May 2024
Posted: 5/30/2024 12:34:03 PM
The Morris Canal Working Group learned about several trail projects underway and efforts to create a hiker’s guide to existing segments, at its May 22 meeting.
Steve Krinsky presented “A Hiker’s Guide to the Morris Canal Greenway,” a project he is working on with three others to update information about trail segments listed on the
All Trails hiking app.
The group decided to focus on All Trails, because it is well suited for hikers and offers convenient mechanisms for input and feedback, “which we used with much success,” Krinsky said. So far, they’ve hiked and mapped 10 Morris Canal Greenway sections, including portions as far east as Jersey City and Newark and as far west as Hackettstown.
Krinsky said the group may continue to make updates as the trails change and new information becomes available. Up next, he said, is mapping portions of the greenway in Warren, Sussex and Passaic counties.
Greenway Additions
Joe Macasek and Tim Roth, of the Canal Society of New Jersey, provided updates on several projects underway.
Macasek said work on the Lock 2 East restoration is expected to be completed by June, when the mechanism to operate the lock is completed.
Many projects are in the works, and Macasek noted it can take years to complete everything from planning to financing to actual construction. “Sometimes it’s very frustrating, but you gotta stick with it."
One such long-planned project is stabilizing the railroad trestle in Boonton so it can be transformed into a pedestrian walkway. The trestle is a spur trail that gives additional access to the main trail, Macasek said. Work is also being done to restore the Arch Bridge in Boonton.
In Morris County, the Canal Society recently began working with the Town of Dover, a new greenway partner, that is using a grant from T-Mobile to create the Princeton Avenue Greenway Trail, a short segment parallel to Princeton Avenue. The Canal Society provided signage and financing to complete the trail and the township is looking to do some more, Macasek said. The town is also planning to hold an event in June to celebrate new interpretive signage in JFK Park, which explains the area was once a canal basin.
Also in Morris County, Mount Olive helped to acquire a narrow landlocked property where Inclined Plane 3 was located and is working on a grant to acquire the adjacent Carson Roberts property, which would provide access to the inclined plane, Macasek said. A nearby water-filled canal section with public access easement contains the ruins of a lock tenders house, a semi-restored landmark along the trail.
The Belleville Greenway Trail is a short but interesting piece of the canal that will connect with the existing greenway in Bloomfield and the proposed greenway in Newark. Another Canal Society project will provide an interpretive panel and five wayfinding signs to connect those segments.
The Canal Society also funded an interpretive panel at Lock 15 East at the corner of Lock and New streets in Newark. “We see this as a first effort in Newark, and now with the city looking to create a bikeway, we hope to do more of this,” Macasek said.
Warren County is looking to acquire land within an area called Rockport, a canal village in Mansfield Township, Roth said. There is a trail on a nearby state game farm property that goes by an old canal basin. The area is overgrown, but once cleared, there would be trails on either side of the village.
Roth said he hopes to report back at the fall Working Group meeting that the Warren Heritage Museum at Bread Lock Park is reopened. Tours have been suspended due to mold remediation, but the park is open daily from sunrise to sunset. The road bridge was washed out by storms last summer, however, pedestrian traffic is allowed via Thomas Carling Drive.
A complete recording of the May 22 Morris Canal Working Group meeting can be accessed at MorrisCanalGreenway.org
Posted: 5/24/2024 1:43:06 PM
Passaic County and local officials broke ground Friday on the first phase of the Highlands Rail Trail in Wanaque.
“The trail is going to provide a safe way for access between neighborhoods, schools, and many retail options including grocery, restaurants and services,” said Passaic County Commissioner Director John Bartlett, who represents the County on the NJTPA’s Board of Trustees. “This is part of a larger project, and in fact the Highlands Rail Trail Feasibility Study was completed in 2017 to contemplate the possibility of as many as five phases, of which this is just phase one.”
This phase, funded with a $1.8 million Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside Grant previously awarded by the NJTPA Board, will stretch 1.72 miles from Union Avenue to F.A. Orechio Drive/Ringwood Avenue. The project is expected to be completed next year, Bartlett said.
The 10-foot-wide pedestrian and bicycle-friendly path is being built on the former New York and Greenwood Lake Railway right-of-way in northern Passaic County.
The NJTPA is also providing $1.6 million in funding toward Phase II of the project, which is under design and expected to break ground next year, through its Transportation Clean Air Measures Program. Phase II includes installing a rapid flashing beacon pedestrian crossing at Ringwood Avenue and continues to Conklin Town Road in Wanaque. The trail would run adjacent to Wanaque Elementary School, the Hagstrom Field athletic complex and Lakeland Regional High School.
Bartlett said if completed, the fives phases would create a nearly 8-mile trail from Wanaque to the Monksville Reservoir and Stonetown Road in Ringwood, with a spur trail going to Ringwood Manor.
“When you get something started is when people can begin to envision what it might be and whereas we look behind us now and see an old empty rail bed, in a year or so you’re going to see 1.7 miles of trail where you can walk and bike and enjoy the outdoors, on a beautiful day like today,” Bartlett said. “That’s going to be a vision I think is going to help us move through those other phases, get buy-in from folks, because how amazing would it be to be able to ride that bike all the way up to Ringwood Manor from where we are right here.”
Posted: 5/15/2024 11:27:12 AM
Construction of a new Midtown Manhattan Bus Terminal, the nation’s busiest and largest bus terminal, is slated to begin around the end of this year.
Jay Shuffield, Manager of Regional Transportation Policy for The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, provided an overview of the project during a brief presentation at the NJTPA Board of Trustees meeting on Monday.
“We’re really working hard to deliver world-class space for passengers inside the terminal, at the entrances, around the terminal, and in the parts of the community that have been divided by transportation infrastructure for decades,” Shuffield said.
The project currently is coming to the end of the environmental review process with a draft Environmental Impact Statement published in February and public comment period that closed in March. He said they’re hoping for construction to begin around the end of the year. The $10 billion facility will include a new 2.1-million-square-foot main terminal, a separate storage and staging building and new ramps leading directly into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
Phase 1 would include a new ramp system that will be built while the terminal is still in operation. A new staging and storage facility will also be built which, in the second phase, will initially be used as an interim bus terminal while the existing facility is demolished and the new terminal constructed.
The project is necessary because some of the existing structure has reached the end of its life and cannot accommodate expected future growth in bus travel. “This has been a collaborative effort with the community and elected officials to develop a solution that improves the efficiency of bus operations and designs the facilities to make all this regional transportation fit into the neighborhood in a much better way," he said.
Existing bus terminal
The original building was erected in 1950, expanded vertically in the 1960s, and to the adjoining block across the street in 1980. The existing terminal takes up more than a city block in Midtown with an extensive ramp system and several at-grade bus parking lots. The current configuration requires some buses to maneuver city streets adding to congestion. A staging and storage facility will replace the surface parking lots, improving the ability to get buses to the gates and out of the buildings without delays, Shuffield said. The project will create new public spaces including on decks over much of the current Lincoln tunnel portal.
The streetscape around the building will also be improved. The uninviting blank wall along 40th Street will be opened up with new retail space and a widened sidewalk to improve the streetscape experience.
The
project website can be found here.