About Hamilton Park stop signs

Submitted by helloder27 t3_y01k6o in jerseycity

I used to live in this neighborhood for a couple of years. It's definitely one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Jersey City, among the safest too. But recently I moved to another neighborhood within JC.

One thing I absolutely don't miss about Hamilton Park are the stop signs as a pedestrian. Guessing whether the driver is going to stop? Messing up the guessing and now they are about to hit you. Stop signs are good for quiet, low traffic and sparse neighborhoods. Lots of Uber drivers don't even care.

Hamilton Park has gotten way busier and dense than we treat it, especially post COVID when the people priced out of luxury apartments moved here. It's an annoying neighborhood to walk around especially Friday-Sunday evenings and weekday afternoons when the schools are done for the day. You'll at least run through that one driver who will be about to hit you and that horrifies you for the rest of the day.

I think it might be time to introduce some proper traffic lights instead of the stop signs in Hamilton Park especially at the busier intersections. Thoughts?

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Comments

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ffejie t1_irpx5qg wrote

I agree that drivers don't really stop at the stop signs. Plenty just kind of slow down and then plow through the intersection. Here's what will help, roughly in order of easy to impossible to imagine the city doing

  • Better street markings - a lot of existing stop lines are worn away and stop signs are not as obvious as they need to be. Also solid color crosswalks would help

  • Intersection daylighting - this is when you lose the last parking spot on a street to make it easier for pedestrians and drivers to see each other - Hoboken has done this all over the place and it works

  • Narrower streets - protect the bike lanes and squeeze the parallel parking closer to the drivers, like has been done in lots of areas of Paulus Hook (although those streets are much much wider to start from). This has been proven to slow down drivers and we get better bike lanes

  • Raised crosswalks - acts as a slight speed bump and stands out that the pedestrian has the right of way

  • Enforcement - a few well positioned cops for a few days every month would pay for themselves in traffic summons, but unlikely to be a priority of JCPD until someone gets killed

  • Speed bumps - I haven't seen any city really do this, but I suppose you could put these throughout the roads to slow everyone down. Unfortunately, many drivers just accelerate up to them - they don't exactly create calmer drivers

Here's what we shouldn't do:

  • Add traffic lights - drivers see a green as an invitation to accelerate through it. This would improve traffic flow, but make walking more dangerous
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Bh10474 t1_irpy2jo wrote

Uhh…if the light is green and sign says do not walk you really shouldnt be crossing at that time even though you technically have the right of way as a pedestrian, because car vs human body, car always wins

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ffejie t1_irqblak wrote

I don't think I said that pedestrians should be crossing against the light, but to be clear, pedestrians should not be crossing against the light. Is that better?

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SyndicalistCPA t1_irsh4p4 wrote

> Intersection daylighting - this is when you lose the last parking spot on a street to make it easier for pedestrians and drivers to see each other

Feel like they've been doing this around Hamilton Park too but only use yellow paint, so people still park there. Fourth and Jersey used to a those plastic sticks along those corners (Like 3rd and Jersey) but they've been taken down for just yellow paint.

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ffejie t1_irslefr wrote

Yes, it starts with something like yellow paint or those plastic bollards. That kind of stinks for implementation though.

Ideally you want curb bump outs like Hoboken has been doing. This also helps pedestrians with shorter crossings.

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clade_nade t1_irpmlaq wrote

I don't know -- I'd be happy to be proven wrong by an appropriate study, but I think traffic lights would have the opposite effect, safety-wise. Green lights are interpreted by drivers as permission to speed as fast as they want, as long as they abide by the lights (and they'll often press on the gas to rush through a yellow light, anyway). But our neighborhood is full of pedestrians crossing mid-block, kids on scooters/bikes on the sidewalk with maybe not the best control... it's not enough for cars to stop at intersections, we also need them to drive slowly in-between intersections.

I'd rather we add a lot of speed bumps and further narrow the streets (like with protected bike lanes or another method), to basically make it practically difficult for drivers to go at unsafe speeds.

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garth_meringue t1_irq2is6 wrote

There's a traffic light just for the cross-walk near the Harborside light rail stop that has exactly this effect, and it's annoying as hell. The light is by default green all the time unless a pedestrian hits the button, and cars take it as an excuse to blow through regardless of pedestrians.

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helloder27 OP t1_irpnp95 wrote

Yeah didn't think of that - speed bumps. Narrowing down sounds like a good idea but then you got to give the cars an alternative. I think the 6th Street has become a highway entry point or something. Overall poorly planned.

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Streetfoldsfive t1_irskd64 wrote

Agreed. Though if you ever chill outside at Ed & Mary’s people hit the bump over there at top speed haha

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VanWorst t1_irpm3mb wrote

I just watched an SUV blow right though a red today (and I don't mean mistimed the yellow, it was red for a while and it ran through at full speed)

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hrckw32 t1_irpoedf wrote

Not understanding the comment about people who were priced out of luxury apartments. Are you implying there were tons of empty apartments in Hamilton Park prior to Covid?

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helloder27 OP t1_irppd27 wrote

I guess there an overall increase in demand to live in Jersey City, with people moving within the city, moving from NYC to here and moving from elsewhere in the US to here. Overall the city's appeal has gone up. That reflects immediately in good neighborhoods like this one.

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hrckw32 t1_irps751 wrote

Agreed but demand like that affects pricing of apartments it doesn’t mean there are suddenly more apartments for people to move to and increase the population

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VanWorst t1_irpv3p7 wrote

We should get streets repaved with cobble stones, like around the Holland Tunnel in Tribeca. Ever seen anyone speed down Audrey Zapp Drive?

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_irpw3m1 wrote

Yup.

All the streets used to be pavers too. Damn shame they paved over them.

Environmentally they’re way better, but less stress on the storm drains, more traction with less road salt, easier to repair streets back to original condition after utility work.

It’s also cheaper in the long run. You can go a century+ between replacement. Some streets in Europe still have scratches in pavers from tanks in wwii.

It’s clearly superior, and lots of European cities do exactly this for low speed roadways.

But asphalt is made with petroleum byproducts they’d otherwise need to properly dispose of, so lobbyists like asphalt to be used as often as possible. Selling it as a product is profitable rather than a cost.

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SyndicalistCPA t1_irshfju wrote

Huh, TIL. Do you know of any articles I can read more about this?

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mickyrow42 t1_irpp7bb wrote

hell no. what do you consider a "busier intersection" in HP? any ones I can think of already have lights. you want lights at every corner?

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helloder27 OP t1_irppjfg wrote

I don't know the exact ones to be honest. But anything on 6th, 7th and 10th streets seems extra busy on weekends. Maybe do some weekend-only traffic rules?

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mickyrow42 t1_irpx06x wrote

It’s the traffic to and from the tunnel. This is a pretty well treaded topic, especially recently. Will be way down now that it’s heading into winter. And will spike again in summer. Nothing new.

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garth_meringue t1_irq230t wrote

What happened to everyone wetting their diaper about the devil's artery causing extra traffic.

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mickyrow42 t1_irree57 wrote

Like how it was 100% true and that intersection is a nightmare?

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garth_meringue t1_irrpufu wrote

Yes to that intersection, of course. Not so clear the rest of downtown is now overrun compared to before.

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STMIHA t1_irsgnin wrote

I disagree about the lights but info think consistency is key. Putting multi way stops is a great start and has definitely improved safety on jersey avenue. Just need to be consistent. The more people drove in the areas the more they will get used to it.

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jersey385 t1_irrolor wrote

People don’t understand anything without consequences. Unless there are traffic cameras or some type of traffic enforcement by police (yeah, right) behaviors won’t change.

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HappyArtichoke7729 t1_irpi3cm wrote

Needs taller buildings

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Knobbies4Ever t1_irpl4wi wrote

Are you saying we should bulldoze the park? Or the buildings in the historic district that surround it?

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HappyArtichoke7729 t1_irplcft wrote

I didn't say anything about bulldoze.

I see all the time in JC where they take an old building down, leave its facade, and build a much taller building using the same front of the old building.

We need lower housing prices, and for that we need more housing.

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Knobbies4Ever t1_irprl5h wrote

Hey, I agree on the need for more housing!

There has already been some adaptive re-use of old buildings in that neighborhood to add density, and I’d love to see more of that.

The new developments north & west of HP seem to be more car-oriented than transit-oriented (close to 1 parking spot for each unit). I’m not keen on having all those additional cars & car-dependent people in the mix in JC. I’d rather keep seeing more development in places that people will walk to transit.

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