Biking in Boston

Scipio said:
Someone put traffic cones out to create a guerilla protected bike lane:

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...149&set=gm.623264104443947&source=57&__tn__=E
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And now he has placed flowers in flex posts! Brilliant!

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/09/11/tactical-urbanism-win-cyclist-protects-boston-bike-lane-with-flowers/

Donate if you wish - mods, don't know if this is ok to link to. I am not personally involved with the tactical urbanism displayed.
http://www.gofundme.com/flowerlanes
 
Livable Streets rebranded and updated their Green Links concept into the Emerald Network: http://www.livablestreets.info/emeraldnetwork

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It's their vision of safe, easy, and contiguous multiuse paths in the region's core. MAPC has their own Landline concept for their jurisdiction as a whole, and between the two I think we have a pretty good trail plan for the whole region.

There's good progress on the engineering and construction front, but it generally seems like there's still a divorce between these grand network plans and what's being designed and built. The towns and the states are plinking away project-by project when they have the money, but there's no "build out the network by 20XX" or "pave X miles of trail every year" targets.
 
metasyntactic said:
Saw this horrifying story earlier on Reddit about the bike lane situtation at the same intersection:



I would've been terrified to get in front of a truck driver who has already shown how blase he is about letting cyclists die. But I also would've been livid.
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Metasync -- do yourself a really big -- perhaps lifesaving favor -- learn a very very little bit of Physics known as the Law of Conservation of Momentum

In layman's terms a truck is humongus compared to a bike or a person

if you collide while one or both are moving at any speed - - almost nothing happens to him -- he keeps going or standing just as he was

But a Hell of a lot of things can happen to you -- most of them very bad and some quite fatal
 
whighlander said:
Metasync -- do yourself a really big -- perhaps lifesaving favor -- learn a very very little bit of Physics known as the Law of Conservation of Momentum

In layman's terms a truck is humongus compared to a bike or a person

if you collide while one or both are moving at any speed - - almost nothing happens to him -- he keeps going or standing just as he was

But a Hell of a lot of things can happen to you -- most of them very bad and some quite fatal
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why do you think metasyntactic said "I would've been terrified to get in front of a truck driver who has already shown how blase he is about letting cyclists die"? No one needs physics lessons here.
 
dwash59 said:
why do you think metasyntactic said "I would've been terrified to get in front of a truck driver who has already shown how blase he is about letting cyclists die"? No one needs physics lessons here.
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dwash -- yes yes you do

I've been both:
  • a bike rider who has been hit [luckily both were grazing blows] by cars - ironically while as a physics graduate student
  • and a motorist who had to apply emergency maneuvers to avoid hitting a cyclist taking liberties

while neither was fun -- I think much more about how close I came to seriously hurting the cyclist as I don't think he was fully aware of the possible outcome
 
Anyone else make the hearing tonight? Some moving testimony.
 
Councilor's McCarthey and Pressley held the hearing. Flahery, Wu, O'Malley, and three others were present but left early. Zakim sent his regrets, he was out due to the jewish holiday. McCarthy left around 7pm to make another meeting in West Rox. Pressley and one other Councilor stayed till the end.

Vineet Gupta from BTD, Chris Osgood the new Chief of Streets, Gina Fiandaca BTD Commisioner and a policeman whose name I didn't get were all sitting in the pit with the Councilor's and stayed till the end. Stephanie Seskin the new Active Transportation Director and Najah Shakir from Boston Bikes were seated in the audience and also stayed to the end. All in all good attendance by the people who mattered.

BTD announced that 18 miles of bike lane would be added this fall including Walter St in Rozzie.

Lots of testimony about more and better and in more underserved neighborhoods. Anne Lusk really pushed for protected bike lanes nearly everywhere. Many spoke of the need for better traffic enforcement. Some idiot spoke about how the Public Works Dept and other depts appeared to go out of their way to discourage cycling. A young lady finished it off in tears describing how she had friends who had been injured and that she was too afraid to commute by bike with only painted lanes to protect her. A perfect call to end the evening.

I should try to write up my testimony and send it to all the councilors with pics of all the crappy things that the PWD allows. Maybe tomorrow.
 
Prof Peter Furth is not some idiot! He had some valid points about the Parks Department's apparent unwillingness to promote (or at a minimum allow) safe biking. He also spoke about some very important shelf-ready, approved projects that just disappeared from the City's radar.
 
sm89 said:
Prof Peter Furth is not some idiot!
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I fully agree; I support Peter Furth's proposal to create a protected intersection at Mass Ave and Beacon, and worked with him (and Pete Stidman) to create a workable cycle track design at Gateway East in Brookline. He's an extraordinary knowledgeable engineer and gentleman and I consider him a friend.

The idiot I was referring to was myself: I said that the BPD, BRA and the Public Works Dept appeared, at times, to discourage cycling. I gave various examples. I thought about including the Parks Department, but decided to limit the number of departments I pissed off. (I had also thought to include Boston Bikes for not installing lots of temporary bike parking, or a few corrals across from the Prudential construction site on Boylston St, but decided not to bite the hand that feeds me) Since I didn't speak until about 7:30, you might have not have heard me, I was trying hard not to fade away at that point myself.

A portion of my idiotic testimony:
While Boston Bikes actively promotes cycling, it seem at times other departments in the City actively try to discourage cycling.
Two years ago, the BRA removed a portion of bike lane and reconfigured another on Washington St to create on-street parking for two new developments. It left seriously sub-standard biking conditions that has far more conflicts with vehicles than before.
Double parking in bike lanes remains rampant and enforcement nearly non-existent.
Roadway utility cuts are allowed to be made only partway across bike lanes creating vertical joints parallel to bike lanes causing a fall hazard to exist far after the cut has been repairs.
Steel utility plates covering opening are frequently not covered in non-slip material and plate joints within and parallel to bike lanes are not uncommon.
Recently the Public Works Department rebuild several ramps along the Southwest Corridor Park to meet current ADA standards. The ramps at Gordon Street are so ill placed that bikes that people on bikes, pedestrians and cars are in constant conflict during peak commute times. Before the Department fixed it, the crossing was largely conflict free.

The Pavement cut that pissed me off:
262mlph.jpg


The Clusterfuck of a crossing along the SWCP at Gordon Street brought to us by the brilliant engineers at the Public works Department:
mim4bb.jpg
 
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The BRA's sin: Washington St just south of Ukraine Way - the bike lane is replaced by sharrows and car parking during certain times of the day:

rkym3n.jpg


The car is showing abnormally good behavior, many cars get four wheels in the bike lane:
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Randomgear said:
The idiot I was referring to was myself: I said that the BPD, BRA and the Public Works Dept appeared, at times, to discourage cycling.
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ohhhhh ok. Yea I left right after hearing Furth speak.
 
NO prob; if I hadn't signed up to speak I would have left, too. It was a long evening.
 
Anyone else getting the feeling that there is gross incompetence at the Boston transportation department when it comes to "best practices" with the design of pedestrian and bike facilities? We're starting to see citizens showing them how to do things. I've been to a couple neighborhood hearings where people were he BTD rep knew less than someone who did a Google search on complete streets.
 
That section at Washington street near Ukraine way. There was a car collision a while back and they had to restripe. There are regular conflicts between bikes and cars along that stretch, but the only thing that gets the BTD to do anything is if cars crash into each other. There appears to be very little respect for other road users in that department.
 
rinserepeat said:
That section at Washington street near Ukraine way. There was a car collision a while back and they had to restripe. There are regular conflicts between bikes and cars along that stretch, but the only thing that gets the BTD to do anything is if cars crash into each other. There appears to be very little respect for other road users in that department.
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BTD: "There are other road users? Who?
 
rinserepeat said:
That section at Washington street near Ukraine way. There was a car collision a while back and they had to restripe. There are regular conflicts between bikes and cars along that stretch, but the only thing that gets the BTD to do anything is if cars crash into each other. There appears to be very little respect for other road users in that department.
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As I rode to City Hall this morning for Hub on wheels, I saw that there were temporary flex posts placed along the bike lane North Bound just before Ukraine Way - nice to have a protected lane that motorists can't use as a right turn lane and intimidate cyclists.

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Edit at 2:45pm Monday : already removed...
 
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rinserepeat said:
Anyone else getting the feeling that there is gross incompetence at the Boston transportation department when it comes to "best practices" with the design of pedestrian and bike facilities? We're starting to see citizens showing them how to do things. I've been to a couple neighborhood hearings where people were he BTD rep knew less than someone who did a Google search on complete streets.
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The sad thing is that the city have Toole Design working for them, and they really understand bicycles. Toole did the design for the Arborway bike facilities and wrote the Boston Complete Streets guidelines.

But on the ground I doubt that the BTD staffers are getting much training on the topic.

It took a huge community effort to get speed humps in Hyde Square back in 2000, and we had to design exactly what we wanted, down to the location and size of the things! That was well before bike lanes were even on the table.
 
Well now that Boston Bikes has been merged into the planning and policy division of BTD I foresee greater cooperation and coordination. From its inception, Boston Bikes had been a "mayor's initiative" and not really a part of BTD.
 
elemenoh said:
The sad thing is that the city have Toole Design working for them, and they really understand bicycles. Toole did the design for the Arborway bike facilities and wrote the Boston Complete Streets guidelines.

But on the ground I doubt that the BTD staffers are getting much training on the topic.

It took a huge community effort to get speed humps in Hyde Square back in 2000, and we had to design exactly what we wanted, down to the location and size of the things! That was well before bike lanes were even on the table.
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What's even sadder is that the city had bike facilities in their roadway design guidelines since the 90s. It wasn't until 2007 that they had even started putting anything in - and now what is being installed isn't even considered best practices anymore. These guys are least 10-15 years behind. I don't know if it's the DPW or BTD who is designing this garbage, but there seems to be an extreme lack of quality control or even a basic understanding of non-car road user safety. Boston SHOULD be a national leader - we have some of the best engineers in the world teaching at our schools and yet the city itself is in the dark ages. It's infuriating.

Maybe we can partly blame the vehicular cyclists for holding us back in terms of bike infrastructure - but the city has also done an extremely poor job at making better pedestrian infrastructure. It's really uneven - in neighborhoods where people are organized, educated, and have time to fight, that's where you actually see improvements - but in under-served communities that really desperately need safer infrastructure is where you see lazy, borderline criminally incompetent, road design - and these staffers show up at meetings using neighborhood divisions to their advantage - pitting neighbor against neighbor so they don't have to do any actual design thinking.

I hope people pay attention to what is happening in every corner of the city and really hold BTD/DPW's feet to the fire. It's time. I am fed up with the inaction, the excuses, the sheer laziness. We all now know what good street design looks like. What they are doing is not it. I hope that having a "chief of the streets" will help - but there really needs to be a serious shakedown inside BTD and the DPW before anything changes.
 
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