Are Urban Arterials and Pedestrian Safety Mutually Exclusive?

Are Urban Arterials and Pedestrian Safety Mutually Exclusive?

It's The Little Things

The train came early (thanking God I was there) BUT the upside is that we get to ride in one of the newer double-deckers instead of the old piece of metal that we're normally subjected to :-)


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Dancing In The Dark

Location:Ridgedale Ave, Cedar Knolls, NJ

Bus Etiquette

Right now, I'm sitting next to someone on the bus who is SKYPING!!! I have a super duper headache and this is only making it worse. I know certain bus drivers would've put the kibosh on this conversation from the moment she sat down with this b.s.! It's great to connect with friends but use headphones! I ask myself if I would feel the same if she were talking to her friend in person. The reality is it's different. She's talking LOUDER to make up for the other background noise in the bus. In addition, if that other person was here I wouldn't be sitting here. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, someone else just walked in the room...

Keep on walking...

I was looking through my collection of Google Maps and I came across one that traces my walk to school before I hit 5th grade and moved a stone's throw away from St. Mary's. It conjured up so many memories and made me chuckle at where life has taken me. I'm now a Planner that deals with creating safer environments for kids that walk or bike to school. I won't delve into the memories surrounding the walk like the dogs behind the fence or those sometimes not on a leash. Just reflecting on the things that have played a role in my character without me even knowing...

My Walk To School

Stranger in a familiar land

So I had to go into NYC for an appt and given the place's proximity to Penn Station I had to take the bus to get there. I tend to avoid taking NYC buses because they intimidate me but I was left with no choice. So the bus arrives and I'm psyching myself up like "yeah, this time I'm gonna dip my metro card the right way on the FIRST try." But as I'm waiting I notice that no one is dipping their metro card. Instead they all have little white receipts. Immediately I realized the machines that I had been staring at for the past 5 minutes were where I was supposed to get my receipt. Apparently the NYC Select Bus Service is their Bus Rapid Transit system and payment operates much like the NJ Transit Light Rail. You put your metro card in the machine, pay for your fare and then you show your receipt as validation. Who knew?! Oh, maybe people that can read or that can put two and two together. I looked at the machines and thought they were metro card machines. I mean, I'm a New Yorker but I'm not a New York City Yorker. I haven't made the complete change into a Jersey girl but I always took my car into the city, more often than not, so I never really had to deal with this stuff. Right now, at the height of the morning commute, I could read everyone's mind as they called me out for not being one of them and probably being from Jersey.

I don't think I've ever ridden BRT before but once I was on I knew what it was. The bus transmitters communicating via the flashing lights, the dedicated bus lane...all the makings of an efficient ride. My favorite part of the system was waiting for the bus on my way back. *geek alert* The bus stop had an LED board with the name of the bus and the EXACT time that the bus will arrive based on its current location along the route!

Oh how I WISH NJ Transit could be so progressive. It doesn't have to be this fancy and it doesn't have to be for BRT. Right now they have this system in place: I text the number at my bus stop and you tell me when the bus should arrive based on its fixed schedule. Is real time too much to ask? Especially since the buses tend to either run early or late. It would be nice to know for certain that I just missed the bus because it came early rather than standing there wondering where the darn bus is. If I know I have to wait an hour I might go get food or find another way to bide the time but without that information I just stand there afraid to move.

Growing up on Westchester's Bee-Line service, I'm used to riding the bus and don't mind it at all. I didn't get my license until I was 23 so I was used to getting around without a car. I applaud Westchester for making that an easy and convenient choice. Even though I was tempted to get a cab, the BRT was actually faster.

I know that BRT is already in the works in parts of NJ. Let's hope that well continue to make investments in transit despite the skewed priorities of those in our House of (Mis)Representatives.

For those interested in finding out more about the Select Service click here: http://www.mta.info/nyct/sbs/

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

So the day has NOT started on a good note. After fighting all that's within me to call out sick (currently running on 3.5 hours of sleep and hungover), I bust my bum to get to work and get there on time. Well I made it out the house within the 10 min window that I need to make it to the train on time so I was very proud of myself. I get there and I see the regulars. Without looking at the time, I notice something's off. I start to see the jitteriness and the "where is this train?" puffs and so I check the time. It is a little late. It's supposed to come @6:49am but it always comes no later than 5 minutes after that. If it doesn't, you know something's wrong. Sure enough my phone vibrates and I get the alert that the train is delayed by 30 minutes! If this were a station with a heated waiting room on the side I'm waiting on that would be easy to swallow - but it's not. We all have to stand out here in the cold to wait because of ever loving "mechanical problems." The only good that came out of it was that I figured out that there was a Blogger app that I could use to write this post from my phone...and then my phone died.