Montclair residents can weigh in Wednesday, October 28, on the Glenridge Avenue cycle track, a planned bike lane separated from traffic by a curb or barrier. It would extend the one block of bike lane the town built in 2022 toward Lackawanna Plaza.
Planning Director Janice Talley has said that building a protected lane would mean moving curbs, which town staff have said could cost street trees on the south side and parking that restaurants and delivery trucks rely on. The Township’s Complete Streets Oversight Board has asked project consultants for alternatives. During the meeting, consultants will present the proposed design, which is not yet final, and listen to feedback from residents.
The stakes reach beyond the street. The lane is meant to link downtown to the Essex-Hudson Greenway, a new state park on the old Boonton rail line, but the state has not published a construction schedule for the Greenway’s Montclair end. The lane could be finished before there is a trail to ride to.
What could the Glenridge Avenue cycle track cost the street?
The nine-member Complete Streets Oversight Board, which the town created in 2025, has been reviewing two concepts before a preferred design goes forward. One is a two-way track on a single side of the street, which keeps roughly the current layout. The other is a pair of one-direction lanes, one on each side, which removes parking on one side.
Board members raised concerns about parking loss, buffers, curb bump-outs and trees near Crane Park, according to a Citizen Portal summary of the July meeting.
By September, staff said the curb shift would affect trees on the south side and that losing parking on some blocks could disrupt restaurants and deliveries. The board asked the consultants for three things: alternatives, including a bike lane raised to sidewalk level; plans showing which trees would come down and where replacements would go; and turning-radius checks, which test whether delivery trucks can still make the corners.
The Oct. 28 meeting appears to be the public step the board wanted before it picks a design, and before the Township Council approves contracts and funding.
How did one block of bike lane become a bigger plan?
Montclair has one block of dedicated bike lane on Glenridge Avenue, from Bloomfield Avenue to Forest Street. The town built it in 2022 as part of a repaving job, and then-Councilman Peter Yacobellis called it a “demonstration project.” It was the first of several planned phases. Beyond that block, the only dedicated bike lanes in town sit inside county-owned Brookdale Park.
The cycle track is the second phase, running from Forest Street to the Lackawanna Plaza redevelopment area. The New Jersey Department of Transportation awarded Montclair $997,000 in 2023 for it, through a grant program for bike and pedestrian projects. In April 2025, the Township Council took up a $330,118.29 contract with the engineering firm GPI to design it.
A protected route on Glenridge would be the first real piece of a bike network in Montclair. The bigger question is where that network would go.
Where does the bike lane go from here?
The lane is meant to be the protected route between downtown and the Essex-Hudson Greenway.
The Greenway is a roughly nine-mile walking and biking park built on the old NJ Transit Boonton Line, where commuter trains stopped running in 2002. It will run through eight towns, from Montclair to Jersey City.
The Greenway is a state project, and it is being built from the Newark end first. Construction on its first mile, in Newark, began in July 2025, and Patch reported in March that the opening is now expected in 2027. In January, the state released a Vision & Action Plan, a planning document for the park’s western section, which includes Montclair. No construction schedule for the Montclair end has been published that we could find.
The town’s bike lane is a separate project with its own gaps. Its third phase, the stretch past Lackawanna Plaza, depends on the plaza’s redeveloper, who Talley said in April 2025 would have to pay for it. Later phases would connect the lane to the Greenway.
How to speak up on Oct. 28
Consultants will present the proposed design and take questions and feedback. Three questions are worth bringing. Which design is on the table? How many parking spaces and trees would it cost? What is the construction timeline, and do state grant deadlines force the pace?
You can join the meeting in person or on Teams:
When: Wednesday, Oct. 28, 6 p.m.
Where: Municipal Building, second-floor conference room, Montclair
Remote: Microsoft Teams. As of Oct. 14, the township says the meeting link and dial-in instructions will be announced shortly. Check the township’s meeting notice for updates.
Image credit: Metin Ozer/Unsplash
