Biking in Boston

[Balerion]

Somerville has painted contraflow lanes on Hancock St and painted neckdowns at its intersections with Elm, Summer, and Highland.

Hancock is one way in multiple directions. It's been one-way SB from Summer to Elm and one-way NB from Summer to Charnwood. Both one-way segments have seen heavy salmoning, especially against the very short NB segment.

https://twitter.com/mtrem2/status/935181772115120129

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Biking on Beacon Street in Boston

"Beacon Street protected bike lane as it approaches Mass Ave."

I think we might be better off with Beacon St being three lanes wide for a brief stretch just before Mass Ave, with the right lane designated right turns only, the middle lane for through traffic continuing onto Beacon, and the left lane for left turns only. That would create the opportunity to give the right turn lane a red right arrow while a bicycle signal head allows bicyclists to proceed across Mass Ave and while allowing a straight green arrow for traffic continuing across Mass Ave onto Beacon.

Also, if we could diet Beacon down to one through lane plus two parking / loading zone lanes, would that allow space for buffered bike lanes on both sides to allow contraflow bicycle traffic?

 

[cden4]

There is actually enough width to simply convert the planned separated bike lane to two way in the future. The main reason why they didn't do that now are that they'll have to add new signals facing the other direction (this project is just utilizing the existing signals).

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Beacon St

As I've thought about it more, I'm wondering if narrowing a street down to one travel lane creates problems with tailgaters pulling up directly behind people who are trying to back into parking spaces to parallel park.

This might be an argument for making Beacon two way.

 

[millerm277]

Re: Beacon St

As I've thought about it more, I'm wondering if narrowing a street down to one travel lane creates problems with tailgaters pulling up directly behind people who are trying to back into parking spaces to parallel park.

This might be an argument for making Beacon two way.

You'd probably need to do much more major studies and redesigns of traffic flows and intersections in the whole area to accomplish that though.

I view it as the "big" mirror of Boylston across Back Bay, and with the one-ways and flows around the Public Garden/Common, I think that's valid.

I'd imagine you'd need to consider at minimum the following aspects to make Beacon 2 way:

- Making Boylston 2 way.

- Redesigning the Storrow ramps by the Public Garden/Common and the traffic flows around the Public Garden/Common.

- Major alterations to Kenmore, and probably reconsidering the role of some of the side streets like Bay State Rd.

I'm not making a statement about it being a good or bad idea, just that it's one which would require a pretty big scope of study and likely a lot of changes in the whole area.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Beacon St

I view it as the "big" mirror of Boylston across Back Bay, and with the one-ways and flows around the Public Garden/Common, I think that's valid.

Back St and Marlborough St are one way the same direction as Boylston but closer to Beacon.

- Redesigning the Storrow ramps by the Public Garden/Common and the traffic flows around the Public Garden/Common.

I don't think there's really much need to redesign much of anything related to Storrow. If Beacon is made two way from Mass Ave to Charles St, then left turns should probably be allowed toward Storrow in the vicinity of Arlington St, but that's probably about all that needs to change regarding Storrow / Beacon interaction.

- Major alterations to Kenmore, and probably reconsidering the role of some of the side streets like Bay State Rd.

Kenmore's not something I'd been thinking about, and it might make a lot of sense for phase 1 of making Beacon two way to only deal with the Mass Ave to Charles St section. Changing only the part east of Mass Ave avoids the complexity of having automobiles approaching the Mass Ave / Beacon St intersection from more directions, and it avoids having to deal with the Kenmore intersection. And to further simplify things, allowing right turns from Mass Ave northbound to Beacon eastbound but not left turns from Mass Ave southbound to Beacon eastbound, especially at first, might make sense.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Beacon St in Boston

I think it would probably be relatively straightforward to make Beacon St two way from Kenmore St to Mass Ave, and it should be done in conjunction with banning all automobile left turns at the Mass Ave / Beacon intersection (bikes should be able to make left turns by going straight across the street twice in the appropriate two different signal phases).

That light could probably then have just three phases: straight across Mass Ave, straight across Beacon, and automobile right turns.

And the lack of being able to turn left from Beacon to Mass Ave ought to limit the extent to which eastbound traffic would start using Beacon.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Beacon St in Somerville

Along Beacon St in Somerville, it appears that the city has been plowing the cycle track section (although not the full width) but leaving the sidewalk section to the abutters. The end result is that the cycle track has been consistently clear, and the sidewalk hasn't.

In that there's an Americans with Disabilities Act but not a Bicyclists in Winter Act, I think the city has their priorities backwards here with which section should get priority for proper clearing, but of course admitting that would also require the city to take responsibility for clearing the sidewalks on a lot of other streets.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: delivery trucks in cycle tracks

The delivery truck still should not be parking in a cycle track.

Maybe if the delivery truck was something similar to http://www.trucktrike.com/ it might be OK for it to park in the cycle track, although those folks seem to be building 4' wide vehicles, and I think the maximum width for a cycle track should maybe be around 2.5' or 3'. (I think the Cambridge St cycle track is only 5' wide in places although one 2.5' wide vehicle passing another 2.5' wide vehicle could probably use a bit of the width of the flex post buffer zone.)

 

[fattony]

Re: Beacon St in Somerville

Along Beacon St in Somerville, it appears that the city has been plowing the cycle track section (although not the full width) but leaving the sidewalk section to the abutters. The end result is that the cycle track has been consistently clear, and the sidewalk hasn't.

In that there's an Americans with Disabilities Act but not a Bicyclists in Winter Act, I think the city has their priorities backwards here with which section should get priority for proper clearing, but of course admitting that would also require the city to take responsibility for clearing the sidewalks on a lot of other streets.

The city isn't shirking responsibility for clearing sidewalks - it has assigned responsibility to property owners. If property owners fail to maintain the public way they abut, then they are supposed to be fined. The only failure by the city is lax enforcement.

I have some neighbors who still haven't shoveled or salted since the Christmas snow 10 days ago and I haven't seen any fines posted on their doors. I think there should be an enforcer who distributes fines and also salts the offending sections of sidewalk for the benefit of all the non-sociopath residents of Somerville who walk those sidewalks.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

The city isn't shirking responsibility for clearing sidewalks - it has assigned responsibility to property owners.

Even if the city regulations were properly followed and enforced, it's still the case that the roads are passable for automobiles during and for several hours after snowstorms to a vastly greater extent than the sidewalks are for wheelchair users during and for several hours after snowstorms, and the only reasonable way to fix that disparity is for the city to take over clearing the sidewalks.

 

[fattony]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

Even if the city regulations were properly followed and enforced, it's still the case that the roads are passable for automobiles during and for several hours after snowstorms to a vastly greater extent than the sidewalks are for wheelchair users during and for several hours after snowstorms, and the only reasonable way to fix that disparity is for the city to take over clearing the sidewalks.

I'm curious, can you name any municipalities that clear the sidewalks? I can't think of one.

 

[sm89]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

Even if the city regulations were properly followed and enforced, it's still the case that the roads are passable for automobiles during and for several hours after snowstorms to a vastly greater extent than the sidewalks are for wheelchair users during and for several hours after snowstorms, and the only reasonable way to fix that disparity is for the city to take over clearing the sidewalks.

Part of the benefit of cycle tracks is that they also allow those in wheelchairs to have a safe route separate from the sidewalk, but still protected from vehicles. This is very common in places such as the Netherlands and is becoming more and more common here.

 

[CSTH]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

I'm curious, can you name any municipalities that clear the sidewalks? I can't think of one.

Essex MA (my hood) plows the sidewalks downtown with a bobcat ... still nominally property owner responsibility, but there's enough of a public benefit that the DPW does it regularly as part of its snow clearance ops anyway. I think the definitive case is that it makes sure kids have somewhere to wait for the schoolbus without standing in busy streets.

n.b. probably about 2 miles of sidewalks (i.e. each side of a 1 mile stretch)

 

[Roxxma]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

I'm curious, can you name any municipalities that clear the sidewalks? I can't think of one.

Burlington does. Apparently Wilmington does not.

 

[elemenoh]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

Burlington does. Apparently Wilmington does not.

And Medford has a new sidewalk plow, which you can see in this Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/medfordsquare/permalink/10156112943102806/

 

[jass]

Re: clearing snow from sidewalks

I'm curious, can you name any municipalities that clear the sidewalks? I can't think of one.

Not municipalities, but it is somewhat common among BID's. Part of the dues go to paying a bobcat to handle it for everyone.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Northern Strand Trail to New Rutherford connection

If you use the ``Measure Distance'' tool in Google Maps to make a straight line from the south edge of Route 16 at the gravel pile underpass (which might seem like the natural extension of the Northern Strand Community Trail) to the Main St / Alford St intersection at Sullivan, you discover that the direct route from the Northern Strand Community Trail to the potential bike path on the east side of Rutherford comes a lot closer to the highway 99 bridge than the Newburyport / Rockport bridge, and it passes near the Broadway / Dexter intersection.

The bridge across the Mystic apparently does have a bit of buffer space between the cars and the bike lane, but the Google Street View doesn't show any flex posts, and perhaps if we wanted to try to make the bridge better for biking, we could see if we could narrow the car lanes and possibly even the center shoulder to provide a wider buffer and/or wider bike lane, along with slowing down cars to increase safety near bicyclists.

Between the bridge and the MWRA / power station light, the MWRA lot has a fence and grass next to its border, and it might be worthwhile to look at whether a bit of the MWRA's grass could be reallocated to a better separated bike path.

I'm wondering if it might be possible for bicyclists to use the MWRA's driveway to get to a future riverfront bike path that would connect under the Newburyport / Rockport bridge and then along the west side of the train tracks to the gravel pile.

 

[Harry Mattison]

Meeting on Wednesday with MassDOT, DCR, BPDA, BTD about improvements to Birmingham Parkway between the Mass Pike and Western Ave in Brighton
6:30pm @ WGBH
https://www.facebook.com/events/1876963245928874/
http://www.bostonplans.org/news-cal...rn-ave-soldiers-field-road-birmingham-parkway

 

[34f34f]

Cambridge Street (Cambridge) separated bike lanes are staying put (Cambridge Day).

Quite frustrated by this final paragraph though:

Some potential tweaks Mallon mentioned for the bike lane: installing signals allowing bicyclists to cross intersections ahead of cars; eliminating a sidewalk curve at Trowbridge Street that causes bicyclists to swoop outward as well, alarming drivers; improving pedestrian crossings with concrete “refuges”; adding a car passenger drop-off zone and short-term, business-hour-only parking spaces; and replacing the plastic bollards that marking off the bike lane, possibly with planters.

That last idea could face opposition from transportation planners. One benefit of the plastic bollards is that cars can run over them without damage if they need to get right to make room for emergency vehicles. With residents calling the design dangerous because drivers have nowhere to go and Mallon proposing planters that would be more likely to damage a car, it was clear the benefit is little known.

Transportation planners are totally down with concrete planters are barriers for the reasons stated: cars can't run them over like they can plastic bollards. That's why I hesitate to call any plastic bollard-separated bike lane "protected."

It's public works departments (and possibly emergency responders, although Cambridge Fire have been pretty welcoming of new bike infrastructure) that don't like them because they can't just run them over when plowing snow.