Public speakers asked the Bergen County Board of Commissioners on July 2 to prioritize short, protected bike-lane projects and endorse the county Local Safety Action Plan as a step toward safer local streets. Chris Nowell, a Fort Lee resident and active-transportation advocate, told commissioners that short, well‑designed bike lanes let people make everyday trips without a car and can reduce crashes.

Why this matters: The county’s Local Safety Action Plan lists specific locations where roadway design changes could reduce crashes and improve safety for people walking and biking. Commenters said tactical, incremental projects are more likely to succeed than large, countywide schemes that lack local buy‑in.

"Bike lanes within towns help people make short everyday trips to schools, supermarkets, downtowns without a car," Chris Nowell said. "A protected lane does more than keep cyclists safe. It narrows overly wide roads, calming traffic and improving safety for drivers and pedestrians too." Nowell asked commissioners to read and endorse the Local Safety Action Plan and to prioritize protected lanes on high‑priority county roads named in the plan.

A second speaker, identified in the record as Patrick, cited recent data from the Regional Plan Association he said show New York City’s congestion‑pricing program has reduced traffic and shifted some travel to transit and bikes. He said that effect, combined with bicycle and transit investments, produced measurable travel‑time improvements in nearby Bergen County municipalities.

"For the nine municipalities in Bergen County included in the extent of the Waze data, the time lost to traffic jams was reduced by 25% in the first eight weeks and 21% in the first 16 weeks," Patrick told commissioners, adding that part of the reduction was attributable to congestion pricing. He urged the county to avoid widening roads for more car lanes and to adopt designs that reduce crashes.

Speakers repeatedly urged a small‑project approach: test a quarter‑mile protected segment in one town, measure results, and scale successes across municipalities. Commenters referred to the 2015 Central Bergen Bike and Pedestrian Plan as an example of a larger effort that, they said, lacked sufficient local buy‑in and did not advance.

No formal county action was taken on the public comments at the July 2 meeting. Commissioners did not vote on the Local Safety Action Plan during the session; the remarks were part of the meeting’s public‑comment period. The county’s three‑minute public‑comment rule is set by Bergen County Commissioner Bylaws and was read at the meeting.

If commissioners direct staff to act on the plan, that would be a separate, formal agenda item requiring committee review and, typically, a later vote.