Dear Editor:
In light of Mayor Bloomberg’s recent efforts to institute congestion pricing in New York City, isn’t it about time the Garden State got on board with updating its efforts to be green?
According to the NJ Transit website, NJ’s “Bike Aboard” program was “instituted in 1992 and improved in southern New Jersey in 2000” to include the “Rack n’ Roll” program which “offers bike racks on the front of transit buses.”
I am a Weehawken resident who commutes to East Harlem daily to work as a NYC schoolteacher. I would love to be able to ride my bike to work. But, in the greatest metropolitan area of the world, this is not an option. There is no “rack ‘n roll” to secure my bicycle to a northern NJ transit bus.
Instead, I carpool with two other riders into NYC and hope that the mayor’s congestion pricing plan (in which, as a NJ resident, I have no vote) won’t pass, wreaking havoc on my meager budget.
New Jersey can do much more and it should. Why is the only effort being made in New Jersey taking place in southern NJ? And, for that matter, what’s been done at all since the year 2000 when buses were first equipped with these racks?
The mayor of Paris, France, is implementing the “world’s largest and most ambitious bike-share program” (NY Times 7/18/2007). As neighbor to one of the world’s greatest cities, isn’t it time that New Jersey stepped into the spotlight and claimed her share?
As a former resident of the San Francisco Bay area, I know first hand that racks were available on all of the transit buses there. Also, carpools of three or more not only had access to the HOV lane, but paid no toll to cross Bay area bridges.
Why haven’t we done more here? What’s keeping us from improving on an already existing plan? Where’s our leadership on this issue? NY/NJ is the greatest metropolitan area in the world; let’s start acting like it.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Bridget Lupia