Biking in Boston

bigeman312 said:
You're right that it's the main road to get people from Rozzie to Milton. Here is an accurate statement:
  • Cummins "Highway" is the main corridor to get between Roslindale and Milton/Quincy.
Here is an inaccurate statement:
  • Cummins "Highway" is the main corridor to get between western Boston suburbs and Milton/Quincy.
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I think it’s a question of semantics; I would have been clearer what I had meant, which is "the suburban portions of the city of Boston, to the west of the urban core of Boston". Although I am not sure why anyone would think I was claiming the Cummins was used by people in the long list of towns you put forth in your previous post. Maybe you are wanting to pick a fight, as your the tone of your language suggests? If so, I dont want one.
bigeman312 said:
You post edgy and terrible takes in the housing thread, so I assumed based on the statement above that you were trolling again. I also assumed it would be self-evident that something being the main corridor for one neighborhood versus "western Boston suburbs" are not equivalent.

It appears that my assumptions were wrong and maybe you are not trolling. I misjudged why you post the things you do, so I apologize for that. I will be sure to simplify and lighten my tone towards you from now on.
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I’m not sure what you mean by “you post edgy and terrible takes in the housing thread”, but hopefully you wouldn’t speak that way to me in person. And to be honest, I don’t know what you mean. Are you confusing me with someone else? I speak what I feel on here, sometimes strongly, but I’ve posted almost 3,000 things on here (apparently) but I have never once been called a troll or trolling. I also have no negative associations with your posts, so really not sure what this about. At any rate, there's no need to trash someone's entire posting history. I find this exchange pretty rude, to be honest. And leaving an apology after being personally insulting isn't much of an apology, but I'm good, no need to derail this further. Peace.
 
Moving North...

I'm confused by the new McGrath Hwy plan to put 2-way bike lanes on both sides of the street, in addition to wide sidewalks. I'm not sure who this is helping exactly... It's taking elevated pavement, and turning it into grounded pavement with a few extra trees. Somerville loves bikes, but if there is really a future need for 2 bike lanes + a bike path 1 block away?
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The new vision would demolish the overpass and reduce the number of car lanes to two in each direction from Somerville’s Broadway to Lechmere in Cambridge. (MassDOT says car volume on McGrath has dropped by a third since 2011.) It also would add sidewalks, medians with green space and two-way, separated bike lanes — on both sides of the street in some areas. New slate of renderings which you can scroll through here.
 
Vagabond said:
Moving North...

I'm confused by the new McGrath Hwy plan to put 2-way bike lanes on both sides of the street, in addition to wide sidewalks. I'm not sure who this is helping exactly... It's taking elevated pavement, and turning it into grounded pavement with a few extra trees. Somerville loves bikes, but if there is really a future need for 2 bike lanes + a bike path 1 block away?
View attachment 47878
View attachment 47879
The new vision would demolish the overpass and reduce the number of car lanes to two in each direction from Somerville’s Broadway to Lechmere in Cambridge. (MassDOT says car volume on McGrath has dropped by a third since 2011.) It also would add sidewalks, medians with green space and two-way, separated bike lanes — on both sides of the street in some areas. New slate of renderings which you can scroll through here.
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Agree… I wish they’d try to make a real linear park the entire length, by consolidating the greenspace rather than having thin strips of single rows of trees. We all know vulnerable to salt damage those tend to be, and they don’t amount to useable greenspace, either. That second bike lane ROW could add a lot of green.
 
Vagabond said:
Moving North...

I'm confused by the new McGrath Hwy plan to put 2-way bike lanes on both sides of the street, in addition to wide sidewalks. I'm not sure who this is helping exactly... It's taking elevated pavement, and turning it into grounded pavement with a few extra trees. Somerville loves bikes, but if there is really a future need for 2 bike lanes + a bike path 1 block away?
View attachment 47878
View attachment 47879
The new vision would demolish the overpass and reduce the number of car lanes to two in each direction from Somerville’s Broadway to Lechmere in Cambridge. (MassDOT says car volume on McGrath has dropped by a third since 2011.) It also would add sidewalks, medians with green space and two-way, separated bike lanes — on both sides of the street in some areas. New slate of renderings which you can scroll through here.
Click to expand...
The path goes west and the highway goes north.

And with a boulevard it's not unusual to have bidirectional bike facilities on either side since people are acting local destinations.
 
as02143 said:
The path goes west and the highway goes north.

And with a boulevard it's not unusual to have bidirectional bike facilities on either side since people are acting local destinations.
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Agreed. It's necessary to have ped and bike trails on both sides of the road to serve the residential and commercial areas abutting the road corridor on both sides.
 
Vagabond said:
I'm confused by the new McGrath Hwy plan to put 2-way bike lanes on both sides of the street, in addition to wide sidewalks. I'm not sure who this is helping exactly... It's taking elevated pavement, and turning it into grounded pavement with a few extra trees. Somerville loves bikes, but if there is really a future need for 2 bike lanes + a bike path 1 block away?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've been confused by that, too. Personally, I'd prefer wide single way paths, if they are going to give that much space to bike lanes. But I think my perspective is that of somebody who bikes through that area, rather than in that area. Both @as02143 and @Charlie_mta point out why the two way tracks might be useful. If the bike rider's goal is to stop somewhere along the route, it is helpful to be able to ride on the side of the street of their destination, as crossing the highway might prove difficult. This is, admittedly, something I hadn't considered, but makes a lot of sense.

Interesting to note, that the same thing was done with the Arborway, when the viaduct was removed. There are two way tracks on both sides of it, which can certainly be helpful for continued bike flow to various destinations where the road is too challenging to cross. Perhaps that's the reason, and we should leave it at that, but the idea of a true linear park as @FK4 promotes is definitely appealing. I guess this is all to say that what makes sense depends quite a bit on what your use purpose will be.
 
soundguise said:
Happy to see it.

Also, I thought we had learned our lesson from Vassar St that there needs to be some buffer between the cycle track and the walking are to reduce conflicts.
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It's amazing the consistency in high design standards each time a full reconstruction is done in Cambridge. See River St, Inman Sq, Lechmere redesign, Broadway/Gallileo intersection, Harvard Square reconstruction plans, etc. Cambridge is going to look like a very different place by 2026.
 
HenryAlan said:
If the bike rider's goal is to stop somewhere along the route, it is helpful to be able to ride on the side of the street of their destination, as crossing the highway might prove difficult. This is, admittedly, something I hadn't considered, but makes a lot of sense.
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I take issue with the bolded. If they’re redesigning the whole thing anyway, can’t we just get rid of this problem all together? Why are we still calling it a highway post-grounding?
 
Blackbird said:
I take issue with the bolded. If they’re redesigning the whole thing anyway, can’t we just get rid of this problem all together? Why are we still calling it a highway post-grounding?
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I would love to see lane reductions and other steps to facilitate safety and accessibility. But that's not what they are designing. By all means, advocate for converting this in to something that isn't a highway. But under the current concept, we want bike facilities in tune with the highway reality, unfortunate though that might be in terms of the big picture.
 
#bancars said:
The new Moderna building in Kendall comes with a sidewalk-level cycletrack (don't think it is 100% complete yet):
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I believe a bluebikes station along the tracks is being installed there today.
 
HenryAlan said:
I would love to see lane reductions and other steps to facilitate safety and accessibility. But that's not what they are designing. By all means, advocate for converting this in to something that isn't a highway. But under the current concept, we want bike facilities in tune with the highway reality, unfortunate though that might be in terms of the big picture.
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I’m unlikely to advocate for a change to the McGrath for 2 reasons: first, although I do drive to Union via this route once every other week, I’m a Medford resident not a Somerville one. Second, I don’t have the time and energy.

That said, I find your position to be defeatist. Just because we don’t have the power to change this doesn’t mean we have to force ourselves to be happy about it.
 
Blackbird said:
I’m unlikely to advocate for a change to the McGrath for 2 reasons: first, although I do drive to Union via this route once every other week, I’m a Medford resident not a Somerville one. Second, I don’t have the time and energy.

That said, I find your position to be defeatist. Just because we don’t have the power to change this doesn’t mean we have to force ourselves to be happy about it.
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Strange, since my position supports decent bike infrastructure, whereas yours specifically supports nothing. But you do you.
 
Blackbird said:
I take issue with the bolded. If they’re redesigning the whole thing anyway, can’t we just get rid of this problem all together? Why are we still calling it a highway post-grounding?
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This seems a bit ... pedantic?

Somerville's electeds have given the raison-d'etre for this project to be making it a "Boulevard" (like those fancy streets in Paris). McGrath Highway will be renamed McGrath Boulevard if they have their chance. So, the critique is moot?

(To be honest, most Monsignors around here very likely have some sort of skeleton in the closet - related to a cover up -- so it might be renamed for someone else.)
 
as02143 said:
This seems a bit ... pedantic?

Somerville's electeds have given the raison-d'etre for this project to be making it a "Boulevard" (like those fancy streets in Paris). McGrath Highway will be renamed McGrath Boulevard if they have their chance. So, the critique is moot?

(To be honest, most Monsignors around here very likely have some sort of skeleton in the closet - related to a cover up -- so it might be renamed for someone else.)
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I cant stand the road names like this--whether theyre Catholic clergymen, police, or local politicians, they all smack of local graft and rarely actually represent anything or anyone most local people support, know about, or would care about. How about letting the citizens vote and having it actually be a contemporary leader or local hero?
 
HenryAlan said:
Strange, since my position supports decent bike infrastructure, whereas yours specifically supports nothing. But you do you.
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A road diet on the McGrath is nothing?

When did I say I didn’t want decent bike infrastructure?

Do you always resort to childish passive aggression when someone disagrees with you?

as02143 said:
This seems a bit ... pedantic?

Somerville's electeds have given the raison-d'etre for this project to be making it a "Boulevard" (like those fancy streets in Paris). McGrath Highway will be renamed McGrath Boulevard if they have their chance. So, the critique is moot?
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Henry described it as “a highway” regardless of any planned name changes and cited the difficulty in crossing it as justification for having two separate 2-lane bike paths on either side of the street.

You could kill 2 birds with one stone in terms of saving/optimizing space if you narrowed/slowed the road and had uni-directional bike paths on either side.
 
You are railing against an identified inadequacy but specifically saying you won't do anything about it. I appreciate that there will be bike lanes in a circumstance we all acknowledge as less than perfect. We can leave for others to determine what is childish, but I'm done with this pointless back and forth.
 
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