Biking in Boston

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cubbe8 said:
www.bostonglobe.com

Boston transportation planner fatally struck by vehicle near Roxbury Crossing, family says - The Boston Globe

Louisa Gag, 36, “was a dedicated public servant to the City of Boston and passionately advocated for safer streets,” her sister said.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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It's good to hear a renewed call for accelerated bike/ped safety improvements following this tragedy. But it's sad that it always seems to take a death to catalyze significant or speedy safety interventions. Given the victim was a Boston Latin and Liveable Streets alum, former Wu intern, and current transportation planner for the City, I would hope the shock of this horrible killing gets the City to take street safety seriously.

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BACsop said:
But it's sad that it always seems to take a death to catalyze significant or speedy safety interventions.
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It's even sadder that so often death isn't even enough to catalyze significant or speedy safety interventions. To my knowledge, there has been nothing done to this day at Sleeper/Congress. We've had 5 peds/cyclists die in a 5 year period on Southern Artery in Quincy between Sea St and McGrath Highway and that is resulting in significant interventions....but on a 5+ year timescale of cobbling together funding sources, design, community input, etc. Still not at 100% design. Rt. 16 from Medford through Revere has something like 10 of the top 200 crash intersections in the state.

Where are the federally mandated slow zones the MBTA was subject to?
 
cubbe8 said:
www.bostonglobe.com

Boston transportation planner fatally struck by vehicle near Roxbury Crossing, family says - The Boston Globe

Louisa Gag, 36, “was a dedicated public servant to the City of Boston and passionately advocated for safer streets,” her sister said.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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It’s annoying and also dangerous that details rarely get released in these situations. There’s zero doubt there were plenty of witnesses in a location like this. What actually happened? I will assume driver fault til I hear otherwise, but it does make a big diff if there was a light blown vs something else.
 
So much bike news the past couple of weeks, I'm surprised people aren't talking about here.

A bunch of city deliberation over bike lanes has been FOIA'd. It looks like it was a mess internally, not always clear who was in charge, and some people using that mess to pull out flexposts and stall projects.
mass.streetsblog.org

Failures of Communication and Accountability Plagued Mayor Wu's Election-Year 'Review' of Transportation Department - Streetsblog Massachusetts

An internal "30 day review" of city transportation projects that Mayor Wu requested during her re-election campaign last year was supposed to improve the public's trust in the city's ability to manage street safety and transit improvement projects.
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

"Mayor Wu Outlines a New Street Safety Agenda in the Wake of Louisa Gag’s Killing." IMO, Wu's letter is pretty bad. It's big on vague plans and tweaking processes, but does not sound to me like she intends to actually get stuff done.

Mayor Wu Outlines a New Street Safety Agenda in the Wake of Louisa Gag's Killing - Streetsblog Massachusetts

On Friday morning, Mayor Wu issued a detailed 6-page letter to residents in which she outlined her administration's plan to improve the safety of the city's streets, and address mounting criticism of her administration's streets cabinet.
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

And the Boston Cyclists Union responded, saying Wu's response was "underwhelming."
From the BCU, this paragraph is what resonated with me:
Does this letter truly honor Louisa Gag’s legacy? Back in 2017, Louisa authored Not On A Shelf for LivableStreets Alliance, outlining how Boston could fulfill the commitments of GoBoston 2030 by building projects instead of allowing them to become trapped in endless planning and study. This letter commits to additional assessments and evaluations rather than embracing the urgency and implementation-focused approach Louisa championed throughout her career. Between the numerous reports and plans from the city and the safe streets advocacy community’s suggestions, the City knows what actions to take. What Boston needs is political will.
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bostoncyclistsunion.org

Mayor Wu’s Dangerously Underwhelming New Street Safety Plans - Boston Cyclists Union

Our take on the Mayor's July 24th letter on the City's next steps to make our streets safer.
bostoncyclistsunion.org bostoncyclistsunion.org
 
Unpopular take, but I think Wu is smart enough to generate some friction with the cyclists and more hardcore urbanists as a way to appeal to a broader electorate. She's got solid retail political skills and clearly has ambitions outside of Boston, so this feels a bit like a "centrist" move from a tactical standpoint. "Look, those cycling weirdos are mad she's not adding more bike lanes!"

(I am personally in support of much more cycling infrastructure and recognize Kraft or whoever would be MUCH worse; I also do not think Gag's death is a political tool here, just the slower rollout of new cycling projects).
 
Justbuildit said:
Unpopular take, but I think Wu is smart enough to generate some friction with the cyclists and more hardcore urbanists as a way to appeal to a broader electorate. She's got solid retail political skills and clearly has ambitions outside of Boston, so this feels a bit like a "centrist" move from a tactical standpoint. "Look, those cycling weirdos are mad she's not adding more bike lanes!"
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I don't think that's what she's doing. She just seems so committed to process, dialog, and caution that she's too slow to actually get things done.

But if that is what she's doing, that would mean she's stalling street safety projects, literal life-and-death projects, because of her personal ambition for higher office. I think that's psychotic and evil. I don't cheer on politicians for winning at their own, personal 3-d chess. I just want to mayor of Boston to build bike lanes in Boston.
 
Justbuildit said:
Unpopular take, but I think Wu is smart enough to generate some friction with the cyclists and more hardcore urbanists as a way to appeal to a broader electorate. She's got solid retail political skills and clearly has ambitions outside of Boston, so this feels a bit like a "centrist" move from a tactical standpoint. "Look, those cycling weirdos are mad she's not adding more bike lanes!"

(I am personally in support of much more cycling infrastructure and recognize Kraft or whoever would be MUCH worse; I also do not think Gag's death is a political tool here, just the slower rollout of new cycling projects).
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Who is that convincing? She's still a blue-city mayor who has pushed hard for less restrictive zoning and has been publicly at least somewhat supportive of policies like a congestion charge. So if that is the case it's both idiotic and evil.
 
The other explanation I guess is incompetence or lack of organization in City Hall from someone who is very well organized, practiced, and is at the peak of her political powers with the ability to get things done. Some other delays like the Congress St/Sleeper/A street redesign (with substantial new bike infrastructure) seemed to be mysteriously delayed until after the last election despite a horrible tragedy when a young girl was hit and killed by a car. Some of the other departures also suggest there's at least some degree of misalignment on streets safety that seems out of step.

To be clear, I'm a fan and repeat Wu voter, but I do think her personal ambition goes well beyond Boston and it would be naive to think there's a civic purity (even on public safety) that doesn't come into conflict with those goals.

Strong supporter of more and better bike lanes, especially as this infrequent Blue Biker is forced off the Red Line these last few weeks...
 
Justbuildit said:
The other explanation I guess is incompetence or lack of organization in City Hall from someone who is very well organized, practiced, and is at the peak of her political powers with the ability to get things done. Some other delays like the Congress St/Sleeper/A street redesign (with substantial new bike infrastructure) seemed to be mysteriously delayed until after the last election despite a horrible tragedy when a young girl was hit and killed by a car. Some of the other departures also suggest there's at least some degree of misalignment on streets safety that seems out of step.

To be clear, I'm a fan and repeat Wu voter, but I do think her personal ambition goes well beyond Boston and it would be naive to think there's a civic purity (even on public safety) that doesn't come into conflict with those goals.

Strong supporter of more and better bike lanes, especially as this infrequent Blue Biker is forced off the Red Line these last few weeks...
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I mean you're right, those are the two options, that either it's deliberate and it's a very stupid way of pandering or it's incompetence and staggering shakey-footedness, and I also think you're right that it's the former. My argument is that it's both evil and pointless.
 
We talked at length in the run up to the primary about how despite the meh-at-best polling for bike lanes it's just such a low salience issue for voters and the results very clearly bore that out. If she runs for senate/governor and her opponents center their campaign around Wu as crazy bike lane lady than we'll see a repeat of Kraft's performance. And if they aren't utterly in over their heads nepo babys they'll base their campaigns around cost of living, education, and (if she somehow makes it out of a primary) immigration and she'll get trounced. This move does nothing to win her new voters and sidelines people who previously would have been her volunteer base.
 
Justbuildit said:
I do think her personal ambition goes well beyond Boston and it would be naive to think there's a civic purity (even on public safety) that doesn't come into conflict with those goals.
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I know politicians often have higher ambitions. I don't know much about Wu personally, but I wouldn't doubt she has that ambition, too. For those politicians, there are some (fairly) innocuous things they can do to start angling for their next job: get on tv more; start making speeches on topics that aren't really on point for their current job; start spending a lot of time in Iowa; whatever. But what you're describing is different. You're describing someone you think is using their position of authority to change government policy for personal gain. That's corruption. That's an abuse of democratically elected office. That's shitty governance. And when it's done over life-and-death policy, I'll repeat, that's psychotic and evil.

What frustrated me about your original post is calling those kinds of moves "smart" and "tactical." I know you're not alone in seeing it that way. For years now, everyone in the national media has switched to covering horserace politics and will only describe those kinds of moves as "strategic" and "savvy." I want us all to get away from that, and start remembering that these are actually abuses of power which are corrosive to society.

Again, I don't think that's what's actually going on with Wu here. I just think she often cares more about process and consensus than actually getting stuff done, and bike lane opponents (including some in government) can use that to stall projects. But if you think she's stalling projects because of her own political ambition, I have no idea why you would still support her. That would make her a bad mayor and bad person.

(and @Justbuildit , I can never tell how my tone comes across here, so I'm really not trying to be mean about this. I appreciate reading your opinions here. But in this case you're doing something I find so frustrating in modern politics.)
 
Thanks for the note. And as I said...unpopular take.

I don't think behaving in a way that puts public safety at risk is a smart move; I was describing her as "smart" and "tactical" because I think a successful politician that wants to expand their base will make trade offs as part of their march to higher office. I think Wu has done a good job as coming across as a very sincere person who works for the city, and I think she generally is, but you don't end up in that role without being a ruthless operator (as the smoking husk of J Kraft's body can testify). I don't think these things are corruption or psychotic...I think it's how every high stakes politician behaves, and I think it's true at basically every level.

There have been flex posts removed from pre-existing bike lanes, which she got called out for and walked back. Despite what was said, that seemed like a put-and-take in service of complainers in the business community and a kind of weak "blame it on the staff" rationale. As I mentioned there have been various road projects that the city's own engineering department could explain why work hadn't started yet. Those don't seem accidental. While bike lanes are important to cyclists and the urbanist freaks like us who spend our days talking about this, I really think it's the case that the average BOSTON voter (let alone statewide) is either apathetic or in opposition. That will have an impact, in my opinion, on how work is done at City Hall, and which projects get prioritized.

As far as my support, maybe it's cynicism but I think there is a very low ceiling on how "good" politicians in high offices can be, and this in my view is table stakes. I think Wu has done a better job of articulating the future of Boston than anyone in the last 20 years, which is why I'm a fan, especially as compared to her opponents. But I don't think she (or Walsh or Menino or anyone competent in that job) passes a purity test.

In any case, these delays are a bad thing and the city will be better off once there's more cycling infrastructure. I'm sure this thread will get moved at some point, so I'll just say that again I'm not in favor of these delays, but for Wu to put out a plan that you described as "vague" and not seeming like she intends to get stuff done...that may have been the intent in the letter.
 
What I don't get is why she needs to be a Senator. Does she really need to become Elizabeth Warren? At least Warren appears to have values.

She could be the mayor for 20 years, do whatever she wants, retire to a prestige sinecure job in the federal government or nonprofit sector and retire. Being the mayor of Boston is a high honor and more than most politicians ever achieve! But instead she seems to have a bunch of bullies from W. Roxbury running the show.

I think it's a specific kind of Boston politician brain poisoning where you are so anxious about a certain set of very specific people who you MUST listen to above all else or else you are sunk... and she can't get over it
 
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My hot take on this - she's actually pretty inept as an municipal administrator or executive.

While, she's fairly good, as far politicians go, at working the press, it seems to be her main/only forte(?). The rest of the city administration, while not (yet) burning like rome, seems mid to lackluster. The upheaval in transportation leadership and the removal of a new director-level position on green infrastructure seems pretty dark prospects for maintaining a ship upright.

www.bostonglobe.com

Wu, a longtime climate champion, lays off city’s director of green infrastructure, eliminates office - The Boston Globe

The now former director was told on Tuesday his position, and the office, are being eliminated.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

I suspect that she's going to have to pull off a "culling of the herd" for personnel soon and it's going to further show how bad she is at managing and administering a city government, especially Boston's.
 
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