to come. You can already travel by car anywhere in Bayonne. We want to ensure this option remains available and convenient for everyone who needs it and at the same time improve the bike and scooter options as well.

A pilot study is needed to provide the viability indicators for an on street open space system based on both quantitative and qualitative data on the tradeoffs concerning traffic impact, safety, and demand for this solution.

If you’re interested in learning more about how this solution can benefit you, please get in touch.

Explore the Bayonne Green vision www.bayonnegreen.org/vision

Contact miso@metamethods.net