Biking in Boston

Bluebikes are now active in Newton, Watertown and Arlington, they also launched new stations in East Boston and at MIT this week, East Boston now has pretty full coverage and when Chelsea and Revere come online (supposedly in the next few weeks) there will be some great connectivity between them.
 
Arlington said:
When people say a crosswalk is "too close" what is the standard they're using for "far apart enough?"
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It varies, but as George said, sometimes being "between two signalized intersections" is a problem, regardless of how far apart those two signals are.

And having a raised crosswalk on a major roadway is also a very good get.

HelloBostonHi said:
Bluebikes are now active in Newton, Watertown and Arlington, they also launched new stations in East Boston and at MIT this week, East Boston now has pretty full coverage and when Chelsea and Revere come online (supposedly in the next few weeks) there will be some great connectivity between them.
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Great news, but they need to adjust their timing so every single expansion is not scheduled for fall.
 
jass said:
Great news, but they need to adjust their timing so every single expansion is not scheduled for fall.
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Is this one of those Fiscal Year anomalies? Money for expansion becomes available in September or October?
 
The city is moving ahead with the Cummins Hwy redesign which includes permanent protected bike lanes.

universalhub.com

Cummins Highway narrowing and bike lanes to be extended from Mattapan into Roslindale this month

A city pilot aimed at making Cummins Highway safer by reducing the number of lanes from four to two and adding dedicated bicycle paths will be extended from Wood Avenue to American Legion Highway by the end of the month - as the city looks at more permanent changes along the thoroughfare - a...
universalhub.com universalhub.com

I've ridden the pop-up lanes and they leave a lot to be desired, but mostly because they are easily violated by parkers. This proposal should be much better. This, combined with the similar plan for American Legion Hwy forms the missing link between the SW Corridor/Washington bike lanes and the Blue Hill Ave. corridor (along with the Neponset Greenway). This is what a networked route system is supposed to be.
 
HenryAlan said:
The city is moving ahead with the Cummins Hwy redesign which includes permanent protected bike lanes.

universalhub.com

Cummins Highway narrowing and bike lanes to be extended from Mattapan into Roslindale this month

A city pilot aimed at making Cummins Highway safer by reducing the number of lanes from four to two and adding dedicated bicycle paths will be extended from Wood Avenue to American Legion Highway by the end of the month - as the city looks at more permanent changes along the thoroughfare - a...
universalhub.com universalhub.com

I've ridden the pop-up lanes and they leave a lot to be desired, but mostly because they are easily violated by parkers. This proposal should be much better. This, combined with the similar plan for American Legion Hwy forms the missing link between the SW Corridor/Washington bike lanes and the Blue Hill Ave. corridor (along with the Neponset Greenway). This is what a networked route system is supposed to be.
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That's exciting. I think I had biked there once coming out of the Mattapan station area and that was scary. But, I've driven there a few times and I'm always shocked by the over-speed driving that seems very common there. It looks like It's amazing to see the cycling facility though in this area connecting the station area and almost to the stop&shop there. Glad to see the Phase 2 getting to ALH
 
HelloBostonHi said:
There is a ton of info here, here's the design plans for the permanent changes to the roads in downtown to add bike lanes around the common/garden. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/153b31bf6e7940c2820d67d983b9a931?utm_source=Transportation+&utm_campaign=2020-1008+Plans+&+Office+Hours&utm_medium=email
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I'm impressed by the promptness of work. Most painting/lane changes will be done by the end of next month, and barrels will remain until flex posts are available. Signals will be altered to the new system by the end of fall, it sounds.
 
stefal said:
I'm impressed by the promptness of work. Most painting/lane changes will be done by the end of next month, and barrels will remain until flex posts are available. Signals will be altered to the new system by the end of fall, it sounds.
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It is quite impressive - I think there's a few details that I'm going to comment on with some of the signal timings - it seems like there's some things that don't make sense but it's hard to tell when you don't know exactly the # of seconds between different steps in the signal plan.
 
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I couldn't tell what was going on when I saw the new lane markings when I was walking in. It is a little more apparent when you see it from above like this, but as you can see from the cars, they can't tell what to do either. Right now the cars are treating this new bike lane as a too small vehicle lane.
 
C-Town_Jeff said:
I couldn't tell what was going on when I saw the new lane markings when I was walking in. It is a little more apparent when you see it from above like this, but as you can see from the cars, they can't tell what to do either. Right now the cars are treating this new bike lane as a too small vehicle lane.
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Unfortunately, drivers pay no attention to paint in this town. When the flex posts go in, they'll start to get it. I'm seeing the exact same issue with the lane reconfigurations happening on American Legion and Cummins Hwy. I get what they are doing, because I follow the projects and as a regular bike rider understand the purpose. But nobody else will get it at all until those posts form a quasi-physical separation.
 
HenryAlan said:
Unfortunately, drivers pay no attention to paint in this town. When the flex posts go in, they'll start to get it. I'm seeing the exact same issue with the lane reconfigurations happening on American Legion and Cummins Hwy. I get what they are doing, because I follow the projects and as a regular bike rider understand the purpose. But nobody else will get it at all until those posts form a quasi-physical separation.
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Yeah, BU Bridge rotary is the same way. Nice logical new stripe job...same "make-believe lane" anarchy as ever. In that case flexposts are probably surplus-to-requirement. Simply rumble-stripping the lane markers like they do on highways would probably do the trick just for the tactile/audio feedback from overspilling the lane marker. I mean, they have to resurface that thing every few years anyway so I doubt the wear lifespan of your average rumble strip is all that different from existing re-topping cycles. State really doesn't seem to have much of a coherent policy on where they pull out those stops. I've heard that municipalities have to request the notched strips even when it's state-control highway going through town. If that's the way it is on normal non-expressway state roads, then forget DCR ever remembering to put in the request.
 
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As much as l want to, cant blame the cars here. Horrible execution by BTD with the paint. An 8’ bike lane without any bike markings or green paint adjacent to a 5’ shoulder with bike markings and green paint would confuse just about any motorist. Took me 10 minutes staring at it from overhead to figure it out.

Especially doesn’t help that BTD didn’t eradicate the sharrow in the bike lane; of course vehicles are going to be in a lane with a marking explicitly telling them they can use it.

Hopefully BTD comes through sooner rather than later and cleans up this mess. 9/10 idea, 2/10 execution (as of now).
 
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I guess we've gotta wait and see, but what do we think that lane will actually end up looking like? This can't be final right?
Or is it actually a two-way lane?

I swear, there are so many wacky intersections/terminations of lanes in this city. Lanes switching sides of the road, lanes becoming parallel parking and then swapping, etc. Just hope they put some bollards along this.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
There is a ton of info here, here's the design plans for the permanent changes to the roads in downtown to add bike lanes around the common/garden. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/153b31bf6e7940c2820d67d983b9a931?utm_source=Transportation+&utm_campaign=2020-1008+Plans+&+Office+Hours&utm_medium=email
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If you look at the intersection in this referenced plan, the current state speaks to an incomplete paint job. Looking at the photo, and starting from top to bottom, that "lane" that has the fading "sharrow" in it is going to be hatched with flex posts installed in the finished plan.

As this "lane" approaches the existing green painted bike lane, it narrows to accommodate a bicycle left turn bay to cross Cambridge Street.

"Work In Progress"
 
Wait, are they really expecting people to take a right on to Cambridge then make a U-turn to get over to Tremont?
I wish they would have just split the bike lanes to follow/parallel the car traffic and got rid of that dividing white hatched area between them.
bad drawing.PNG


I guess maybe the issue is finding a safe way to split off the bike lanes that way.
 
I think it's also because of the new signal timing. Court St and Cambridge St will have a green at the same time now, so bikes would have to cross two lanes of moving traffic to get to the bike lane on Tremont St.
 
Bananarama said:
I guess maybe the issue is finding a safe way to split off the bike lanes that way.
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That is very much the issue. Right now, the only people who ride through here are people comfortable merging in and out of car dominated lanes. The goal is to make other people feel comfortable and safe. I might prefer the direct route you've outlined, but for the vast majority of riders, that renders it impossible to use. However, it is counter-intuitive, and they will need some good signage to make clear what is the suggested routing.
 
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