Biking in Boston

[Arlington]

Or, another likely explanation: younger workers who bike to work are now breaking into the "top earners" category.

Absolutely, there's been some old-retire/young-advance turnover in the top bracket powering this.

The overall point is that it is kind of a big deal that the connection between "earning more" and "driving to work alone" is breaking down.

The dirty secret / tragedy of transportation planning in the 1990s was that people used transit to get the job that paid the money that enabled them to buy a car. The more effective your transit was at connecting people to better jobs, the sooner passengers would buy a car and break the connection. (and allowing employers to move to car-only suburbs & exurbs)

This was probably true for biking to work then too (but the populations were so small that they were not of academic interest and really hard to get good data on). You still see some of this bias in the ACS data, with the stats broken down into SOV, Carpool, and All Other Modes.

 

[Matthew]

Recent article (from June) about truck side guards.

On a July afternoon in New Orleans last year, Philip Geeck was riding his bicycle in a marked bike lane on a busy street. Approaching an intersection, he came up alongside a tractor-trailer truck hauling a tank of chemicals. Geeck, 52, was at the 18-wheeler’s midpoint when suddenly, without signaling, the truck began to turn right, witnesses say.

Victor Pizarro was driving nearby and watched in horror as the scene unfolded. He saw a look of confusion on Geeck’s face as the trailer came toward him. Geeck, an experienced cyclist known to his friends as “Geric,” tried to get away from the truck but couldn’t make it. First his wheel went beneath the semi’s enormous rolling tires, then his foot, then his entire body was dragged under. “It just kind of sucked him in,” Pizarro said in an interview.

Geeck’s head was crushed and part of his leg was severed from his body. “He was just a mound of flesh on the ground with blood oozing out,” Pizarro said. Geeck died at the scene; the truck driver was not cited by police.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

How the fuck was the driver not cited when he DIDN'T EVEN SIGNAL HIS TURN? Should be vehicular manslaughter right there. For all we know signaling could have prevented this!

 

[JeffDowntown]

How the fuck was the driver not cited when he DIDN'T EVEN SIGNAL HIS TURN? Should be vehicular manslaughter right there. For all we know signaling could have prevented this!

Because we live in a motor-vehicle-centric society. Drivers are rarely cited in accidents with bikes, because the defacto logic is the bike should not have been there (not the legal rule, but that does not seem to matter much).

 

[cden4]

I also think a large part of it is because most people (including law enforcement) have a "windshield perspective." They can picture themselves making the same "mistake" while driving and would not want to be punished harshly either. So they just chalk it up to "oh oops it was just an accident; nothing anyone could have done about it!."

 

[WormtownNative]

How the fuck was the driver not cited when he DIDN'T EVEN SIGNAL HIS TURN? Should be vehicular manslaughter right there. For all we know signaling could have prevented this!

I also think a large part of it is because most people (including law enforcement) have a "windshield perspective." They can picture themselves making the same "mistake" while driving and would not want to be punished harshly either. So they just chalk it up to "oh oops it was just an accident; nothing anyone could have done about it!."

Worcester had a nasty accident back in May involving a pedestrian and a TT unit at Kelley Square. Not exactly apple to apple, but still a similar situation.

In that incident, the driver was cited.

Worcester police have issued citations in the May 14 death of Sarah Ewing of Hudson, who was trapped beneath the rear wheels of a tractor trailer that took a Kelley Square turn too closely around 9:30 p.m. by the Hotel Vernon. The driver of the vehicle, which had pulled to the side of the road for a fire truck before trying to turn onto the I-290 on ramp, has been cited for vehicular homicide after Ewing died of her injuries in the hospital.

The driver has been identified as 62-year-old Gary Shray from Oriental, North Carolina, driving a tractor trailer owned by Ocean Star Transportation out of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Shray is also cited for negligent operation so as to endanger and failure to use care in turning.

The citations were issued as a result of a comprehensive investigation conducted by the Worcester Police Accident Reconstruction Unit, according to a police press release issued today.

ARTICLE

I am in full agreement with BostonUrbanEx that the driver should be cited, pretty much word for word of what the Worcester driver faces.

 

[Scipio]

The ghost bike for Anita Kurmann is being installed at Mass and Beacon tomorrow evening at 6:30: https://www.facebook.com/events/617007695069588/

Still no word on the investigation or on any improvements in the area.

Edit:
Very emotional service, even if it was pretty hard to hear people speak over rush hour traffic. Somewhere between 100-150 people attended, and I doubt more than a handful knew her.

 

[Scipio]

The Binney St. cycletrack in Cambridge is looking nearly ready:

Here's a shot showing the two stage turn box that allows for a safer, but slower left turn. Farther away you can see the cycletrack transition down to street level to get across Third Street.

The turn box adds a light cycle to your trip but means you don't have to try and get across two lanes of car traffic. I've used them elsewhere and like them, especially when streetcar tracks and rush hour traffic are in play.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Am I the only one who sees a (-) in the middle of a blank image?

 

[datadyne007]

Am I the only one who sees a (-) in the middle of a blank image?

No, the link is invalid.

 

[Scipio]

Weird, usually sharing direct from my phone's Google Photos auto backup works. Rehosted to imgur:

 

[DZH22]

I was driving Storrow Westbound the other day, and came upon a bike in the left lane at that straightaway with the Hancock view. (after gov't center exit and after going under longfellow bridge) It was dark, rainy, and the person was wearing dark colors. Caused quite the jam!

Is there some sort of confusion in the area to forgive someone for (mistakenly?) riding a bike down the middle of the left lane on Storrow Drive?

 

[JeffDowntown]

I was driving Storrow Westbound the other day, and came upon a bike in the left lane at that straightaway with the Hancock view. (after gov't center exit and after going under longfellow bridge) It was dark, rainy, and the person was wearing dark colors. Caused quite the jam!

Is there some sort of confusion in the area to forgive someone for (mistakenly?) riding a bike down the middle of the left lane on Storrow Drive?

Well there are lots of opportunities to accidentally enter Storrow eastbound in that area (streets from the Beacon Hill Flats), but it is kind of hard to imagine entering westbound Storrow by accident???

 

[CSTH]

^ I could see doing it at levrett circle. In the street from the Dam or Nashua St, but then supposed to be off the street once you hit storrow (/embankment?)

 

[George_Apley]

^ I could see doing it at levrett circle. In the street from the Dam or Nashua St, but then supposed to be off the street once you hit storrow (/embankment?)

There are several opportunities to get off of Storrow and onto the Esplanade. This cyclist either panicked and just stayed the course, or is a total asshole.

 

[Arlington]

There are several opportunities to get off of Storrow and onto the Esplanade. This cyclist either panicked and just stayed the course, or is a total asshole.

That's a long stretch where the "real" bike path hugs the shoreline with the Charles or the Storrow Lagoon on the far side of all the Esplanade-ish stuff and screened from view from Storrow.

If one was lost anywhere between the Longfellow Bridge and the Smoot Bridge (I'd assume the dude was lost) there'd be no way of seeing those paths from anywhere near Storrow Drive West, until they all pinch together at Charlesgate.

 

[George_Apley]

That's a long stretch where the "real" bike path hugs the shoreline with the Charles or the Storrow Lagoon on the far side of all the Esplanade-ish stuff and screened from view from Storrow.

If one was lost anywhere between the Longfellow Bridge and the Smoot Bridge (I'd assume the dude was lost) there'd be no way of seeing those paths from anywhere near Storrow Drive West, until they all pinch together at Charlesgate.

I'm thinking of the several driveways from Storrow West onto the Esplanade. There's one by the old pool house, one by Community Boating/Hatch Shell, and one farther up the Lagoons across the path from one of the foot bridges. If the cyclist got on westbound at Leverett, the only explanation for him not taking one of those easy "outs" is panic, stupidity or dickishness.

 

[Arlington]

In other news, a great piece on the changing mindset of cycling and why it is hard to change the drivers' view of cycling. Slate:
Why You Hate Cyclists
Partly because of jerks like me. But it’s mostly your own illogical mind.
Fair use:

[People are naturally prone to] making false connections between distinguishing characteristics like geography, race, and religion and people’s qualities as human beings. Sometimes it is benign ("Mormons are really polite"), sometimes less so ("Republicans hate poor people"). But in this case, it’s a one-way street: Though most Americans don’t ride bikes, bikers are less likely to stereotype drivers because most of us also drive. The “otherness” of cyclists makes them stand out, and that helps drivers cement their negative conclusions. This is also why sentiments like “taxi drivers are awful” and “Jersey drivers are terrible” are common, but you don’t often hear someone say “all drivers suck.” People don’t like lumping themselves into whatever group they are making negative conclusions about, so we subconsciously seek out a distinguishing characteristic first.

these new-to-biking commuters are riding less aggressively than the old urban vanguard of bike messengers and Tour de France wannabes [like this author]. If the present trends continue, we’ll see asshole bicyclists like me become an even smaller minority of bicyclists as a whole. And some of us are trying to get better. I’ve recognized that my bad behavior keeps others from taking up riding, and keeps politicians from investing in things I care about, like more bike lanes. So I’ve stopped riding on sidewalks and try to keep my illegal lefts to a minimum. But I’ve been a jerk for a real long time. So, let me say this to drivers, pedestrians, and my fellow riders alike: I’m sorry.

 

[CSTH]

I'm thinking of the several driveways from Storrow West onto the Esplanade. There's one by the old pool house, one by Community Boating/Hatch Shell, and one farther up the Lagoons across the path from one of the foot bridges. If the cyclist got on westbound at Leverett, the only explanation for him not taking one of those easy "outs" is panic, stupidity or dickishness.

Or .. per our previous discussions about the idiosyncracies of boston road design ... the driveways themselves signaled to him that he was NOT on a highway, and therefore the right thing to do was to bike in the road, not on the sidewalk (because biking on the sidewalk is, you know, what assholes do)

 

[Arlington]

+1

Buses, you wrote that the Esplanade driveways were "easy outs", but you only can believe that as someone who has seen Storrow and the Esplanade many times, and happen to know the layout. (Recall that conditions were dark and rainy in the incident we are discussing)

To take CSTH's point further, you cannot even call them driveways, only "curb cuts" (if that)

And the meaning of "driveways" (or curb cuts) is not "Easy outs" nor "sidewalks nearby" nor "turn here for safety" but rather "dead end" or "head on collision possible" and would lead a lost person on bike or car to conclude that Storrow West is a winding but wide street (such as the 1960s/70s era 'burbs have) and on which cyclists are welcome.