Holland Tunnel Traffic Study Review

Submitted by moobycow t3_10g1umk in jerseycity

From James Solomon's FB feed:

IMPORTANT COMMUNITY MEETING ALERT: I am committed to reducing the out-of-town cut-through traffic that clogs our streets and pollutes our air on its way to the Holland Tunnel. On January 24th at 6pm at Grace Van Vorst Church (39 Erie St), please come to a community meeting with our city’s traffic team to discuss the results of their Holland Tunnel Cut-Thru Traffic Study. The report’s recommendations include major changes to traffic patterns in downtown so your feedback is crucial.

— at Grace Church Van Vorst.

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moobycow OP t1_j509pxs wrote

I will say that announcing the meeting but not releasing the actual study beforehand is a bit annoying.

If you want informed feedback, give the people a bit of time to review the findings in advance of the meeting. I get enough of this crap at work (hey we want to discuss X important thing, but we're not going to give you any information on exactly what we're thinking before you show up, we'd rather you give 30 seconds of thought to the topic than 2 days, thanks).

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rubensinclair t1_j510eaf wrote

This is the Jersey City standard operating procedures unfortunately.

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TrafficSNAFU t1_j51lae7 wrote

Also inconvenient if you don't work a normal 9am-5pm shift.

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GoHuskies1984 t1_j50cxfq wrote

Doing it this way gently pushes voters to attend meetings, every little bit to help justify people keeping city gov or committee positions.

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mathfacts t1_j51jqhp wrote

Time for some traffic problems in Jersey City

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anubis2051 t1_j50r50v wrote

  1. They're public roads, you can't tell out of towners they can't use them, especially if the city takes state highway funds. Other towns have already been sued and lost over this.

  2. We really need a JC/Hoboken only divided lane on 78 and 139. This would make it far easier for locals to access those parts of town without worrying about the Holland Tunnel traffic.

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nasty_brutish_longer t1_j5168fi wrote

No one is proposing pulling a Leonia. The likeliest action would be traffic calming like lane-width reduction and sidewalk bulbouts on city-owned streets. Tunnel traffic will still filter through the city, but at lower speed, reducing the effectiveness of the shortcut.

It's the best we can do, and it's why the turnpike widening would be a disaster for us.

There's also the oft-bandied idea of a surcharge for anyone who enters the tunnel within an hour of exiting 14 b or c. That won't happen, of course, because the Turnpike authority wants cars to filter through here. We're a traffic repository to them.

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anubis2051 t1_j51dksz wrote

> There's also the oft-bandied idea of a surcharge for anyone who enters the tunnel within an hour of exiting 14 b or c. That won't happen, of course, because the Turnpike authority wants cars to filter through here. We're a traffic repository to them.

I don't love this because, hypothetically, I swing by and pick up a friend in JC, then I get hit with a surcharge? Or need to stop and get something at home and head in to work?

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nasty_brutish_longer t1_j51fjue wrote

I don't love it because, let's face it, enough people would be willing to pay the charge to clog our streets anyway. And they'll feel entitled to a shorter trip, at greater risk to anyone using a crosswalk.

But I can comfortably guarantee we'll never see it enacted. The NJTA likes our overflow capacity too much to let that happen. We're not a city to them, we're a customer queuing space.

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rubensinclair t1_j510hq3 wrote

Number 2 is a genius idea but impossible to enforce.

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anubis2051 t1_j511oec wrote

It shouldn't be that hard, you can put in those plastic divider things, or even a hard wall, and good signage. You could even put in barriers that prevent going to the tunnel from them.

I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've wasted on 78 waiting for Holland traffic to move just so I can turn off...

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GoHuskies1984 t1_j52chnx wrote

This is what the 11th street flyover could have been.

Like you said mark it off earlier as downtown JC ONLY then add an off ramp into Hamilton Park and Marvin Blvd.

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anubis2051 t1_j52lf0v wrote

How would this have worked?

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GoHuskies1984 t1_j52mrwk wrote

The current elevators flyover connects directly to Newport and the mall garage. If designers had more foresight we could have added additional exits and even an elevated ramp crossing over for Hoboken traffic.

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anubis2051 t1_j52okay wrote

Got it, so basically run along the old rail bridges by embankment house, and connect to 78 over there, or even further back, and 139 at Palisade Ave?

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imaluckyduckie t1_j51slgm wrote

It was there all those years when they were doing construction on the Pulaski

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NewNewark t1_j51k56w wrote

You cant ban people but you can discourage them. IE, speed bumps, mandatory right turns, one-ways that go opposite ways etc. No problem for residents but basically kills cut-through, especially the ones sent by Waze

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anubis2051 t1_j51uy13 wrote

I mean, that would drive me nuts as a resident...

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j528yz1 wrote

You can't block them, but you can make life hell for them.

For example, you can ticket everyone who doesn't clear the intersection each time the light changes. Yes, even if you're blocked for a whole light, you can get 2 tickets for not making it out. NYC used to do this aggressively during the "don't block the box" campaign. Get 2 tickets in under 5 minutes and news travels fast.

Really Fulop screwed over JC. We could have changed NJ's laws to prevent through traffic on local streets, something many states prohibit in exchange for the extra lane on 78, which at the end of the day does nothing to JC given it's existing right of way. It's the local traffic that's actually a problem. Force traffic to stay on the highway and there's really no issue. That would have easily worked itself out in Trenton. There's a lot of towns with similar issues.

But now we'll all get a good shot at 4-8 years of Fulop for governor. Which is what people really want around here. The traffic is a sacrifice many are ok with.

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moobycow OP t1_j54s1yg wrote

Do you have any evidence that we could have changed the laws? I'm not arguing it's a bad idea, but is it something you think could have actually gone through?

NJ fucking hates urban areas, I am skeptical that the votes exist to get rid of through traffic anywhere.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j553jxo wrote

It’s not just urban areas with this problem. There’s dozens of towns that are “shortcuts” between two highways or ways to avoid some tolls.

A fair number of mayors supported Leonia because they have a similar issue.

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moobycow OP t1_j555623 wrote

I think it's a good idea, I'd love to see it, but if enough people supported Leonia then that should have been a catalyst to get something done, it wasn't.

NJ is a car first state, we can't agree that congestion pricing into NYC is a good idea and our Gov and other state politicians are trying to widen a highway through a city with no pushback from anyone outside JC.

We can't get state and county roads to have any design other than 'more room for cars', the State DOT is actively antagonistic to complete streets in towns.

I hope/wish you are correct that this is something that could get done, but I don't see it.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j555zaj wrote

NJ is pretty sensible for the most part.

NJ’s objection to congestion pricing is largely that it’s a tax on NJ while we still have to donate billions to the MTA via federal tax dollars. On top of that NY has been absolutely obstructionist in mass transit between states. They torpedoed the ARC project for new tunnels by capping what they’d contribute to the project and spent decades fighting replacing port authority bus terminal. Even with a new terminal proposed it’s still not as big as NJ wants so it can have more buses. Which is presumably so it doesn’t eat away at congestion pricing revenue, because they’d have to make up the losses via other taxes or program cuts.

NYC pretends to be much more pro transit than it really is. It’s mostly a tax grift.

Could have had new tunnels for NJ Transit and a massively expanded bus system. But NYC shot that down. Don’t forget that.

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moobycow OP t1_j55fgob wrote

NYC doesn't run their own transit system, so that doesn't help. It's worth keeping in mind that NY State also fucking hates NYC and their Governors have been pretty actively antagonistic toward the city for most of all of our lives.

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jersey-city-park t1_j52fmc2 wrote

Move the holland tunnel entrance/exit to coles street.

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anubis2051 t1_j52k35x wrote

Not sure I follow?

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jersey-city-park t1_j53gfsa wrote

Move the exit/entrance of the holland tunnel to coles street and only allow drivers on the turnpike/139 to enter the holland tunnel

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anubis2051 t1_j53glez wrote

Doesn’t that kill the approach to people going to Hoboken and North JC? How are they supposed to get there?

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jersey-city-park t1_j53kcxs wrote

New exits. Point is you have to be on the turnpike or 139 to enter the holland, cant take new hoboken exit and try to circumvent

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anubis2051 t1_j53lgaj wrote

New Exits is easy to say, but the approach has a ton of buildings on both sides. How do you propose getting around that? And the traffic that crosses the approach?

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jersey-city-park t1_j53oiwh wrote

Im sure they’ll figure it out lmao not sure why you think im the lead engineer

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ashlandbus t1_j51pnpd wrote

I like what they did in Berkeley, CA - a very similar situation (people cutting thru town to avoid freeway traffic) resulted in them putting up big planters at ends of streets, essentially creating dead-ends and snaked streets that deter people away from taking anything but the main drags. They also have a ton of speed bumps, but I don't know how feasible that is with snowplows here.

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nasty_brutish_longer t1_j51uorv wrote

Infrastructure really is the answer here. What got Leonia and other towns' local-only ordinances rejected was this morally and legally troublesome "roads for me, not for thee" approach. And it's practically unenforceable anyway.

A city that's willing to calm its streets for everyone and redesign their roads accordingly isn't going to have that problem.

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jcskunk t1_j51xcmm wrote

A lot of the allowed left turns are dangerous anyways. Backs up traffic. People darting into the turn and daring people to hit them. If it's banning those and converting to one ways then great, makes it smoother for everyone.

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HElGHTS t1_j526lbu wrote

Any idea how much of the cut-through traffic is people following Waze (and similar) versus how much is people trying their own tricks?

If it's largely the former, those companies offer to solve exactly these problems by working with city planners, and taking them up on that offer is the move here. If it's largely the latter, well then all the other things being discussed here should continue to be discussed.

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moobycow OP t1_j55flv7 wrote

No idea, because they haven't told us what the study found.

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drkensaccount t1_j52b2wt wrote

The city did fairly well dealing with the traffic trying to cut through at Tonnelle. I'm hoping they do similarly downtown.

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Acrobatic-Season-770 t1_j52uohv wrote

How about public transit that is robust enough for locals to rely on instead of cars?

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gigiwasabi_jc t1_j53i45m wrote

Not suggesting pulling a Leonia but genuine question.… I’ve noticed Weehawken has a “locals only” sign outside the Lincoln, on 19th and Hackensack Plank Rd. Are they not being sued because they don’t actually enforce it? Or just because no one has tried to sue, yet? It’s been there awhile, months at least.

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anubis2051 t1_j53o4aj wrote

That sign isn't actually referring to 19th and Hackensack Plank, rather warning about Pleasant Ave being closed between 32nd and Marginal. I believe the reason they get away with that is they have police actively forbidding anyone trying to use it as a throughway. Anyone specifically accessing the block of Pleasant (and for that matter, 33rd) is allowed to pass. It's done to alleviate the intersection at 31st, which 9/10ths of the time is being manned by police as well. Other approaches in town are still allowed, and it's not a blanket that all out of towners can't use the road, even if you live in town you can't do it. That's the distinction.

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joeynnj t1_j54wdwx wrote

Here’s what I think should happen:

All residents should get Waze/Google Maps/whatever on our phones. Then we routinely go in and mark key roads as closed, causing the app to divert traffic a different way. :)

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papashark9675 t1_j54aos9 wrote

  1. Ban street parking on Marin Blvd.
  2. Make Marin Blvd & Erie south bound one way street and Washington St north bound one way. So we can divert cars going into New York to Jersey Ave and Washington St.
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moobycow OP t1_j54wr41 wrote

Jersey runs into the park and Washington doesn't have an exit to the tunnel unless you loop around and go down Grove from the North side.

It basically shuttles 100% of the traffic to Monmouth, and then has almost no other way to get to HP so anyone who lives in that area would be f'd.

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