Engineering students suggest narrowing lanes to 10 feet

WEST ORANGE, NJ — A graduate class of civil engineering students from Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy advised the township to narrow the driving lanes, mark crosswalks and add sidewalks to make Northfield Avenue, Pleasant Valley Way and Main Street safer and more enjoyable for pedestrians and drivers during a Feb. 24 presentation sponsored by the Pleasant Valley Way Traffic and Safety Commission in the Liberty Middle School Auditorium.

Professor Charles Brown’s 15 students, who actually won the Outstanding Student Project Award from the New Jersey chapter of the American Planning Association for their work in West Orange, made their presentation after conducting a traffic audit of 19 town streets judged to be dangerous based on traffic volume and crash data. By walking each road and identifying all hazards and inconveniences — such as a lack of pedestrian-level lighting or road shoulders — the class was able to draft a concept plan on how to transform the town into a Complete Streets community, with its recommendations for Northfield, Pleasant Valley Way and Main specifically highlighted in the presentation.

While the ideas the class put forth are merely suggestions for the township to act on, student Channing Bickford said he hopes they can make a difference.

“We hope our contribution tonight will be able to make West Orange streets safer,” Bickford said.

The students offered several ways to make Northfield Avenue safer after noticing some issues during their visits. Starting with the stretch running past the Turtle Back Zoo, student Ken Fung said they saw that the 18-foot wide outside driving lanes were excessively large, which can encourage speeding. To correct this, they recommended reducing the width of the inside and outside lanes to 11 feet each in addition to adding crosswalks, greenery and 5-foot wide bike lanes on both sides with 3-foot buffers.

“You won’t really reduce the traffic flow, but you’ll make it more pleasant for bikers and walkers,” Fung said.

Also of concern on Northfield was the section just west of Pleasant Valley Way that has no sidewalks or road shoulders. The students advised adding 4-foot sidewalks and 2-foot shoulders on both sides of the road, along with greenery and pedestrian-level lighting. And for the stretch of Northfield near Dogwood Road — which has wide 18-foot outside driving lanes as well as a bus stop lacking both a shelter and sidewalk — the students suggested reducing all the driving lanes widths to 11 feet while adding a 6-foot-wide sidewalk where there was none, crosswalks, greenery and 8-foot buffers to separate pedestrian traffic from vehicle traffic on both sides of the road.

Pleasant Valley Way has long been a concern for parents because West Orange High School, Pleasantdale Elementary School and the Golda Och Academy are all located along it; this made the area of particular concern to the graduate students. Visiting the part near WOHS, Bickford said they discovered no bicycle infrastructure, no pedestrian-level lighting and wide 16-foot driving lanes. In response, they suggested adding 5-foot-wide bike lanes with 2-foot-wide buffers, pedestrian-level lighting and greenery. They also advised that all driving lane widths be reduced to 10 feet, which Bickford said can really help cut down on the speeding vehicles parents have often complained about in the past.

“The speed limit can set the limit for the road, but drivers are going to respond to the conditions on the road,” Bickford said. “Narrowing the lane widths will slow drivers down.”

The section of Pleasant Valley Way near Cunningham Drive was also examined. The area has no sidewalk near the golf course, a lack of pedestrian-level lighting and 11-foot-wide driving lanes. The class proposed adding a 6-foot wide sidewalk, installing pedestrian-level lighting with greenery, increasing the existing buffer width from 3 feet to 5 feet and reducing the widths of all the lanes to 10 feet.

Student Michelle Mayer said the group noticed several issues of concern on Main Street, including in the vicinity of the intersection at Northfield and Valley Road. There, the students witnessed large turning radii, unmarked parking and no road shoulders — all of which lead to speeding and confusion, Mayer said. To correct this, the class suggested converting the 14-foot wide outer driving lanes into an area of 7-foot-wide parking lanes, 2-foot-wide buffers and 5-foot-wide bike lanes. Additionally, she said adding more greenery and pedestrian-level lighting would make the area more pleasant to walk around.

When they visited the portion of Main just north of Charles Street, the students took note of the lack of pedestrian-level lighting and a shoulder, and advised creating a 3-foot buffer separating the sidewalk from an added 7-foot wide parking lane. They also proposed marking the roadway with sharrows to allow vehicles and bicycles to share the lanes.

As for the stretch of Main that runs past Thomas Edison National Historical Park, the students urged the township to make the area more pedestrian-friendly by adding features including planters, area maps and a bus shelter. In addition, they said the town should consider turning the existing four driving lanes into two lanes to make room for a center turning lane plus 5-foot bike lanes.

Aside from those three roads, the students had some ideas for features the township could implement throughout West Orange, namely benches, bicycle racks, ADA-compliant curbs and decorations. They also suggested putting a series of wayfinding maps around town as well as numerous historical markers — an idea that township historian Joseph Fagan said the Downtown West Orange Alliance is actually pursuing at the Feb. 23 Township Council meeting.

In addition, the students proposed two major changes for the township. The first is connecting all bike lanes and adding sharrows to create a bicycle network throughout most of the township that would consist of a clearly marked, continuous “low stress” route integrating the community’s resources and attractions.

“As far as we know, this would be the first bikeway of this kind in the state,” student Dan Brooks said.

The second change is the approval of a “vision zero plan,’ which would emphasizes the need to make roads safer to ensure there are zero traffic fatalities. The class put forward a suggested plan for this that involves reducing the speed limit to 20 mph on all residential roads, eliminating right-hand turns on red at dangerous intersections and implementing a 25 mph speed limit for arterial streets.

Overall, the residents and commission members who watched the presentation seemed pleased by the students’ Complete Streets action plan, with many telling the class how impressed they were during the question period. At the same time, there were many concerns.

One resident asked about the possibility that narrowing the lanes on Northfield near the zoo will create even more congestion for the area by causing vehicles to move more slowly, to which Bickford responded that having a lot of traffic on the road would cause cars to drive slowly regardless of lane width. Councilwoman Michelle Casalino also asked about the proposed narrower streets, questioning whether the students had taken school buses and NJ Transit buses into consideration when designing them. Bickford said buses were a major consideration, and after analyzing federal standards, he said they came to the conclusion that a 10-foot minimum was sizeable enough to accommodate all needs.

“We decided that 10 feet would be narrow enough so traffic would not be speeding through these neighborhoods but also wide enough to accommodate trucks and buses — transit buses, school buses — and emergency vehicles as well,” Bickford said.

West Orange Planning Board member Jerry Eben asked the students how they would address shop owners worried that eliminating street parking in favor of features such as bike lanes will hurt their businesses. Brooks answered by first pointing out that studies have shown cyclists spend as much money as drivers, so they will not necessarily be losing any customers. Aside from that, he said communicating with the concerned business owners would be paramount.

“We would be building relationships with the business owners to show that this isn’t something being forced on them,” Brooks said. “We want those businesses to flourish. We don’t want to strangle their income. So (we would be) working with them and figuring out their concerns and talking to the customers and finding out if that’s something that’s really going to affect them. I think that we can really find an amicable way to have people walking to these stores.”

The class likewise advised that residents should also be consulted.

Eventually the question as to what the next steps will be in implementing the Complete Streets plan was raised. Councilman Jerry Guarino, who helped bring about the action plan as a commission member, said the plan would be included with the township’s master plan moving forward. Meanwhile, Guarino said the council will work on putting together a plan of its own in order to implement the suggested changes while also building its relationship with the county, whose approval will be necessary for doing some of the work. Obtaining grants to fund these projects will be a must, he added.

And though the changes might not happen as soon as some residents would like, Guarino assured the audience that having this plan plus the support of the township will have a huge impact on the likelihood that the students’ ideas will become a reality.

“These things will start happening,” Guarino said. “It’s exciting. At least we’re doing something — not just saying that we’re going to do it.”

Pleasant Valley Way Civic Association President Roz Moskovitz Bielski, another commission member who played a key role in bringing about the action plan, said the commission is grateful for the work the students did. With the plan now officially before the township, Bielski said the future of street safety looks bright.

“The Rutgers presentation is a magnificent blueprint for Complete Streets throughout West Orange,” Bielski told the West Orange Chronicle in a Feb. 25 email. “Residents can now envision and advocate for a safer and more beautiful township. It is a true testament to citizen action and the power to move beyond the status quo.”

  Complete Streets, Joseph Fagan, Pedestrian Safety, WO Pedestrian Safety Advisory Board