Along with the sprawl has come incessant traffic, often on roads that once saw very, very little. Many of the once quite, country roads that made for serene, world class cycling are now choked with traffic. Often times these roads have been widen with no concern for the needs of local cyclists that have traveled these roads for decades prior. In one case not too far from my home, roads that were beautiful and quite, with very little traffic just 7 years ago, are now unridable.

At least New Jersey is trying to do something about it with massive land preservation efforts. I agree with NJ Future that planning and proper zoning could be much more effective and billions cheaper. However, when I look at the completely random sprawl in neighboring states (and elsewhere in the USA) that goes on for hundreds of miles in some places, I’ll stick with New Jersey.

We may be reaching build-out first, but at least we saved a lot of land before we got that far. I don’t think many other states can say that.