Biking in Boston

FahrradFahren said:
A couple other observations about gaps in the proposed bike lanes:

View attachment 57746There's a big dip in bike lane quality where Blue Hill Ave intersects with Morton Street: there are no protected areas to wait for turns, and bike traffic is made to share space with cars throughout the intersection. Also note the parking on the northbound side of the street that will obscure drivers' view of cyclists, and the southbound lane sandwiched between police station parking and moving traffic. It looks like there should be plenty of room here for a real protected intersection.

View attachment 57747
At the northern end of the project area, the northbound bike lane disappears abruptly at Schuyler St, with the bikeway transitioning into a one-way southbound door-zone lane. Without extending the lane to a major intersection it's likely that there will be a gap in bike infrastructure here for decades, without any connection to potential future projects farther north on Warren Street or Blue Hill Ave.

For anyone who'd like to give feedback to the city on this design, there are three upcoming meetings to speak with the team working on the project:
  • On November 19th from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Sportsmen's Tennis and Enrichment Center in Harambee Park at 950 Blue Hill Avenue;
  • On November 21st from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library at 41 Geneva Avenue;
  • On December 4th, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Josh Kraft Mattapan Teen Center at 10 Hazleton Street
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It appears they are not making major modifications to the Morton intersection as it was just reconstructed.
 
cubbe8 said:
It appears they are not making major modifications to the Morton intersection as it was just reconstructed.
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That's probably why they've proposed this design, but it still feels like a missed opportunity though in the middle of such a good project. Seems really shortsighted to rebuild an intersection in the middle of planning the entire corridor rebuild, and then excluding that intersection from any safety improvements in the later plans.
 
KCasiglio said:
I really detest the "we shouldn't improve things in disadvantaged communities because then people will want to live there" argument.

I don't disagree that this makes Mattapan a more desirable area and will improve property values. I will disagree that those are bad things. The project and those effects are not the problem and should not be what advocates are focused on. Rent stabilization/assistance, upzoning, public housing....fight to make sure people who live there can continue to, but don't fight to keep neighborhoods worse.
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Sorry to clarify.. I agree with that point completely.. the only reason that these safety projects raise rents is that they add a viable alternative to driving. People are so damn desperate to have a viable alternative to driving and being stuck in traffic, that it's worth hundreds more in rent per month. That's a terrible reason to never build these improvements. The real solution is to make sure that every neighborhood has bus lanes, trains, and safe biking infrastructure so that it's no longer scarce.
 
Another thing that's worth looking at here is the transition from Blue Hill Ave to the under-construction Cummins Hwy. redesign. Cummins Hwy. is an amazing project for most of its length, but like some other Boston street redesigns (Tremont St. comes to mind) the project bounds didn't extend all the way to the next major intersection. As a result, the lanes south of Fairway St. became street level and are either separated from cars by flex posts or in the door zone of a parking lane.

The Blue Hill Ave plan doesn't look like it extends to Fairway St as of now, so it isn't remedying this dangerous block of Cummins Hwy. left by the previous project. And the southbound lane on Cummins Hwy. hasn't been given any protected connection to these new lanes.

I overlayed the Cummins Hwy. plan (outlined in red) on top of the Blue Hill Ave plan (outlined in green) for reference:
CumminsHwy-BlueHill.png


If the Cummins Hwy. project didn't make this this stretch of the street safe, and the Blue Hill Ave project won't either, then what project is supposed to address this block?
 
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What is the car traffic like for the Morton St/Blue Hills intersection right now? I know that used to spew cars from the Flames/24 Hour Pizza side of Morton St, but with the deconstruction of the Casey overpass it may be less now.

Also, is that 24 Hour Pizza front still on that corner? Always thought it was ballsy to put an obvious front right next to the Police Station.
 
bigeman312 said:
Morton St should get this treatment (center-running bus lanes, protected bike lanes) next. Then there would be a start to the core of a bus and bike network in Mattapan and Dorchester.
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It would be a great candidate for this. It seems like there's some lack of coordination between MassDOT and the city of Boston though.
In the last 5 years, MassDOT spent about $5.7 million on Morton Street from Blue Hill Ave to Harvard St and the intersection with Gallivan Blvd. These projects made marginal improvements to sidewalks, but don't do much for bike infrastructure and are generally still pretty unsafe. Both projects are finished as of 2022 and can be seen on Google Street View.
Judging by the lackluster bike infrastructure at the Morton/Blue Hill intersection in this plan, it seems like the city is reluctant to rip up work that the state recently did. I'm planning on going to the public comment meetings and asking about this.
 
bigeman312 said:
Morton St should get this treatment (center-running bus lanes, protected bike lanes) next. Then there would be a start to the core of a bus and bike network in Mattapan and Dorchester.
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I think this might be a street where drivers would appreciate a bus lane. If you're driving on Morton St, you really don't want to be in that right lane with the bus stopping so often.
 
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