Biking in Boston

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The segment of the Grand Junction path alongside Galileo Galilei looks almost complete.
 
sneijder said:
I don't get why bike delivery couriers are not more common? The infrastructure is getting better, most trips are short enough where bikes are faster, you get some exercise, and you don't have to worry about illegally parking where you might actually be able to get more orders done per hour. And you don't have to maintain a $20k liability or pay for gas or insurance.

The city should be doing more to incentivize all intra-city deliveries to be done on bike.
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That might be tough with the Amazon delivery of my big bag of dog food or the case of paper towels!
 
This debate is a little bonkers to me.

Large items will continue to require trucks. Obviously.

But so many deliveries I see are just: a bag of takeout food, or a phone case from Amazon, or two shirts from Temu. In the Inner Core, those can and should be done by bike. The Commonweath should incentivize it somehow. It'd help with traffic, safety, road wear, and CO2 emissions. Everyone wins. Right?
 
JeffDowntown said:
Yeah, that holds ONE BIG CASE of paper towels.
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I think you're underestimating the size a little bit. You'd need a Costco-sized pack for that to be true. It's big enough for all but the biggest family grocery runs, which is what I'd consider to be the benchmark. For an individual household owning or even just infrequently renting one would pretty much cover your everyday needs.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Yeah, that holds ONE BIG CASE of paper towels. They they have to ride back to the distribution center for another house's delivery.
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As someone who does instacart delivery, and in fact does a lot of BJs delivery in particular, I think we’re falling into the trap of arguing about irrelevant theoreticals. The closest BJs to Boston are all right along 128. The closest Costco to Boston is in Everett. People aren’t getting BJs or Costco sized anything delivered to the south end by e-bike because of the distance.

Your normal and even above average shaws/market basket/etc order is going to have no problem in a cargo bike.
 
Blackbird said:
The Medford BJs is well within 128.
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You got me. I’m not as familiar with north of Boston because I’m never delivering up there. I was thinking of Quincy, Dedham, and Waltham. It’s also, unlike the Everett Costco, clearly accessible by bike. That being said, I don’t think that changes that *most orders* can be handled by a cargo bike. There will always be those “ten cases of water” orders that can’t be, but those are a small minority.

What’s really needed here, and instacart refuses to share, is the data about these orders. They track things like the weight of the order (built into the pay), average distance, and of course where the demand is. All of this would be invaluable for bike freight planning.
 
That’s not surprising, given that they acted less like a gig vendor. I think their drivers were employees, which harkened back to Kozmo.com back in the dot-com bubble.
 
FK4 said:
For almost two years, I biked to 1354 Comm Ave from South Brookline (close to Allandale Farm), and since I usually got off at 11 pm, and also had night classes in Cambridge. So I had daily long and late commutes home. Lee was always worrisome, but at least it had a shoulder up until Clyde, when the shoulder narrowed. But it was and remains the intersection with Grove that is the most dangerous… right at a big intersection where everyone is jockeying for position, you lose the whole shoulder and most of Grove has no bike lane, then you’re watching for cars speeding up to turn right on Newton. That’s the leg that really needs to be addressed now, in my opinion.
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Did this stretch today during evening rush hour. Insanely dangerous from Clyde around the bend to Grove. Grove is just a four-lane drag strip with zero shoulder, you lose the bike lane at the Clyde/Grove intersection where the two-lane right turn is, then you are exposed to traffic turning right onto Newton at the Exxon. Beyond that, if youre hoping to go left on Allandale, good luck, and if youre going straight, its 40 mph right up to the rotary. It really blows my mind that Brookline has allowed it to just exist as is for so long... I think this very well may be the single most dangerous stretch of road in Brookline. At least Newton St has more of a shoulder and somehow, for whatever reason, a less aggressive vibe.
 
Does anyone know the status of the project to extend the Northern Strand trail to Nahant via Downtown Lynn? The latest I can find is that construction was "planned before the end of 2023", but I am assuming it has not even started yet due to the lack of chatter on it.
 
-anarresti- said:
Does anyone know the status of the project to extend the Northern Strand trail to Nahant via Downtown Lynn? The latest I can find is that construction was "planned before the end of 2023", but I am assuming it has not even started yet due to the lack of chatter on it.
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It's under contract, with early utilities/surveying work underway now. I recommend the monthly Bike to the Sea newsletter for updates:
https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8c193009bd382d3ea7d456b0&id=4606829e5f
 
Somerville City Council votes unanimously to upstage Cambridge's Cycling Safety Ordinance:

mass.streetsblog.org

New Somerville Safe Streets Ordinance Mandates 30-Mile Protected Bike Lane Network By 2030 - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Last week, the Somerville City Council unanimously endorsed a new Safe Streets Ordinance that will set a 2030 deadline for the city to build out a 30-mile network of new protected bike lanes across the city. The city’s new Safe Streets ordinance bears many similarities to the Cycling Safety...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
 
StreetsblogMASS said:
Somerville City Council votes unanimously to upstage Cambridge's Cycling Safety Ordinance:

mass.streetsblog.org

New Somerville Safe Streets Ordinance Mandates 30-Mile Protected Bike Lane Network By 2030 - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Last week, the Somerville City Council unanimously endorsed a new Safe Streets Ordinance that will set a 2030 deadline for the city to build out a 30-mile network of new protected bike lanes across the city. The city’s new Safe Streets ordinance bears many similarities to the Cycling Safety...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
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This is also a big win for Cantabrigians given how interconnected the street systems of Cambridge and Somerville are!
 
-anarresti- said:
Does anyone know the status of the project to extend the Northern Strand trail to Nahant via Downtown Lynn? The latest I can find is that construction was "planned before the end of 2023", but I am assuming it has not even started yet due to the lack of chatter on it.
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To add some to the information from @StreetsblogMASS, I rode the complete route earlier this month, and you could see pavement markings and other indications of prep work. It will likely be completed within a year.
 
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