Biking in Boston

Reading into "to support bikeshare operations" I suspect that some of the MAPC awarded money is going to fund the electrification of some of the stations rather than just being a straight expansion project.

So the station electrification is planned to be funded by MAPC's federal congestion relief grant. The focus is going to be on the busiest stations. The "support bikeshare operations" in here is going to go towards subsidizing the cost of ebikes for the end user. TBD on the details of that.
 
The new bluebikes operating contract is now in effect. The old one dated to I think around 2017? Either way, I anticipate some price hikes coming soon, though hopefully paired with user improvements and expansion.
 
Can't speak to pricing aside from the above but there will be A LOT of expansion. Removing the per-station operating costs for munis outside of Bos/Camb/Somerville is massive.
 
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Somerville recently (last week) published it's final plan for the "Elm-Beacon Connector." Generally looks quite good, cleans up the messy that is the Willow-Beech movement, removes through vehiclular traffic from Mossland via providing a bike filter. That second one I expect will get pushback from drivers, especially since Cedar-Beacon is fairly common for magoun and winter hill.

 

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Huh. That's a hugely popular driving route they're closing down, despite it being a huge PITA due to the ~5-second green interval for Mossland. I hope they've done traffic analyses to determine where the people currently going from Cedar to Beacon are going to go instead. Probably through the parking lot of the Starbucks at Elm St & Somerville Ave, unless they close that cut-through.
 
View attachment 72107
Somerville recently (last week) published it's final plan for the "Elm-Beacon Connector." Generally looks quite good, cleans up the messy that is the Willow-Beech movement, removes through vehiclular traffic from Mossland via providing a bike filter. That second one I expect will get pushback from drivers, especially since Cedar-Beacon is fairly common for magoun and winter hill.

The mossland design seems great, feels like a lot of streets I've seen in Montreal.
 
View attachment 72107
Somerville recently (last week) published it's final plan for the "Elm-Beacon Connector." Generally looks quite good, cleans up the messy that is the Willow-Beech movement, removes through vehiclular traffic from Mossland via providing a bike filter. That second one I expect will get pushback from drivers, especially since Cedar-Beacon is fairly common for magoun and winter hill.

I love the addition of protected bike lanes on Elm, especially between Beech and Cutter. That is a major bike corridor between Davis/Tufts/Teele/West_Somerville/Medford_Hillside and Mass Ave and points south (Cambridge, Back Bay, Fenway, Allston, Brighton, etc).

I love the redesigned Beech/Elm intersection. That intersection is in desperate need of a redesign. The added pedestrian space there is a big value-add, as well.
 
Huh. That's a hugely popular driving route they're closing down, despite it being a huge PITA due to the ~5-second green interval for Mossland. I hope they've done traffic analyses to determine where the people currently going from Cedar to Beacon are going to go instead. Probably through the parking lot of the Starbucks at Elm St & Somerville Ave, unless they close that cut-through.
Yes, they did a detailed traffic analysis once dead-ending Mossland became a serious option: https://voice.somervillema.gov/25883/widgets/87454/documents/65510

They will be making signal timing changes at the Somerville Ave intersections at the end of Elm St as well as at Beacon St to accommodate where they think Cedar > Mossland traffic will divert. They said they can't do anything about the Starbucks/laundromat cut through since it's private property, but the property owner is aware of the planned changes and will probably put in speed bumps or something to discourage that behavior.
 
This could go in several threads, unfortunately. . .

So I generally like Streetsblog, but this while this one has merit on the whole it suffers from a couple of issues... Namely, it conflates total project budgets with what was actually programmed for spending in FY27 and beyond. JP South/Centre is described as having a $1M budget being cut to zero... Most of that is already spent with 840k/$1M expended. Bus lanes should have already spent ~8.9/13.45M this and prior fiscal years.

Comm Ave 3&4 spent 1/2.5, and the 11M from the 3B part unlike most projects didn't even have a funding authorization, havin listed it as "future" for years... There's some nuance that's been missed here, especially since Comm Ave seems to have been picked up a new 2M transit improvements project.
 
So I generally like Streetsblog, but this while this one has merit on the whole it suffers from a couple of issues... Namely, it conflates total project budgets with what was actually programmed for spending in FY27 and beyond. JP South/Centre is described as having a $1M budget being cut to zero... Most of that is already spent with 840k/$1M expended. Bus lanes should have already spent ~8.9/13.45M this and prior fiscal years.

Comm Ave 3&4 spent 1/2.5, and the 11M from the 3B part unlike most projects didn't even have a funding authorization, havin listed it as "future" for years... There's some nuance that's been missed here, especially since Comm Ave seems to have been picked up a new 2M transit improvements project.
Thanks. I enjoy what Streetsblog does but sometimes I wish they'd cool it with the sensationalism. Like, I'm already mad about bike lanes and transit, the facts are strong enough on their own.
 
IDK, I think it might be time for transit people to play dirty. I personally don't care if Streetsblog lies about this stuff if it puts pressure on the right people. MassDOT plays with our lives every day, why give them an inch?
 
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IDK, I think it might be time for transit people to play dirty. I personally don't care if Streetsblog lies about this stuff if it puts pressure on the right people. MassDOT plays with our lives every day, why give them an inch?
Because making large mistakes or intentionally lying/misleading torpedoes their credibility and greatly reduces how seriously anything they have to say will be taken in the future, perhaps?

You can find plenty of outlets that have taken that path and gone from being taken seriously to ignored by most.
 

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