Yeah, it is simultaneously funny and frustrating. The Chelsea example is on Beecham Street, and actually caused me to crash in to a tree branch as I moved to avoid a pole. After that, I didn't ride on it until the re-location had happened. I think that was a city project, but I believe this one is MassDOT. No idea whether that makes completion likely to happen any faster.
Late, but:
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Unfortunately, not to be knee jerk cynical, but the unaware and rude behavior of, especially, students, is going to be an issue here. The lanes by Ruggles are completely clogged with kids walking in the bike lanes, and despite all the apologist debates here recently for how people might somehow miss markings, the lanes by NEU are: painted a different color, heavily signed ON THE PAVEMENT and off, and couldn’t be missed. I expect the same will happen here. Oh well, I’ll still take a nearly unusable lane clogged by inconsiderate pedestrians to the threat of bodily injury and death by truck.Eyes On the Street: The New Western Ave. Bike Lanes - Streetsblog Massachusetts
Thanks to reader Emily Jacobsen for sharing these photos of the new bike lanes on Western Avenue, where City of Boston workers have been installing new flexible-post bollards over the past week. “It is not quite complete, but it will be a total game changer for people commuting out of...
I know that Allston has a reputation for being a student center but the area immediately around NEU is vastly different to Western Avenue in lower Allston, since, much of the area is still light industrial and loosely related to Harvard.
This has been my experience too -- central areas of Boston are busier, denser, and often provide too much space for parking and motor vehicle use -- meaning people walking and biking get short shrift in the roadway design. That's been, imo, more of the issue with errant walkers in bike lanes.
I've found that just ringing the bluebike bell is enough to get people to politely step out of the way. Having a protected bike lane doesn't mean you will always have the right of way and you will be able to ride non-stop. We can all do our part to fight the "helmetless, out-of-control, threatening biker" stereotype by being polite, ringing our bell to remind people, and yielding to those who are more vulnerable than us (people on foot).
Agreed. Rushing around and getting angry on the road just isn't helpful; we'll all get where we're going at about the same speed anyway once you factor in the traffic lights. Might as well relax and enjoy the ride!
Exactly. And when you consider how much bike advocacy is focused on the idea that the road is shared and bike riders have the right to use it, while car drivers have the obligation to accommodate our greater vulnerability, it is absolutely necessary for us to view the bike lanes in the same way. Whether by ordinance or not, pedestrians are using the bike paths for various reasons, I try to accept that and be decent toward them.
I agree that bells are good ways to alert people. However, in these sorts of conversations it usually goes the way way, where an artificial polarity is drawn where bikers are expected to be totally amiable and forgiving of anything pedestrians do, regardless, or else they’re the angry, hair across his ass screaming biker dude. There is room between these two and there should be a movement—organized and concerted—toward more courteous behavior. That includes bikes but it also includes pedestrians. While it is unrealistic to expect to never encounter a walking soul on a bike path where they should not be walking, there are certain areas where this is a problem and it renders the path itself useless. The stretch I’m referring to by northeastern is an example of that, and while it was predictable that a college campus sidewalk path will be overrun by students, it does beg the question, why is it there at all? And moreover, it IS a leg of the SWC park, and as such, there ought to be etiquette lessons from the university that has benefited from all sorts of city amenities to now creep its way into Roxbury and vomit its students all over the transportation corridor.
This is probably the smartest and most thoughtful method of being a cyclist, but I feel like it's a hard sell to many Bostonians. I know I'm a Pedestrian in Boston when I'm flipping off a driver who's being a knucklehead. I know when I'm a Driver in Boston when I'm flipping off a driver who's being a knucklehead. (Mostly kidding)
Totally right here, but the lift is so big. I always think about the driving tip to "drive predictably" – we have generations of drivers in the Boston area whose expectations are that everyone else is going to drive like a dick.
Do we accept that there won't be random people in the middle of the road? Jaywalking is a Commonwealth pastime.
True, and this was in my mind as I posted that! But, still, there's a difference between accepting that pedestrians love to stride in front of vehicles in this town, as opposed to seeing a throng of walkers right in the middle of the road, which is another level, and that is what happens on certain bike ways.
Re the lift, it's big, but it is possible to change local culture thru concerted campaigns. This would require a lot of effort and organization by the city—billboards, working with police departments and schools, public works department, etc. But it has to start with acknowledging that there is a problem. The chorus of responses I usually get here claiming that other cities have the same problems and there's nothing specifically annoying about the way people act in this city suggests that even acknowledgment is an uphill battle.
Occasionally, cities or countries make concerted efforts at culture change for various things: London, Singapore, and Japan have all done this regarding overall courtesy / patience with people in transit, not just car drivers. It’s possible. What puzzles me on this board is that most people instantly become either apologists or deniers for the ped and bike behavior so obviously out there. This is not about which group has more “right” to behave in such a way, and the physical vulnerability of these groups compared to cars in no way has anything to do with the fact that in a dense, modern city, finding out how to socialize human beings so they behave with respect toward other bodies they encounter in public is an important goal, or should be.
Physical separation is the only thing I've ever seen do the trick. And by that, I don't mean different grade levels, flex posts, or other porous but decorative items. I mean fencing. In Paris there are a lot of bike lanes with rot iron fences separating them from the sidewalk. It works, although there is a downside in that destinations along the route become less easily accessed by the bike riders.
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