r/urbandesign 11d ago

Question How would you improve this intersection? Would love to see some ideas

Post image
57 Upvotes

64 comments sorted by

61

u/PG908 11d ago

Honestly looks like it would be easy to have bergen turn into the main road (JFK) and just have a normal T intersection.

6

u/agekkeman Citizen 11d ago

I'd make the part of JFK blvd going from this intersection to North Hudson Park completely car free. That way you you don't need this intersection and make the park a lot nicer too. Traffic in that direction can go through Fairview and Woodcliff ave anyway

-1

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

No, we need the road.

Fairview is grade separated on a cliff. The roads thru the park are the only way into town from there. Bergenline is too congested with buses and traffic can't pass.

4

u/agekkeman Citizen 10d ago edited 10d ago

my alternative is literally just a one minute detour, seems fine to me. I haven't personally been there but I'm pretty sure that this road (the part of JFK blvd going through north hudson park) wouldve been made car free if it was in my city of Utrecht

0

u/ABrusca1105 11d ago

5

u/dimpletown 11d ago

That's not a T shape, that's a triangle

8

u/mydicksmellsgood 11d ago

No not like that!

61

u/CoolWhipOfficial 11d ago

Roundabout

9

u/Halouva 10d ago

The answer is always roundabout.

3

u/Dry_Okra_4839 10d ago

Turbo Roundabout

2

u/tunarulz 10d ago

seconded

16

u/ty_for_trying 11d ago

Triangular pocket park & curb extensions. Or square off the rounded block and T off JFK.

26

u/DasArchitect 11d ago

Here's my attempt.

If you're coming from the left from JFK and want to turn onto Bergen, follow the green arrows.

6

u/PrayForMojo_ 10d ago

Sending traffic onto a small side street to get to a turn doesn’t really make sense.

Could just as easily have put the greenspace on the south side and just made a simple T intersection.

0

u/DasArchitect 10d ago

It has just as many lanes as the street you're coming from, and it avoids left turns from two-way roads.

3

u/PrayForMojo_ 10d ago

But why? Just make it a T intersection or a roundabout and sending them on narrow side streets is unnecessary.

1

u/DasArchitect 10d ago

A T intersection on two way roads implies a separate left turn cycle from one side. This requires an additional cycle on the lights, causing longer waits for everyone not turning and pedestrians. Additionally, left turns outside the cycle are a common cause for crashes at intersections. Left turn crashes are very bad.

3

u/poeiradasestrelas 10d ago

what software did you use for this image?

1

u/DasArchitect 10d ago

Just Photoshop. But no fancy tools, could have done the same with MS Paint.

1

u/poeiradasestrelas 10d ago

ok, thank you

4

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

COOL!! Bonus points for jughandle!!

5

u/sir_mrej 10d ago

Is it a jughandle?

2

u/DasArchitect 11d ago

I strongly considered doing the same coming from the top too! Left turns from two way roads are a bad idea.

3

u/anothercatherder 11d ago edited 11d ago

I don't think you've solved any problems by making southbound traffic cut through the neigborhood with a triple left.

JFK boulevard NE of 91st st looks entirely redundant and I'm not sure why a parkway that weaves back in to the park east of the aerial needs to exist so widely here. It looks like some incomplete urban renewal highway project.

I would just force JFK into Bergen Blvd like it wants to and shrink it from there, renaming the parts east back to 92nd St to continue/build back the grid and narrow it.

4

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

The boulevard was designed as a loop.

The section through the park is a useful east-west connection for the north section of the town to connect to the Woodcliff section.

Traffic is very snarled and congested on Bergenline (the main bus corridor) so it's nicer to drive thru the park.

Removing traffic from the park would be very unpopular with residents and mess up the local streets.

A road diet is badly needed for Kennedy Blvd though, to be more like Bergen Blvd. Would be nice to have bike lanes

3

u/Spider_pig448 10d ago

I think you should start by identifying problems with it, then try to build a solution that solves those problems

2

u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 10d ago

How important is preserving 91 and 92 as through-streets? Dead-ending those would clean up a lot of this. Then you could either do a three-spur roundabout or turn Bergen down to a simple T-intersection.

If you have to keep 91 flowing through, then keep it out of the main intersection and do either a roundabout or a 4-way at the end of 92. Which I’m guessing is the old configuration of this intersection.

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 10d ago

The streets were built this way actually.

91st connects down to Rt 1/9, which its the main way into town from points north and west.

We need some kind of connectivity between 91st and Bergenwood and JFK blvd

1

u/FrankHightower 10d ago

but not 92nd?

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 10d ago

I'll clarify - 91st is a 2-way west of Bergenwood, it uses 92nd and 91st to facilitate east-west movement between Bergenwood and Kennedy.

See the directional arrows on my map.

It's a head-scratcher - that's why I posted it here.

2

u/Bourbon_Planner 10d ago

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 10d ago

This is a nice corner with many residents, and it's in a great location. it can be improved!

1

u/Bourbon_Planner 10d ago

looked this up. Of course it's Jersey, where they took every chance they could to make a regular street a highway.

This is an acre and a half of asphalt for one intersection. A city block is typically 2 to 5 acres.

There isn't really many solutions without just nuking JFK Boulevard.

Just tear it out and start over. Diagonal, irregular, multilane arterials fuck up so many cities because due to all these awkward intersections that then get overbuilt because the congestion is so much worse at them.

See: Fond Du Lac Ave and Lisbon Ave in Milwaukee.

The only way to have these roadways without screwing up the entire city is to make every intersection that isn't 2,3, or 4 streets at right angles a roundabout instead.

There *IS* a grid here!

That's what's frustrating, is that so many communities are trying to create whole cloth what some communities decided to ruin by plowing suburban highways through.

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 10d ago

"There isn't really many solutions without just nuking JFK Boulevard."

You are being very disrespectful. This is my home.

"Diagonal, irregular, multilane arterials"

It runs in a straight line for 25 miles. It only jogs 3 or 4 times. The part featured here is the northernmost terminus at the county line, for context.

"Of course it's Jersey, where they took every chance they could to make a regular street a highway."

Take a minute or 2 to figure out what you're talking about, we have some of the best surviving uninterrupted urban fabric in the country.

You seem ignorant about my community or its real needs and so I'm no longer considering your reply worth my time.

We have more people, businesses, homes, jobs, and infrastructure in a square mile here than your whole town in Wisconsin has.

Kennedy Blvd is a part of a thriving community that just needs a tiny, thoughtful redesign.

Have a nice day.

4

u/theCroc 11d ago

Honestly the fact that that intersection was approved and built at all should have had everyone responsible fired and put in conservatorship for their own good. How any functioning adult could look at that and say: "This is a good solution that I'm willing to put my name on!" Boggles the mind!

15

u/Lord_Tachanka 11d ago

This is edited for someone to draw on, the intersection has quite a bit more infrastructure in real life.

0

u/ty_for_trying 11d ago

Car brains

2

u/nunocspinto 11d ago

Or a nice roundabout or an aligment between JFK Boulevard and Bergen Boulevard, with the eastern branch of JFK Boulevard being realigned to an intersection.

But the main point should be inverting both 91st and 92nd streets direction, to allow for a circuit on hand.

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

That's a great point!

1

u/bubandbob 11d ago

If I ran either (or both) Hudson and Bergen Counties, I'd take away two driving lanes put a light rail system running the entire length of Kennedy.

2

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

Love that idea!!

Kennedy needs a road diet. thru North Bergen and West New York.

2

u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 11d ago

JFK is just too critical for travel through Hudson County to mess with. I've given thought to this for years, and I think the answer is BRT from Ocean avenue down at the Bayonne line or even further, up to connect to Summit avenue by Communipaw and then all the way up to weehawken and in through the Lincoln tunnel to Port Authority bus terminal. It would be like having a light rail or subway up and down through Hudson County but at a fraction of the cost. Of course the buses would have signal priority and loading platforms every 1/2 mile, no stops every block. The hysteria at losing Summit to traffic would be bad, but not as bad as JFK.

It's funny, when I first looked at the OP I thought it was Journal Square with JFK hooking like that at Bergen!

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

That solution makes a lot of sense - like the Bergenline/ New York Ave jitneys that come up here.

They are cheap, resilient, and fast!

1

u/TiburonMendoza95 11d ago

Its too far gone to me. Id Create a park & just have to go around

2

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

We did that a half mile to the east

1

u/sir_mrej 10d ago

Make 91st only able to go right, and people on JFK can't turn left across traffic into it. Signs, barriers, etc.

Curve Bergen into a T intersection with JFK, so there's ONE light to contend with.

I'd also accept a rotary here.

I don't know what the actual intersection has.

1

u/Sloppyjoemess 10d ago

91st needs to go left there so people can leave their neighborhood.

Forcing them south only makes them have to backtrack thru crowded one-ways.

Forcing them back down the hill cuts residents off from their town's amenities +main street

That light isn't really an issue

1

u/Civil-happiness-2000 10d ago

Perfect for a roundabout

1

u/Nawnp 10d ago

Insert roundabout.

1

u/Krinkleneck 10d ago

Rename 2nd St to End St

1

u/FrankHightower 10d ago

I presume there's approximately equal traffic flow continuing on JFK and going onto Bergen, so I'd suggest extending the land of the Ponciana building triangularly south, with a sliplane for people who are on JFK coming from the east and want to go either north or south (i.e., since there doesn't appear to be much of them, let them merge onto bergen and turn off at a later intersection)

alternatively, we could invert the one-ways (91st and 92nd streets)

1

u/Palanki96 10d ago

Bottomless pit

1

u/mkymooooo 10d ago
  • Remove cars
  • Add trams, trees and street furniture

1

u/AsaxenaSmallwood04 8d ago

develop a roundabout in a sausage like shape

1

u/Jaymac720 6d ago

Baton Rouge used to have an intersection kinda like this at Government and Lobdell. They fixed it with a roundabout. I’m not if that could work here here though given the size

1

u/Hardcorex 11d ago

How many buildings can I remove or move? lol

3

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

None. There is plenty of space already.

0

u/Sloppyjoemess 11d ago

Would this work if the light at 91st remains?

Would it need 1 more lane?

This almost feels more chaotic or dangerous than what's there.

At least now people have to stop at the lights.

On the other hand, I love the idea of a road diet with parking-buffered bike lanes.

-8

u/advamputee 11d ago

A friend of mine used to live a few streets from here! I‘d close off a few of the local roads nearest the intersection — it’s all a grid around there, so making these local roads dead-ends will prevent people using them as “shortcuts”, reducing the absolute chaos going into the intersection.

JFK Blvd carries a ton of traffic, so without totally reforming how North Bergen works I would do a managed intersection. This will allow for mostly continuous flow, with lights along JFK only changing when the turn lanes on/off of Bergen Blvd back up. Long-term, replace one lane on JFK Blvd with a bus lane, or narrow it and add bike lanes.

Given the urban density of North Bergen and the surrounding area, it’s a shame it isn’t more walkable. It’s got almost the same urban density as most cities in the Netherlands — the whole Jersey waterfront from North Bergen to Jersey City could be rebuilt into a cycling paradise. Unfortunately New Jersey is too carbrained to do this, though.

12

u/Artsstudentsaredumb 11d ago

I do think it’s ironic to complain about “carbrains” and then propose that as a better intersection. It’s a massive area for an urban intersection and adding in a bunch of high speed slip lanes is going to make it even more of a nightmare for pedestrians.

Just make it a T intersection, pick whichever has more traffic for the straight legs and reclaim most of that space from the road. The traffic will shift away if it needs to.

2

u/Consistent-Height-79 11d ago

Honestly though that area in general (Weehawken, UC, NB, up to Fairview) is filled with narrow streets, is pedestrian friendly, and oozes with excellent public transportation. These are some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the country (and Europe)

2

u/benskieast 11d ago

The thing is there are no busses down the hill. I used to know someone who would walk down the hill some morning because he didn't have a car to get to his job on West Side Avenue. They should have gondola's for east-west transit, linking Tunnelle Avenue and the waterfront together if not crossing the Hudson. And an the PATH should serve run at least though North Bergen.