Total Philadelphia to NYC train stations: 30th Street Station
Philadelphia to Pennsylvania station New York City = 36 + 92 + 10
miles = around 138 miles
Bridge-to-bridge total: Philadelphia to NYC: Ben Franklin
Bridge to George Washington Bridge (Hudson River) = around 125 miles
New Jersey total: Trenton to GWB: "Trenton Makes" bridge (Delaware River)
to George Washington Bridge (Hudson River) = around 92 miles
KenR, June 2006:
Philadelphia to Trenton
I skated this on a weekday morning after taking the
train down from New Jersey. 30th Street station is a famous space,
nice place to put skates on. I took JFK east across the Schuylkill,
then Market St to visit City Hall and skate around and thru it. Back
to Rittenhouse Square, then south to Pine St, and found that street a nice
way to go west-to-east across the city.
Lots of smooth pavement around Philadelphia center
city, but not many wide streets or avenues. Skated up 5th St to
Independence Hall park. Somebody yelled "No" at me when I started
aiming for the sidewalk in front of the Hall itself, so I waved and
smiled and skated the streets around it. Then down to some 2nd St
market (with some cobbles) and east to the end of South St with a
view (not the best) of Penn's Landing and the River.
Got on Delaware Av and skated in the bike lane
north and then northwest out of Center City area. Bore Right onto
Richmond St to nearly its end, Left on Bridge, Right on Tacony St,
semi-circle to Right to avoid much of the vehicle traffic for
Tacony-Palmyra bridge access -- this was one of the few breaks in
the generally smooth pavement for a long time. Right onto New State
for more nice pavement. I tried bearing Right onto Milnor, Left on
Bleigh, Right back onto State (which worked OK, but next time I
might just stay on State).
There were some sections with parked cars
and/or limited shoulder, and a section where the trolley tracks took
up most of the lane (so I had to decide whether to skate inside or
outside the tracks). But overall wide enough for me to feel
comfortable in my style of skating with traffic -- I wear a
rear-view mirror.
Then the road took me out of Philadelphia city, so
the road was generally narrower, sometimes no shoulder. But not a
lot of traffic.
When I saw some cars in my mirror coming behind me,
I would wave to them, move toward the side and skate "narrow" or
just coast for a couple of seconds until they had passed by.
I skated thru Cornwells Heights, and remembered a
skate racing team with a name sorta like that. At Croydon I ran into bad luck: A road maintenance
crew had grinded the pavement to make it rough and bumpy to prepare
for paving it with fresh asphalt. Likely just a few days later it
would have been delightfully smooth, but at this time I did my best by finding
some side-streets to skate on, and just endured it until it reached
Rt 413.
I tried the obvious road toward Bristol. A bit
narrow and coarse-stone. Next time I might try the parallel road to
its left (northeast) side. Right on Canal's End into Bristol. Right
on Mill St to a pretty park beside the Delaware River, where I took
a break to savor the morning. Then continued northeast skating on
Radcliffe St, an even more fun way to savor the morning.
When I reached Tullytown, I continued sort of
straight or curved right or something onto what I think was
Bordentown Rd, along the right (south) side of Van Sciver Lake --
with another lake on the other side of the road -- and that was a
pretty setting for skating. Until I was surprised to reach an "open
grate" bridge deck -- which for me is dangerously unskatable metal
grating, and definitely do not want to fall on it. Turned out
even the sidewalk was "open grate" metal -- so I carefully walked
across. Then resumed the fun skating.
When the road ended at Tyburn Rd, I tried going
Left, (two traffic lanes in each direction, not much shoulder, but
not much traffic, so it worked fine for me). Then after a ways
took an exit marked only "Exit", no road name sign. I went Right,
and it turned out to be Philadelphia Rd -- which went almost to the
Delaware River, then forced me to turn Left, I went under some
bridges, and turned Right onto a road which goes east over the
"Trenton Makes" bridge across the Delaware River from Morrisville
into Trenton. I went on the wooden sidewalk.
At the end of the sidewalk I sorta turned Left onto
Warren St, then some other street which took me into view of the
bright golden dome of the New Jersey state capital. Had some ice
cream in downtown Trenton, then skated to the train station.
Overall I liked the high percentage of nice
pavement, variety of sights along the way, mostly straightforward
navigation, lack of significant
hills.
Highlights: Radcliffe St and the park in Bristol,
skating between the two lakes east of Tullytown, and of course
Philadelphia Center City skating tourism.
Maps: Rand McNally Philadelphia and Vicinity, and
Hagstrom Mercer county NJ for the streets of Trenton. Would
have been nice to have also a map of Lower Bucks county PA and
detailed streets of Philadelphia, but I felt I knew those areas well
enough from other trips.
KenR, June 2006:
Linden to New Brunswick to Rahway to Linden
I skated southwest to New Brunswick trying a more
direct route, hoped to find ways to avoid some of the most difficult
traffic problems, but didn't succeed this time. Then I explored
south of New Brunswick around the the Cook and Douglas campuses.
Then started back to Linden . . .
From the New Bruswick train station I tried going
northwest on George St -- mostly good pavement, but required
crossing some entrance-exit ramps for Rt 18, then a narrow-width
section getting to the traffic light for the Landing Lane bridge.
Then took the Landing Lane bridge north across the Raritan River,
then left onto the trail or road in Johnson Park. (Likely next time
I'll cross the Rt 27 bridge instead, then take River Rd northwest,
and get onto the road or paved path through Johnson Park further
southeast.)
After exiting Johnson Park, I skated north up Hoes
Lane, Right on Frelinghuysen into a Rutgers University campus, using some
roads like Bartholomew to get to Davidson,
Rahway train station is a block northwest from the intersection of Main St
with Milton St.
I've tried several ways to skate between Rahway and Linden. Each
has its pros + cons. The smoothest pavement is on Elizabeth Av, but
that usually has the most vehicle traffic and significant parked
cars. A way to avoid it is to use some streets like continue
straight on Main St, then get on Whittier St going roughly
northeast, perhaps later becomes Blancke St when it enters Linden.
Along the way I found some smoother pavement with less traffic on
Price St, which runs parallel between Whittier and Elizabeth, from
Scott St to Lexington Av.
Once Whittier St or Elizabeth Av gets near Stiles St, the traffic
and parked cars get more tricky, and there's different options for
avoiding it (or not). Fortunately from there it's only a few short blocks
to the Linden train station, and I've used various routes.
Maps: Hagstrom Middlesex county + Union county
KenR, May 2006:
Linden - Elizabeth - Newark
I've skated several different routes between Linden and Newark in
different directions.
The simplest (though not always the smoothest or most pleasant)
uses roads like:
from the Linden train station, street alongside the southeast side of
the tracks for a block or two, then Right a block, then Left onto Linden
Av going northeast for a good ways, becomes Lidgerwood Av (which I'm
remembering might later become one-way south-bound, in which case might want to
avoid that section). then north on Washington to its end, Right on Pearl St
(one-way east-bound), Left on Broad St into downtown Elizabeth.
Elizabeth train stration is further north on Broad St -- but I usually turn Right onto
Elizabeth Av (multiple tricky ridges on this intersection which
could take a skater down), then Left on Jefferson Av to its end. Right
half a block on North Av, Left on Madison Av, becomes Floral Av, to
its end. Left on McClellan St, Right on Frelinghuysen Av, goes a
long ways, lots of new pavement, enters the city of Newark.
From around the northeast end of Frelinghuysen Av, there are
several routes into downtown Newark and Newark Penn rail station. Of
course in a city this big, encounters with tricky and heavy vehicle
traffic is nearly unavoidable. A street with less traffic and mostly
OK pavement is Orchard St (parallel between Broad St and McCarter
Highway).
Maps: Hagstrom Union county + Essex county
