Greenways Plus Highways: A Deadly Combination

Using an example from a New Jersey segment of the East Coast Greenway, the nation’s longest biking and walking route, Asia Mieleszko highlights the danger raised by the intersection of greenways with highways and major arterial roads.

“While its most beloved segments are secluded and separated from motorized traffic, as much as 65% of the ECG involves interacting with cars and trucks that are moving at high speeds.” This puts the people biking and walking on the trail at risk, and has in some cases resulted in fatal crashes. In many places, the crossings are denoted only by a painted crosswalk, and drivers routinely ignore speed limits.

One problem, Mieleszko points out, is that the standards that county roads are held to often don’t match up with local realities. “ Often, they’re thought of as connectors between distant places, a means of getting from one side of town to the other, from one city to another dozens of miles away. As such, they prioritize the speed and throughput of vehicles in order to make that ride from A to B as efficient and seamless as possible.”

In practice, many of the country’s most dangerous, fast-moving roads intersect with pathways for people walking and biking. It takes consistent effort from local advocates to get state and county agencies to make changes that could, in theory, contradict their mandate to maintain fast traffic throughput.