Biking in Boston

[bbfen]

The driver who struck the scooter ran a red light, so I'm pretty sure the tactical urbanism didn't cause the accident, particularly because it doesn't interfere with the car lane at all. I agree, vigilantism is completely the wrong word, this was an action by safety minded citizens who rightly believe the city is moving too slowly on safe streets measures.

I'd like, as a perpetual pedestrian, to understand from cyclists more about their motives: they seem to feel they have a divine right to run red lights through signaled intersections, yell at pedestrians legally occupying crosswalks, and swerving erratically to continue to advance their own selfish movement through the city. I'm all about safe streets for all, but not that bikes trump everyone else.

 

[KCasiglio]

I'd like, as a perpetual pedestrian, to understand from cyclists more about their motives: they seem to feel they have a divine right to run red lights through signaled intersections, yell at pedestrians legally occupying crosswalks, and swerving erratically to continue to advance their own selfish movement through the city. I'm all about safe streets for all, but not that bikes trump everyone else.

Cyclists are people. There is no well behaved mode of transportation* because they are all people. That's why it's important to design and set policy in such a way to account for that rather than assume people will obey traffic laws just because. Do you think pedestrians follow the rules and act polite any more so than cyclists or drivers or mopeds?

*Transit excluded because it's operated by professionals who actually have to be accountable to their employer.

 

[sm89]

Apparently after Louisa was killed in Roxbury, people unaffiliated with the city added a paint "protected" intersection that has recently caught a lot of controversy.

Do we really have to call this action "citizen vigilantes"? FFS they just added a couple white stripes on the ground that are merely a suggestion to cars anyway.

Generally it is bad when people do this because they don't know what they're doing and sometimes the result is something counterintuitive or "too different" to be safe. However, this tape intervention actually looks pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who did it either have a background in traffic engineering and planning or are just familiar with these types of designs in general.

I would love if the city rushed out and just made it permanent in thermo to really stick it to the councilor lol. Aside from maybe the buffer hatching dimensions, I don't really see anything wrong with the layout.

 

[FK4]

I'd like, as a perpetual pedestrian, to understand from cyclists more about their motives: they seem to feel they have a divine right to run red lights through signaled intersections, yell at pedestrians legally occupying crosswalks, and swerving erratically to continue to advance their own selfish movement through the city. I'm all about safe streets for all, but not that bikes trump everyone else.

Cyclists are people. There is no well behaved mode of transportation* because they are all people. That's why it's important to design and set policy in such a way to account for that rather than assume people will obey traffic laws just because. Do you think pedestrians follow the rules and act polite any more so than cyclists or drivers or mopeds?

*Transit excluded because it's operated by professionals who actually have to be accountable to their employer.

I've said this many times on here, but Boston has an extremely severe behavior problem with respect to how people follow, or rather completely ignore, any and all traffic rules, and that applies equally to drivers, bikers, and pedestrians. Others have contested me when I have said this before, but there is absolutely no question to me on this. It is a general disrespect for any courtesy whatsoever toward anyone, combined with a strong scofflaw attitude. In most cities I have been to, pedestrians do not just fling themselves into the road—I have never seen it half as bad as here. I have never seen bikers running red lights the way they do here. And I have never seen drivers violate all of the 'minor' traffic laws like driving over lanes, right on reds, drifting and turning without signaling, the way people do here. And it comes down to a cultural allowance for this which is reflected in a total lack of enforcement. I grew up understanding that driving in Boston meant you could speed and blow yellow-reds to your heart's content and never be pulled over. People expect that cars will stop for them when they walk into the road, and they are largely actually correct. I'm not talking about aggressive transit related behaviors: people often compare to NYC, which certainly always feels both on foot and on the road that nobody is going to yield to you when they don't have to. But that does not mean that in NYC people go out of their way to spite you as one driver to another as they do here, and people absolutely obey crosswalk signals when on foot far more than Boston. When I lived in London for a year, I had to totally recalibrate my walking behavior since there, if you breeze through a crosswalk with a dont walk signal, cutting it close when cars are coming, they ain't slowing down the way they do in Boston. And many other cities—it does not feel as though you can "get away wait it" with respect to road walking behavior.

I really dont think any of this is going to change until rules start getting enforced, and I think the easiest rules to enforce are obviously drivers. If drivers can behave with impunity, it is a constant reminder to everyone else that basic rules do not matter.

With respect to bikes, I must admit that I am not infrequently guilty of blowing reds, but I'd like to think that in general, I do so safely, and I certainly don't shout or glower at pedestrians. However, the one thing I would say in defense of bikers specifically — and I know this is an excuse, but it is a factor — is that for driving and biking, there's zero physical capital expended by briefly stopping or slowing almost to a stop, whereas for biking, stopping is more of a pain in the ass (in a minor way, but nonetheless), because you have to expend more torque force every time you resume pedaling. As a pedestrian, I generally happily yield to a biker since I know this. If I pause and resume walking, it's just no extra energy for me, but for a biker, it's more work on the legs.