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Traffic backed up on Baldwin Avenue near the Brennan Courthouse in Jersey City on May 9, 2016. Jersey City and Google app Waze hope to ease traffic in the city with a new partnership. Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
(Terrence T. McDonald)
JERSEY CITY -- Motorists this afternoon had no nice words to describe traffic in Jersey City.
"It took us an hour to get from Bayonne to here," said one man stuck in a line of cars at Baldwin and Pavonia avenues at about 3 p.m. "It's lousy."
El Toure, 18, who attends Dickinson High School, said it takes 30 minutes in the morning rush to drive the half-mile from Newark Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard to the school.
"It's bad," Toure said.
Things may start looking up for motorists looking for the best routes around traffic. Jersey City is teaming up with Google to share data with the tech giant's Waze app, becoming the first city in the New York City metropolitan area to agree to swap information about traffic, road closures and potholes with the navigation app's makers.
The partnership will allow Waze to obtain road closure data from the city and share it with the app's 50 million-plus users, and in exchange Waze will provide city officials with traffic data provided by motorists using the app.
The deal, set for approval by the City Council on Wednesday, will allow the city to address a "notorious" quality-of-life issue for residents and commuters without hitting up taxpayers for a costly network of road sensors and cameras, Mayor Steve Fulop said in a statement.
"One of the goals of my administration has been to identify new ways of doing business, finding new partners and leveraging existing technology and infrastructure in unique ways to improve city services without putting an increased burden on taxpayers," Fulop said.
Waze allows users to report traffic, potholes, police presence and more to help motorists find the fastest routes. The app was purchased by Google in 2013 for $1 billion.
In 2014, Waze began partnering with cities to share data, a program the app's makers say gives governments a chance to manage their infrastructure more efficiently. Counting Jersey City, 65 cities around the globe have signed up for the Waze Connected Citizens Program, including Boston, Los Angeles and Barcelona.
The information collected in Rio de Janeiro led to that city adjusting mass transit staffing on election days in neighborhoods that data showed saw the most congestion. In Boston, city officials used Waze data to determine the locations with the most reports of double-parked cars, while workers in Washington, D.C., patched potholes within 48 hours because they had been reported on the app, according to Waze.
"The critical data and insights Jersey City can provide to the Waze and broader municipal communities will make them a valued partner moving forward," Paige Fitzgerald, a Waze program manager, said in a statement.
The Waze announcement comes a week after Jersey City launched a new map on its open data portal that will show city-approved street closures. The information on the map includes the expected start and end times of the closures, whether the entire street is closed or just a portion in one direction and more.
Shawkat Mohamed, 60, has been driving a taxi in the Journal Square area for two years. Mohamed said the city should ban left turns along Kennedy Boulevard in the morning and afternoon rush.
"That's where all the accidents and traffic" originate, he said.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.