Jersey City will get its first city-street bike lane on Grove Street, beginning Monday, April 30.* The lane is temporary, lasting for a month, on the length of Grove Street, in both directions. Bike JC is participating by publicizing and making sure cyclists know the rules of the road and cycling etiquette, as the demonstration lane goes into effect. You can find Jersey City and New Jersey law and general recommendations on safe cycling here:http://bikejc.org/road-rules.

 Bike JC members can show support by using the lane during the month of May and following the road rules as they do so. Pass it on!

 This Big City offers a rumination on whether bike infrastructure (lanes, sharing programs, bike parking, bike sidewalks, etc) needs to proceed demand. The idea is that bicycling will solve most of our ills (health, pollution, transit, equity, civic engagement), and if you (the city, the planners, the urban illuminati) make it easy, people will do it, and we will be happy. I'm susceptible to this argument.

This year's Ward Tour on June 4 has a minimum age of 10 to ride. So what is a 9-year-old cyclist to do? Head over to the Hudson TMA's Stride and Ride Bike Rodeo in Jersey City's Lincoln Park, from 10-4 on the same day.

Or, if you are around 11 and want to do most of the Tour and then drop by Lincoln Park for some rodeo-ing, you are in luck, it's on our route. (If you leave the Tour, you can't rejoin it, but we are happy to see you pack in as many bike-based activities as you like in a day.)

In a welcome turn of events, measured logic prevailed in a Jersey City City Council meeting last night, when planning director Bob Cotter pointed out that a new parking garage built in the heart of downtown, as part of the sale and/or redevelopment of the historic police station on Erie Street, was a bad idea all around. "As Cotter explained," writes Matt Hunger in the Jersey City Independent, "the city’s long-term land-use vision is trying to encourage more walking, bicycling and mass transit use — not more parking lots."

Next American City’s Ben Adler lays out the parties and issues in the Great NYC Bike Lane debate.

(photo credit: Flickr user Spencer T.)