Biking in Boston

HenryAlan said:
The Emerald Necklace route is badly screwed up in a few spots and therefore a lot trickier than anything at Forest Hills (IMO), but you're right, the Casey Bridge project is supposed to fix that problem.
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Between the pond and the BU bridge it's really just the Route 9 crossing (which will be fixed in the next year or two) and that weird stretch along Brookline Ave (dismount at the stairs at longwood and ride up carlton toward the BU bridge - the way back requires going the wrong way on a one-way street for a block, but brookline is going to put in a contra-flow lane there this year). During rush hour there's a critical mass of cyclists, so it's not as tricky as you might think - but you have to be experienced to do a left off of Brookline Ave.

Forest hills is moving with large trucks, buses, double parking, taxis, really bad pavement conditions, jaywalking pedestrians, badly timed lights, poor visibility (due to bridge) - on fading sharrows. it's dangerous. safest option is to ride through the bus terminal, but you still have that harrowing stretch between ukraine and the terminal.
 
Wheel Wars is a news partnership between GateHouse Media's Wicked Local network and WGBH News that examines, from the view of bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians, issues surrounding the sharing of our roads.
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How nice of them to choose an adversarial title. I'm sure this program will be fair and balanced. WGBH's decline has accelerated rapidly in the past decade.

http://bostoncyclistsunion.org/uncategorized/stop-wgbh-and-gatehouse-from-declaring-a-wheel-war/

https://www.facebook.com/WheelWars
 
Bikers' bad rep isn't always fair but it goes beyond just a few couriers ruining it for everyone else. The granny riding on the Harvard Square sidewalk ruins it too. As does the BU prof flying by only inches away from pedestrians on the esplanade.
 
aaaaaa said:
This point has been made over and over, and it has been shown to be misguided over and over. The vast majority of cyclists are cognizant of others, and safe. The only reason cyclists have a bad reputation is affect heuristic. It's the same for pedestrians and drivers. Full stop.
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The vast majority of drivers are cognizant of others, and safe as well.

Yet, we constantly rail against both a culture that ranges from passive forgiveness to active encouragement of poor and/or unsafe driving practices, vilify the examples of outstanding poor behavior, and call for change to practices that enable these bad behaviors. And rightly so, by the way.

The problems don't originate from calling out poor behavior, educating people on good practices, and working towards a balanced system that treats all modes fairly.

The problems start when you make sweeping generalizations, excusing poor behaviors and choices on the part of individuals, and lumping legitimate criticism in with illegitimate criticisms, dismissing all of it - possibly while "calling out" the individuals who make valid points as trolls or haters.

"Car culture" didn't happen overnight. It was the inevitable outcome of a society-wide decision to elevate one mode of travel - the automobile - over all others, and it started when we decided that Car was Best.

Now we're going to sit here and make the exact same mistakes - and while bicycling may be better for all associated than driving is on an individual level, the bike culture and having the Bike As King will not be.
 
In Boston we've spent a lot of time and money trying to retrofit roads that weren't originally built for cars - and then trying to retroactively force auto-centric rules onto users who had been around for much longer. Whenever you see someone "breaking a rule" - it's typically because the infrastructure is not optimized for them, and rules are typically broken due to safety (risk judgement call) or convenience (fastest way from point a to point b).

The expectations for cyclists and pedestrians are sometimes unreasonable - why would that granny be on the sidewalk in harvard square? because her only other option is on the street with traffic (which can be large trucks with huge blind spots) - if you are inexperienced or not as capable of riding in traffic, and you still need to get around, you're going to make that judgement call and ride on the sidewalk. That BU professor speeding down the esplanade - where else is he going to ride? storrow? This is an infrastructure problem. bikes are the cheapest and most efficient (and often fastest) way to travel distances that are too long to walk around the city. either we plan for more gridlock (people driving a few miles), more people cramming into the T, and keep whining about how so and so is "breaking the rules" because we're trying to do a one-size-fits-all solution - or we provide space for cyclists. until then, we're just going to have to keep expecting cyclists in places that we don't expect them because they have no where else to go.
 
rinserepeat said:
In Boston we've spent a lot of time and money trying to retrofit roads that weren't originally built for cars - and then trying to retroactively force auto-centric rules onto users who had been around for much longer. Whenever you see someone "breaking a rule" - it's typically because the infrastructure is not optimized for them, and rules are typically broken due to safety (risk judgement call) or convenience (fastest way from point a to point b).

The expectations for cyclists and pedestrians are sometimes unreasonable - why would that granny be on the sidewalk in harvard square? because her only other option is on the street with traffic (which can be large trucks with huge blind spots) - if you are inexperienced or not as capable of riding in traffic, and you still need to get around, you're going to make that judgement call and ride on the sidewalk. That BU professor speeding down the esplanade - where else is he going to ride? storrow? This is an infrastructure problem. bikes are the cheapest and most efficient (and often fastest) way to travel distances that are too long to walk around the city. either we plan for more gridlock (people driving a few miles), more people cramming into the T, and keep whining about how so and so is "breaking the rules" because we're trying to do a one-size-fits-all solution - or we provide space for cyclists. until then, we're just going to have to keep expecting cyclists in places that we don't expect them because they have no where else to go.
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I'm not saying we don't need to create space for bicyclists. I'm suggesting that we should be very careful in where and how we create that space.

For instance, salting the earth on otherwise incredibly useful potential rail ROWs by leasing the land out to a bike path (or any trail) at a rate of $1 for 99 years is a terrible idea whose effects only become apparent 20 years down the line. And I've been assured that some of these rail-trail conversions can be reverted to active lines at any point thanks to railbanking clauses, but funnily enough, I've yet to see a single instance of railbanking actually result in a reverted rail line - almost like the legal architecture for doing so was negotiated, agreed upon and laid in bad faith, with nobody involved expecting de-conversion would ever come to pass.

As another example, when advocates start seriously considering withholding support for dedicated bicycle infrastructure because it might impact their ability to legally ride on sidewalks at a later point in time, "providing space for bicyclists" has ceased to be the primary goal. Mixing bicycle traffic with pedestrian traffic is also unsafe. I believe the study that came to this conclusion was, in fact, linked further up this very thread.

A complete street is a street that has safe space for everybody on all modes of travel - bicyclists, pedestrians, transit riders, even drivers. It is not "a street on which bicycles have complete reign over all other modes of travel." That's my point.
 
Harvard Square has a few weird corners where there's almost no room for pedestrians or bicyclists, especially by that underpass with multiple lanes of rushing traffic. Strange for Cambridge. Bicyclists are expected on the Esplanade, it is a sanctioned bicycle path.

I don't think we should shoot for complete segregation on smaller streets. I think Americans tend to design their side streets with overly high speeds, which is terrible policy. 25mph should not be the standard. There's a big safety difference between 25 (really 30) and 15 (really 20) mph. Side streets should be no more than 15 mph posted and designed; that's easily shareable with bicyclists. For that matter, it's easily shareable with pedestrians too.

I'm becoming a fan of the "less is more" school of street design. Make it clear through design that the small streets are a shared space, rather than trying to compartmentalize and dictate every activity.
 
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...bike-riders/8nHD0meN0lsDhlCIAAcRzL/story.html

For those of you without a boston globe subscription, here is the best part-- as written by a bike rider.

What I do find routinely is that a high percentage of bike riders throughout Boston tend to ignore red lights, often ride without lights at night, and too often show a disdain for motor vehicles by displaying acts of anarchy — weaving in and out of traffic, turning without signaling. When I’m stopped at a red light along with cars, I know that if there are bike riders behind me they will inevitably proceed through. I often shout, “Red light,” but, of course, I am ignored except for the occasional obscene gesture.
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Kahta said:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...bike-riders/8nHD0meN0lsDhlCIAAcRzL/story.html

For those of you without a boston globe subscription, here is the best part-- as written by a bike rider.
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solution: bike-specific signaling

here's the logic going through someone's head as they approach a red light on a bike "oh look - there's no cars, if I were a pedestrian I'd just walk across the street and no one would care. I could dismount and walk across the street and become a pedestrian, but I could do that at any time if someone catches me - might as well keep going..." yes, it's lazy, but it's how people think.
 
I don't bike but I don't have a problem with bikes proceeding through red lights if they are aware of their surroundings, they yield to any cross-traffic or pedestrians, and the way is clear.

I think that people who get upset over that are being anal retentive or acting out of spite for bicyclists.
 
Matthew said:
I don't bike but I don't have a problem with bikes proceeding through red lights if they are aware of their surroundings, they yield to any cross-traffic or pedestrians, and the way is clear.

I think that people who get upset over that are being anal retentive or acting out of spite for bicyclists.
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And if they demonstrated a complete lack of awareness and/or sheer disregard for their surroundings, would you have a problem with it then?

I don't have a problem with bicycles treating red lights like stop signs - or even like 90% of stop signs are treated, as yield signs. I have a problem when the instruction to yield is demoted to "go at full speed, brake only if there's an imminent collision hazard." I have a problem when bicycles don't even slow down, putting the burden of preventing an incident on me, the pedestrian, who then has to cede the right of way.

Were I not to get out of the way, I know the bicycle would either try to go around me or try to stop well after the clearance for a safe stop has been exhausted - either way, the likely outcome is an accident. And I can't help but think that I would some how end up at fault, despite being the only party involved in the incident who was obeying the law.

You mentioned in your previous post that side streets designed for 15 MPH were easily shareable between cars and bicycles. Great. Most pedestrians can't run at 15 MPH - the average walking speed, in fact, is just about 20% of that. Would you have a problem with a 5 MPH speed limit being enforced on bicycles using pedestrian facilities? Would you consider it an anti-bicycle measure motivated by spite?

In fact, more directly. If a bicyclist was ever pulled over and cited for excessive speed, would you consider that a justified citation? Never mind that such a mechanism can't ever be enforced because of the lack of urban cycling licenses, would you agree or disagree with a bicyclist receiving a citation for riding at 30 MPH down a posted and designed 15 MPH street?
 
And if they demonstrated a complete lack of awareness and/or sheer disregard for their surroundings, would you have a problem with it then?
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Of course I would have a problem then. My whole point is that increased awareness and sensibility makes sharing the street possible. And people are naturally capable of this, otherwise driving would be completely impossible. Heck, any public interaction would become maddening.

You don't need to move at 15 mph to share the street with vehicles. The point is that yielding is possible at low speeds. The stakes are low. To a bicyclist on the sidewalk I would say go at a reasonable rate and yield to people. 5 mph is probably too low to set a limit -- there's a minimum needed to maintain stability through angular momentum, you know. Instead of a number I would ask for a context. A bicyclist doing 15 mph on an empty sidewalk away from buildings isn't harming anyone. But buzzing people would be acting recklessly.

Same goes for the 15 mph designed street. If the bicyclist couldn't reasonably stop and/or yield then it's not appropriate behavior. If there was such a citation (for say, reckless cycling) I think it would be justified.
 
Right - unfortunately, that's not what tends to happen. Just because yielding is possible doesn't mean yielding happens. Even when yielding is legally enforced - more often than not, it doesn't happen.

It would make a lot of things a lot easier if we had education, and enforcement of reasonable restrictions. It would be great if I didn't have to sit here and point out what should be the most obvious things in the world, like basic principles for sharing the road. But that's not what happens.

It's when suggesting these things that shouldn't need to be suggested is considered an illegitimate, spite-based or otherwise "anti-bicycle" position that the problem starts. When you suggest that we ought to be careful how we move forward and the majority response is "who cares?! No need to worry!" - You Have A Problem. In fairness, that hasn't really happened here in this thread over the last couple of days, which is refreshing to me - because it does happen pretty much everywhere else this discussion happens.
 
If you design streets in a way that tells people to assume they have a fast clear lane with green lights ahead, then they will go fast. This design sounds good on paper and in the imaginations of traffic engineers so they deploy it widely. The problem is that it's extremely brittle and breaks down when those assumptions prove incorrect. The consequences can range from road rage to injury or death.

Traffic lights at level intersections are a perfect example. They have the advantage of small footprint. But they rely on the correct operation of all vehicles and response of all humans in the vicinity. People are fallible. Machines break down. When something goes wrong, the result is often a tragic accident. Even when things don't go wrong, the grinding, arbitrary nature of stop-and-go traffic drives frustrations high. Horn honking, red running, and bicyclist blaming are all symptoms of that.
 
datadyne007 said:
Most of Berlin has bike signals. It's awesome.
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Paris is like that too. I can't recall, because at the time I was there I hadn't put much thought in to road rules for bikes, but are these signals of the sort that give a bike a yellow when the car has the red? Or are they more like the walk signals we have in Boston, where different modes get different turns have exclusive access to the intersection? If the former, I can see some usefulness, but if the latter, I think it's a terrible idea. The proper approach is to designate red lights as a yield for pedestrians and cyclists, or perhaps designate them as stop sign equivalent.
 
Matthew said:
If you design streets in a way that tells people to assume they have a fast clear lane with green lights ahead, then they will go fast. This design sounds good on paper and in the imaginations of traffic engineers so they deploy it widely. The problem is that it's extremely brittle and breaks down when those assumptions prove incorrect. The consequences can range from road rage to injury or death.
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Don't you love how they timed the new Mass Ave signals in the South End for 30 mph and even added signs telling people this? When was the last time anyone got up to 30 mph on Mass Ave? And even if they did, it wouldn't be for very long. Between turning traffic and cars pulling in and out of parking spaces this is nearly impossible, yet I'm sure on paper the traffic engineers though surely they were making traffic flow better. All this new setup does is encourage drivers to try to get up to 30 mph so that they could get to the next signal in time. Now if they timed it for 15 mph this might actually work, and it may even work for bicyclists too!
 
Hubway:

In preparation for the 2013 season relaunch, Hubway will be installing up to five stations per day over the coming weeks. The official system relaunch date has not yet been determined and is weather dependent. Stay tuned to our Twitter feed and Facebook page for up to the minute information and thanks for your support of Hubway!
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Looks like theyll miss March.
 
aaaaaa said:
Why is that? They have already placed 26 stations. There are around 80 stations left to install. There are 12 weekdays left in March, allowing Hubway to install as many as 60 more stations by then. The service would be able to launch with 86 stations if Hubway so chooses.

They may miss March, but that is far from certain at this point.
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Just based on the complete lack of communication. Theyre not big on customer relations over at Hubway.
 
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