Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Hike #1471; Jersey City to Secaucus

 


Hike #1471; 2/27/22 Jersey City to Secaucus with Jennifer Berndt, Jennifer Tull, Brittany Weider, Professor John DiFiore, Serious Sean Dougherty, Stephen Argentina, Justin Gurbisz, Violet Chen, Jennifer ?, Kathy HA ?, and Galya

This next hike would be the start of yet another series I plan to walk on for a good long while: the Hackensack River.

I have been fascinated enough with the Hackensack River ever since I got hired by N State Park Service, and one of the jobs they had me take on was to care for the Von Steuben House on the Hackensack River. It was at the point where the river ceased being tidal, and the home, actually that of Jan Zabrisky, was awarded to Von Steuben for his service during the war. 

During this time of work, I found that there was a fantastic trail going down along the river, and I wanted to organize a group hike to it. 
Of course, I've had a million and one things going on and never got around to hiking to the Von Steuben house or anything in historic New Bridge Landing. I wanted to do the entire Hackensack River from the south first. 

It took a long time, but this would finally be the first hike in the Hackensack River series.

We met at the Kohls store in Secaucus, in a big strip mall that has a Best Buy and other crap in it. It was a good spot because if we were doing well on time, we could do more. If we had already done about fifteen miles by the time we got there, we could cut a corner.

We shuttled from this point south to Jersey City, at the Stadium Plaza Shopping Center near Droyer's Point. This was near the same latitude as the tip of land is that the Hackensack River and Passaic River join to form the Newark Bay. A sort of technical start to the Hackensack River series.

There was no good way of walking the waterfront, although we looked at it, and so we had to get out and walk along Rt 440. I pointed out to everyone that the route used to be the Morris Canal until its abandonment in 1924. Just to the south, the old canal route makes up the border between Jersey City and Bayonne.
There were old buildings on the opposite side of 440 that I suspect might have even been there back in the later canal days.

We continued north, and the passed through several vehicle dealerships to get to the Hudson Commons vicinity. Jen was running behind and met up with us there. Together, we all walked in back of the stores. 


Looking back to the south a bit, we could see the piers of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey's Newark Branch. The line went across to Kearney and then across the Passaic, but the bridges were boat clearance issues. 

We made our way down to the tidal waterfront and I drank a Sunday Morning Stout. We had some good views of the Truck Route 1 and 9 Bridge, which is also where the Morris Canal crossed the Hackensack River, just before it. I figured we would try to walk the waterfront directly to it. I'd done it before to some degree, and thought maybe we could get closer, but it was impossibly sloppy. We fought through some of the stuff, but then were looking for another way up and on the roads behind the stores.

Fortunately, Brittany found something of a hole in the chain link fence, and we were all able to push up through the weeds and get in there.


We followed along the back of the stores to the north side, then had to turn right behind the Lowes and walk all the way back out to Rt 440. There was no way of cutting it short and no other holes in the fence at that point.


We headed north and then turned left on Truck Rts 1 and 9 toward the bridge, and there was a major construction site to the left. I was able to get up behind the fence of that, and we headed off to the west end of the site where I was able to get into the trench waterway that is all that remains of the Morris Canal.

I pushed on through and tried to walk along the edge of the canal, or kind of in it on the rocks that had been placed in the years later for erosion and drainage. 

We followed the drainage out to the Hackensack River by the bridge and I started looking around. I was shocked to find fine cut stones, in a degree of disarray, but close to how they would have been situated, which were very likely part of the tide lock on the canal. I wasn't expecting to find anything left of this, and the tide was just low enough to reveal it to us.


There was even wooden cribbing remaining next to the area with rocks around it. I was blown away to find something this substantial still in place. Already the hike was going absolutely fantastic.

Boats from the tide locks would have had to pole their way across the rather shallow river and/or use a ferry line to get across. Any of the infrastructure I was finding, even if not the lock specifically, is likely part of the function of the lock. Part of it might have been a dwelling for a lock tender or other form of shelter seen in some old photos.

The infrastructure here would have dated to about 1842. The canal did not reach this point until then. Originally, the eastern terminus was in Newark, but it was extended a little over a decade later to cross Jersey City.

From here, we headed over to Rt 1 and 9 bridge, climbed the wall to it, or headed on the waterfront below the access road. I was going to climb it but was feeling really weak and out of shape for that. Someone spray painted "Love life like tomorrow doesn't exist" on the galvanized rail. I think I do that.

The Truck Route 1 and 9 Bridge was built in 1954, and I always like to joke that it was voted most beautiful bridge at the time of its construction. Dan Lurie always makes comments about the taste of the time with how ugly he considers the bridge to be.


We got under the bridge, which was easy and had some people walking on the other side. When I hiked this as part of the NJ perimeter, there was a tent city under it. Nothing now.


There was a boat launch bulk head area on the other side, and we had a fantastic view of the Pulaski Skyway.


The Pulaski Skyway, completed in 1932, is a 3.5 mile bridge of combination deck truss cantilever and Pratt through truss designed by Sigvald Johannesson to span the Meadowlands and Passaic and Hackensack Rivers. It connects Newark and Jersey City.

The span was named for Polish Nobleman and General Casimir Pulaski who helped bring order to the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

The edge of the 1 and 9 bridge is the west end of Lincoln Park, and there were nice pathways along the waterfront here. We followed them for a bit, and then I was surprised to find that they continued north along the waterfront along the Skyway Golf Course. This had not been opened the last time we went through this area.

We followed the very nice crushed stone path north through the phragmites, and then came upon a suitcase out in the wetland that had washed up. We started going through it suspecting some sort of underhanded action, but it didn't look like much of anything. There was some stool softener, and a woman's license in it, but nothing else of value. 


Someone took the license and was going to turn it in somewhere letting them know it was found. I think it was definitely expired a while back, so this case might have been out in the bay lost for some time.

Justin knew of a path to the west a bit closer to the water, which then led to the top of a concrete barrier wall along the Hackensack River. This sounded pretty awesome, so I said we should definitely do it.

It was a little weedy at first, but then we had this amazing view across the waterfront from atop these walls. 

It was at times a little complicated trying to walk along the tops of them, but it was worth taking the extra time for the perspectives we were getting. 

Beyond the Pulaski Skyway, the original Kearny Generating Station was visible on the Kearny Meadows, constructed in 1923.


It was originally built with six coal fired units, which were converted to oil. The last of these units was retired in 2006, and six natural gas fired units went into service in 2012. The place looks kind of abandoned, though it's not. It's quite the sight to see, this behemoth rising above the reeds.

We made our way to the very end of the concrete walls, and then a foot path led us back to the regular public trail where we took a break. There was a sand trap in the golf course close by, so we sat there to avoid some of the wind, and to write immature things in the sand.

From here, we followed the path around the outside of the golf course, and then came to a big metal gate blocking off the access to it. This was weird as could be because the other side out of Lincoln Park was wide open. We had to climb over the thing or go around to a point that we could access. 

Stephen had not met up with us just yet, and parked somewhere near Holy Name Cemetery and ran to us.


We then walked Duncan Avenue to the Rt 1 Bypass, and turned left, to the north. This brought us to an access road where there was a sign noting another section of the walkway to the west.


It was early in the hike, and I figured this would be cool. If we had to cut it short at the end, that was fine, but this early on I did not want to miss anything.

We followed the road and the paved trail started up a ways down, which took us to a great view of the Pulaski Skyway, then beneath it. We also had more great views of the power plant.

The trail had a dead end to the left, and to the right it continued along the waterfront briefly. I figure they have these plans for the waterfront walkways, and when they get permission to do just a little bit, they'll do it and figure one of these days it will connect.

For us, this meant we either had to walk back the way we went in, or we would have to be creative. Of course, I choose the latter.
We headed over a grassy hill, and then to the southeast. 

We skirted the edge of the Pulaski Skyway, then headed under it and to the south on a clear maintenance road. This led us to a large parking area for trucks, which I guess is a supplementary parking lot for the adjacent Imperial Dade cleaning products place to the south.

We headed back out to Rts 1 and 9 yet again, and had to carefully cross to get over to the intesection with Sip Avenue almost across. Here, we made a pit stop at a Halal Platters place I think we went to. This used to be a pizza place not that many years ago.
They had something called a "Chicken Zinger" sandwich, so I think that was what I had. We hung out there for a while, and some of the group went to a bagel place. I also went into the Sip Liquor store to see if they carried any MD2020. I don't remember getting anything, and I had plenty of good stuff of my own so I didn't worry about it.

From this point, we walked only a little bit east on Sip Avenue, and then turned left on Freeman Avenue. This took us straight on to a housing development with pedestrian paths through the middle of it for some reprieve from road walking. Beyond the north side of that, we had to walk up Rts 1 and 9 yet again. Fortunately, there were crosswalks and such to help us along. 

We continued to a right turn on James James Avenue which took us to St. Paul's Avenue. We turned right here.

In a short bit, we came to more massive highway underpasses, where the Pulaski Skyway and Wittpenn Bridge kind of come together. We paused when we got to the railroad track crossing.


I'm not sure which lines all of these used to be because there is such a tangled web of them, but my plan was that we would soon be starting on the old former Greenwood Lake Branch of the Erie Railroad as a series, and there was a segment of that just up ahead. We dashed to the north parallel with the tracks on a sort of ATV path. 


Pretty soon, there was a former bridge site above us to the left, and an abandoned track going beneath another bridge at the same grade we were at, also to the left. 

I'm not sure what the overheads were, but the lower one was a spur to PSE&G's Hudson Power Plant, which was demolished for warehouses that were under construction at the time we went through here. Maybe they'll see service, but I won't hold my breath.
As I understand, this area was known as Marion Junction.

We went under a four track bridge, and then turned left onto another track that was abandoned. There was another bridge site on our right that was used by the Erie as a short cut to the Croxton Yard in the area  and bypassed a sort of loop through there.

We were on a good path, which soon came out to more clear tracks. I didn't know they were unused yet, but we found that the rails were cut further ahead from this point. This would have been more of the former New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad, later Greenwood Lake Branch of the Erie.


The line started life as the Montclair Railway, established in 1867. By the 1870s, it ran from Croxton, where we were, just north of Journal Square in Jersey City, all the way to Sterling Forest NY.

The financially troubled line went into receivership and became the Montclair and Greenwood Lake Railway in 1875, and was reorganized as the New York and Greenwood Lake Railway in 1878. The railroad was controlled by the powerful Erie. 

The subsidiary Arlington Railroad was created in 1887 as a new, more direct route over the Kearny Meadows, which was much of what we would be walking along.

The line was abandoned in stages to the north, with the segment to Greenwood Lake going first, followed by other stuff on the way down to Pompton Junction. Below there, tracks remained in place all the way to Mountainview until the time of this writing, August 2022 when they were removed, literally within the past couple of days. 

Below Mountainview, the line is still used as the Montclair-Boonton Branch of NJ Transit. Up until 2002, it was used by NJ Transit right on up through Croxton, but was cut off in Montclair area for a new connection to eliminate the Hackensack River crossing.

For years, this has been proposed as the "Iron and Ice Trail", because the line shipped both iron ore from the Hudson Highlands, and ice in the days before refrigeration. It seemed that the project was eternally stalled.

Then, in November 2021, NJ Governor Phil Murphy announced that the state of NJ was purchasing the line from Norfolk Southern, and that it would be made into a trail. 


The price tag on this $65 million, which does not count any development of the project at all, only purchase. That makes the project the most expensive rail trail project in the history of the world. 

Nine miles of the line are purchased at what comes out to be more than $300K per acre, for a tract of land that due to slopes, and the fact that much of it is on a causeway, would be otherwise undevelopable and is already known to be contaminated. 

I'm all for saving and using these derelict corridors, but this price tag is insane, and to make matters worse, Norfolk Southern is one of few corporations that has declined to disclose their campaign contributions of the past three years. That makes this entire boondoggle illegal, but no one is saying anything. 

To add insult to injury, Murphy said this would be the "crown jewel of the NJ State Park system", which is a huge slap in the face to every other state park when we consider amazing places like Worthington, Stokes, High Point, Cape May Point, and so many others. 


My personal opinion is that Murphy's behavior is reckless and as with so many other things he's done, a pandering move to exploit the emotional response of people who hold these projects dear. 

State parks have been so grossly underfunded, are falling apart worse than they have in years, and Murphy's DEP had hired sixty near office staff workers for the Commissioner's office, while the past two years have seen only sixteen new hires to maintain these parks. That does not even cover retirements and resignations of the past two years. 

I could go on and on about the problems with the current system, but a lot of these developments are the reason I decided to start this series and the Greenwood Lake Branch series when I did.

We headed west, and the ramp bridge from Seaview Drive to and from the eastern spur of the NJ Turnpike was in view to the right. 


It is not generally known by the millions of people who drive this route, and probably not known by Governor Murphy either, that this is one of New Jersey's most overlooked burial grounds...

The bridge spans the former Lackawanna and Erie rail lines, and passes over the Meadowlands.
This interchange off of the Secaucus Transfer area of the NJ Turnpike is also a long forgotten, unmarked cemetery.
For this construction, 4,571 bodies were disinterred and reburied in another cemetery in Hackensack. The only bodies removed were those that would be in the footprint of the new interchange.
When the NJ Turnpike was first built in the 1950s, some 434 bodies were found during the original construction of the turnpike.
About twenty years later, morgue custodian John Marinan and associates were indicted for trying to pocket $40k allocated for the removal of bodies from near Snake Hill, but used inmates instead of legitimate contractors. It is believed they removed tomb stones but not the bodies. Marinan died before facing trial.


Aside from all of this, there are over nine thousand bodies here still unaccounted for in this meadowlands area, certainly along the railroad, and almost certainly within some of the land purchased in the recent deal.

We continued walking along the tracks ahead, and I felt better after I saw broken ones. I knew no train would be going by then. There were also ATVs out on the wetlands, so certainly we weren't alone out there.

The line crossed the Penhorn Creek and there was another bridge adjacent to the rail bridge. We walked over on that briefly. 
Ahead, we passed under the former Pennsylvania Railroad, which is now the main commuter route through here. The Secaucus Transfer Station is just to the east of that location. The earlier alignment I'm assuming was a tie bridge lower to the waters just before we passed beneath. 


Just beyond was the underpass of the NJ Turnpike. Someone had spray painted "STOP HATE" beneath the bridge on one of the footings, but with such poor handwriting that it looked like it read "SLOP HOLE".

At this point, my next plan was to do something I had never done before: climb up Snake Hill.

Officially, it is known as Laurel Hill, but originally known as Snake Hill, in Secaucus.
The igneous rock formation towers 203 ft above the Hackensack River Meadowlands on Hudson County park property.
It was named "Slangenbergh" or "Snake Mountain" by Dutch colonists in the 1650s.
The area around the hill was home to a penal colony, a tuberculosis clinic, and alms house, and an asylum (the same one for which the bodies were interred in the previous interchange area).
Quarrying took place during prison years and ended with an asphalt plant operation in 1982. Four fifths of the original outcrop had been removed.


The rock is curiously named for a tree or shrub that does not grow, and probably has never grown, on the outcrop. The name is actually from someone saying that the rock is the "crowning laurel" feature of the area.


The once more prominent rock is also said to have been the inspiration behind the Prudential Insurance company logo. The company uses the Rock of Gibraltar as it's logo, which at some angles might look slightly similar to Snake Hill. It is likely that the Gibraltar location was more celebrated than the east Jersey outcrop skirted by the smokey Croxton rail yard and a potters field.


When Laurel Hill Park was opened on the north side, it was the first new park in Hudson County in 77 years.

My friend and former boss John Trontis, the man who first hired me into parks in 2007, was once part of the Meadows Commission, and was one of the people behind the creation of the park at Snake Hill.

While working for the Commission, he said that he and some of his coworkers thought that it would be an excellent place from which to view the fireworks on a Fourth of July. And so, a group of them decided to paddle across the Hackensack River to the site, trespass, and watch the fireworks from the rock. 

The idea was born out of this trip, and soon they were pursuing the creation of a new park around the rock. 

Unfortunately, the full plan for the site was never seen through to fruition, and visiting the very top of the rock is discouraged, and can be quite dangerous.

I was quite taken by the fact that there were absolutely no good paths up to the top of this rock. We went from the west, under the Turnpike, and then up the slope off trail. We had to hop from rock to rock covered in dead vegetation. I would have thought for certain there would have been a very clear trail used by the people in this, the most developed part of the state. There was nothing.

It was kind of disappointing to think that this day in age, and especially after the covid craziness, that no one was deciding to climb this amazing rock. We didn't even have a herd path up it.

When we got closer to the top, there was a little worn ground, but not anything very easy. There was still a lot of rubbing shoulders with dense weeds.
We had to do some hand hold climbing to the west to get to the highest point on the rock. 

The top had the most incredible view in all directions. To the west, across the NJ Turnpike bridge, and to the former Greenwood Lake Branch with the permanently opened swing bridge over the Hackensack River. The junction with the Erie Newark Branch beyond was obvious too. 


There was an awesome view up through the Meadowlands and of the Hackensack River upstream. To the east, we had a great view of the New York City skyline and Secaucus Transfer area. 

Some of the group had remained below, while the rest of us decided to walk the entire length of the rock outcrop. To the left of us as we headed east, it was a near vertical rock wall we had to be careful around. There was a slight herd path along the top. Not terribly easy, but also not absolutely terrible. 

There were a couple of secondary peaks with some different views of the ball fields in Laurel Hill Park, and to the Croxton Yard, but none were as great as the first one. We pushed on through, and Serious Sean got ahead of the rest of us. He ended up making his way down some crazy way off trail to the north. 


The rest of us went down the first saddle, up again, then down again, only to go up to the right when the entire topography got wider. This brought us up to the edge of a chain link fence with some more good views to Secaucus Transfer. We decided here to just follow the fence to the north. 


Almost to the bottom, the fence came to an end, and another one started very close by and sort of overlapped. We were able to walk between the two without having to climb anything. There would be no way of knowing the two do not connect unless actually walking the fence lines.

We made our way down steeply over more rocks after this. I thought we were about done, but then there were even more rocks. We had only gotten down one of the tiers of past quarrying. We pushed on downward, and then came to an almost quarried out segment just to the north. There's a little more of the rock on that side, but at this point I was ready to just get down. I was sweating a lot and it was enough of a workout considering how much farther we still had to go.

We made our way down through a cleft in the rocks, and then through a gravel area out to ball fields. From there, we headed along the south side of the fields to the waterfront again where we met up with the rest of the group that walked out by way of the tracks. 


I was glad they made it out; when we were on top of the rock, I spotted a police car sitting there, probably to make sure no one walked in that way. Or maybe they were there because they saw us up top and figured there was no way we were going to get back down any way but there.


We checked out the waterfront, and Violet cut out early here. The rest of us continued on the waterfront with some more very nice views. When we got to the boat ramp, there was no way of going through.


New construction of buiildings ahead blocked off the waterfront walkway, so we had to head to the east a bit. We walked somehow along the edge of the construction area, skirting the edge of the buildings and walking through the bedding around the outside, to reach the cul de sac on Brianna Lane. We followed that out to Riverside Station Blvd, which had a pedestrian parkway up the middle of it. 


I walked down through the  middle of this, and somehow the group ended up behind me not walking. I had to wait for them after a while walking back to the south on this.

When we got to a circle and Emily Drive, we turned left, then right at the next intersection out to Paul Amico Way. I think heading east there was a closed pedestrian lane or something, and we were already walking down lower from it. We ended up dashing across railroad tracks straight ahead, and then continued parallel with this main road to the intersection with Seaview Drive on the left.

I was originally going to walk Castle Road to get closer to the waterfront, but it didn't look like there would be anything to see. Instead, we went a bit up Seaview Drive, and then there was a rail grade on the left. I figured we would walk this a bit.


We got to that point, and something didn't look quite right for it to have been a railroad bed. I eventually discovered that this was the Jersey City Aqueduct, which also crosses the Hackensack River. We followed this on a very nice and peaceful grassy stretch to the north to come out on Meadowlands Parkway. 

We turned right, and passed by a burger place that said Burger Stop. I thought it looked funny that there were two stop signs right in front of it, but then noticed the insurance agency next door was Lichtenberger. One could get a beef burger or an insurance berger. 

Pretty soon after that, the road crossed former Erie Railroad tracks adjacent to the Harmon Cove Towers. 


As soon as we had the chance, we cut off of the road and into the wooded area to the left. This was the Harmon Cove town houses area. There are a lot of pedestrian pathways through this entire area making it a whole lot more pleasant for walking, so we got on them. 

Some of the group was having none of this. They mutinied and just decided to walk all roads back to the cars by making the next turn to the right. 

We continued toward Tennis courts, and then headed over to a little boat mooring area at Harmon Cove where there was a food truck. I think some of the group got some food here, and then we continued walking the paths up past the tennis courts.

This took us ahead and through a pipe tunnel under one of the roads to the east, and then out to Cove Court. We turned left briefly, and more trail started up right away along the waterfront adjacent to a large parking area. The trail then passed by the Hudson Regional Hospital on the right.


We realized going by that this was the hospital where Jen Berndt was born! 

The path took us to the right and out along Meadowlands Parkway again, but it continued to the next road access. We all turned in here, where there were some nice views as the sun was beginning to dip down over the Hackensack waterfront. I decided we should climb to the top of the parking garage there for even better views, and just because it was fun to goof around. I think Serious Sean, Justin, and I were the only ones that still had a good degree of energy left, and were amused by any of this extra stuff.

We climbed back down to the bottom and made our way around the buildings in an area known as Osprey Cove. 
We followed a road around the outside of what appeared to be a closed down hotel, which was kind of odd. There were some nice waterfront views here.


We could see the Rt 3 Bridge over the Hackensack River, a 1,552 foot Pratt through truss and deck girder combination opened in 1934. We then came to a foot bridge and steps down into Snipes Park from the hotel area. 


We stopped at some exercise stations passing through Snipes Park. For some reason I get a mental picture of Wesley Snipes working out here.

The trail didn't go through anywhere from this. I'm not sure if it ever did, but we had to head out through a parking area to the east, around a fence. We then had to make our way out to Meadowlands Parkway. There was a gate, and I had to get down low and crawl beneath it to get out to the road.

This building that seemed closed for a while said "MY 9 WWOR-TV". This was what channel 9 used to be on Comcast, 9 WWOR-TV.  Back when I was in high school, 9 switched over to UPN 9. I wonder if this was the original station building and it had been vacant since the 1990s, or if it was some sort of parent company thing recently closed. It looked like it hadn't been used in quite a while. 

We dashed across the highway here, and then climbed up a grassy slope to reach an apartment parking area. We headed to 9th Street and then turned left, north, to Eckel Park on a corner adjacent to Rt 3, then cut to the right on Clarendon Street to 8th Street when I realized the park wouldn't take me through.

We turned right on Flanagan Way, and then reached the pedestrian bridge over the eastbound lanes of Route 3.This segment opened in 1949 as the Secaucus Bypass designated Rt S3.

Original Rt 3 is somewhat parallel and was the original route of the tolled Paterson Plank Road built in the 1850s. The 3 designation was shifted completely onto the S3 route in 1953.
In 1959, portions of Rt 3 were designated Interstate 495. However, the highway did not meet federal standards for such a highways and it lost that federal designation.
I find it interesting that Interstate 80 through Delaware Water Gap in western New Jersey does not meet federal standards, and some of the non-conformance issues do not meet acceptable exceptions.  There are plenty of highways that have exceptions for natural features and such, but the amount on Intestate 80 is staggering, and the danger of having trucks and cars flying through even at 55 mph is insane.


While I'm in the habit of going off on tangents in this particular journal entry, I may as well just share some more information on what gets me going about interstate designations:

- All access is controlled with interchanges and grade separations. Exit/entrance areas from Columbia through Delaware Water Gap do not meet standards. Exceptions are made in mountainous areas, but several including those in Columbia are not areas that would be considered for such exceptions.
- Lanes must be minimum 12 ft
- minimum of two lanes are required in all places
- shoulders are required to be 4 ft on the left, 10ft on the right. In mountainous areas, a shoulder of 4 1/8 ft is acceptable. Areas of heavier truck traffic are intended to be wider. Delaware Water Gap does not meet these criteria. It is considered to be one of a few environmental impact exceptions in the country. The question here is, how is the Delaware Water Gap given such an allowance outside of even the exception standard for width safety, but not for a rockfall issue with very little supporting evidence for its need?
- pavement sloping must be under 1.5%
- the width of the median should be at least 50 ft, 60 ft in rural areas, is 10 ft in mountainous areas. These narrower areas must include a barrier. Delaware Water Gap does not meet these standards, or the mountain standard.
- Breakaway barriers are to be affixed to stationary objects. The Delaware Viaduct should require this based on its height, and the height of some trucks passing through. Route 80 does not meet this criteria.
- no curbs are to be placed until outside the shoulder
- minimum vertical clearance is 16 ft, including at the edge of both shoulders.


- width of bridges less than 200 ft must carry the full width of the standard roadway. Longer Bridges May reduce the shoulder to 4 ft. Rt 80 bridge does not meet this, and Appalachian Trail travels within that required 4 ft. Further, ADA accessible trails require 36 inches, widening to 60 inches once every one thousand feet. Vehicles and hikers come uncomfortably close together. In fact, in National Geographic's "Mountain Adventure" ( a special hardcover detailing the Appalachian Trail ), it describes the Water Gap crossing the most frightening place on the entire AT.
Existing Bridges can remain part of the interstate system if they have at least 12 ft wide lanes and 3.5 ft wide shoulders.
- tunnels are given the same exceptions as Bridges.
If Rt 3 in one of the most congested places in America can lose a Federal designation, it doesn't sound so far fetched that the same could happen with I-80.

We had good views of Rt 3 from the pedestrian bridge, and there was some amazing art on the walls and footings of it.  The bridge was a short span with steps at either side.

We turned right on Wood Ave, which was a dead end, and climbed the pedestrian bridge to cross the westbound Rt 3. This was quite a joke because the previous bridge had steps, and this one had two ramps for the handicapped to get up and over, but if someone in a wheel chair bothered to try to get up these two ramps, they would find three steps at the very top. Apparently someone decided to raise the bridge at some point, and said "screw it" to the handicapped. 

We had more good views both to the east and west from this bridge.
It was in this area 
Washington burned a bridge ahead to bar British soldiers from interception during his Revolutionary War retreat from Fort Lee.

There was more very nice artwork on the north side of the pedestrian bridge, including flowers painted all over the ramp. There was a community garden immediately on the east side of the ramp, with a sign on it reading "Everything is going to be OK".

We just turned right on Maple Street here as the sun was going down. We soon crossed over Paterson Plank Road historic route, and passed by geese painted on an electric box. 

There was no good walking route along Route 3 ahead here, and so we walked through some chateau place, and then past a Royal hotel to follow the edge of Rt 3 a little bit farther to the east to get back to the parking lot with the Kohls. The sun was just going down and we were exhausted.

The original plan had been that we'd have enough time and miles to go up and around Mill Creek Point, and perhaps even the Mill Creek Marsh trail accessible off the back of these stores, but we were over with everything we had already done. These would have to be put on a future Hackensack River series hike. 

It's going to take us a long time to get to finishing this one, because there are so many things I'm working on, but we'll get back to it in more cool weather months. It's really a fantastic one to do, and gives us a lot of cool weather things to look forward to.

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