Bergen County Rapid Transit Opportunities
Taking a NOTE from the NJDOT’s recent investigations of rapid transit opportunities along the U.S. Route 1 corridor in Central New Jersey, the Department of Planning sought to investigate the applicability of many of these principles here in the County, with a focus on congested Route 17 and its parallel and connecting routes.
Recognizing the project assets of rapid transit up front – greater flexibility, lower cost, quicker implementation, ability to address immediate needs, when compared with other transit approaches – while also acknowledging that there are limited resources and rights-of-way available to provide additional roadway capacity, rapid transit may very well be the future of transportation in Central Bergen County, where no rail infrastructure or other exclusive right-of-way to provide alternatives to automobile traffic currently exist. This rapid transit technology and approach has demonstrated elsewhere that it can:
- Provide more flexible service than fixed-route rail infrastructure, and therefore can be more demand-responsive.
- Provide greater efficiency than standard bus, with the ability to bypass traffic through routing and technology.
- Provide service on the most efficient combination of existing roadways and exclusive right-of-way (where available).
- Provide the best of all worlds, seeking to provide a mode that, in fact, increases the efficiency of the current roadway system in leaps and bounds – at a significantly lower cost than other transit approaches.
In our investigations, Department staff worked alongside a consultant to identify potential routings, activity centers to be served, and effective anchors of service/potential termini. This effort included field visits to observe potential routes, working sessions to optimize selected segments and service, and review of all pertinent technical memoranda and project information.