Biking the Boston 'Burbs (Trails, MDC, & Towns beyond Hubway area)

The Tri-Community Greenway in Stoneham/Woburn/Winchester is out to bid, selection is expected in a few months and construction should be mostly complete by the end of 2017:

Fantastic news! It's finally happened. Appeals and paperwork have all been filed and MassDOT has advertised the bid for the construction on the Tri-Community.

What does this mean? It means MassDOT will select a contractor from those who apply. That will likely happen in December or January. Construction should begin next spring after a ceremonial groundbreaking. The winning contractor is the one who sets the construction schedule, so we don't yet know whether they will start on the Stoneham or the Winchester end. The piece likely to take the most time is the new bridge over the Aberjona River in Woburn. The construction is expected to largely finished in 2017, but some plantings or landscaping might end up waiting until the spring of 2018.

This is a huge step for the project and we are incredibly excited to see this greenway, over 25 years in the making finally take this leap. We can't wait to get out there and walk and ride.
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Scipio said:
The Tri-Community Greenway in Stoneham/Woburn/Winchester is out to bid, selection is expected in a few months and construction should be mostly complete by the end of 2017:
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That's kind of a strange routing in Winchester, staying on-street instead of using the mostly unenchroached Woburn Branch ROW. Much easier to go all the way to Woburn Ctr. grabbing that at Skillings Rd., and much easier to spur to the lakefront after Cross St. with a turnout trail head at the Lake Ave. intersection. Wonder if intra-town controversies torpedoed that routing, because the final-design map on this segment seems a lot harder than it ever needs to be.

Rest of it looks mighty spiffy, though. Be nice if Medford and DCR joined the party sooner rather than later to take it down Mystic Valley Pkwy to West Medford and hook into the Mystic path system and its vast interconnections at Alewife and Wellington.


Also...jeez, does a Mishawum-displacement commuter rail station at Montvale look like a tasty future addition. Stoneham Branch is so well grade-separated to downtown it's Minuteman-Arlington level convenient for Stoneham residents to utilize as a bona fide commuter walkway to the train. Too bad Town of Woburn have been complete spazzes about any advocacy whatsoever for a self-serving infill. Montvale would offer them a direct 354 bus stop and walking distance access from their downtown, in addition to all the Stoneham convenience to the east. This site is begging for a multimodal node.
 
Newton's new transportation strategy includes the selection of a bike sharing service provider in the next 18 months, per the Globe. Will they Hubway or won't they?
 
ErnieAdams said:
Newton's new transportation strategy includes the selection of a bike sharing service provider in the next 18 months, per the Globe. Will they Hubway or won't they?
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Strangely there is no mention of Nicole Freedman in that article. She's the one who spearheaded Hubway in Boston and now she's the Newton DPW transportation director.
 
Newton finally discusses a +2yr old proposal to install a bike lane on Walnut Street; unanimously rejects the proposal because it "would be too dangerous" and bike lanes should only be installed "in safe areas."

http://imgur.com/a/LIH1T
 
I could not slap my forehead hard enough. Apparently the solution now to a street not being safe enough is to NOT install safety improvements?
 
chmeeee said:
I could not slap my forehead hard enough. Apparently the solution now to a street not being safe enough is to NOT install safety improvements?
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If you can't maintain a safe geometry, you shouldn't communicate to users that the road is safer than it is. For a bike lane to be "safety improvement", it has to be safe.
 
Equilibria said:
If you can't maintain a safe geometry, you shouldn't communicate to users that the road is safer than it is. For a bike lane to be "safety improvement", it has to be safe.
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Did you bother to read the transcript & look at the pictures the person provided? The road is incredibly wide. Narrowing the drive lanes & adding bike lanes would improve the overall safety of the street.
 
datadyne007 said:
Did you bother to read the transcript & look at the pictures the person provided? The road is incredibly wide. Narrowing the drive lanes & adding bike lanes would improve the overall safety of the street.
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The pictures they chose don't do it justice because they picked just about the narrowest spot on the stretch in question to take those shots. I would've run with something more like this to illustrate. This is the part of Walnut right in front of Newton North HS on the 59 bus, spanning between Comm Ave. and Newtonville station where 3 other E-W buses converge. Absolutely a critical corridor. And high school kids riding bikes to school is probably the #1 need rising above all others given how centrally located Newton North is to all the residential framed in a wedge by MA 16 to the north and MA 30 to the south.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
And high school kids riding bikes to school is probably the #1 need rising above all others given how centrally located Newton North is to all the residential framed in a wedge by MA 16 to the north and MA 30 to the south.
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In fact I think the whole reason Walnut street is getting attention again is because a high school student got hit by a driver a few weeks back. He's recovering and now working with Bike Newton on advocacy from his wheelchair.

That crash happened on the segment of Walnut street that does already have bike lanes though, so obviously they aren't a panacea when 93 year old drivers are in the mix.
 
Meanwhile, on the Minuteman Trail in Arlington:


2nd car I see on the trail in a month. First one had Ohio plates, entered at the Ed Burns Skating Rink in Arlington, went very slow and turned around within 11 feet.

This person, with MA plates, got on at the Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington (Frazer Rd) and drove at about 15mph almost all the way to Park Ave (where this picture was taken). Looked like they knew they were in the wrong place and were trying to find an exit quickly (and not very safely) instead of turning around. Finally made the u-turn once they realized it's not easy to exit and got off at the same spot they got on

Honest mistakes, I believe, but the question is - what is the best place to report this so that signage is improved to prevent more of these happening?
 
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autonomy said:
Meanwhile, on the Minuteman Trail in Arlington:


2nd car I see on the trail in a month. First one had Ohio plates, entered at the Ed Burns Skating Rink in Arlington, went very slow and turned around within 11 feet.

This person, with MA plates, got on at the Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington (Frazer Rd) and drove at about 15mph almost all the way to Park Ave (where this picture was taken). Looked like they knew they were in the wrong place and were trying to find an exit quickly (and not very safely) instead of turning around. Finally made the u-turn once they realized it's not easy to exit and got off at the same spot they got on

Honest mistakes, I believe, but the question is - what is the best place to report this so that signage is improved to prevent more of these happening?
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It's a DCR trail so that would be state police if you're quoting a license plate number. DCR has their own traffic ticketing office, but since commuter paths don't have the constant park ranger presence like state park and associated roads/lots do it defaults to State Troopers who patrol DCR roadways as first responders. If it's somebody actively parked there and getting them to scram is time sensitive, obviously local PD would be the best bet on quickest response.



Jeez...how did people drive 5 years ago without the ubiquity of GPS and ceding all brain function to the GPS? You'd think the highways would've been all full of pulled-over cars with sobbing drivers waiting in line at those old landline highway emergency call boxes calling for help from Mommy. Yet somehow we managed to get by with wayfinding just peachy in the days before Siri.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
Jeez...how did people drive 5 years ago without the ubiquity of GPS and ceding all brain function to the GPS? You'd think the highways would've been all full of pulled-over cars with sobbing drivers waiting in line at those old landline highway emergency call boxes calling for help from Mommy. Yet somehow we managed to get by with wayfinding just peachy in the days before Siri.
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I don't miss the map days. I was the guy who had the complete collection of detailed maps and atlases (preferably from Alexandria Drafting Co or Michelin) and knew how to use them and it was a tough and lonely life.

The clueless were with us then and always will be, and a lot of people spent a lot of time writing and reading very bad directions (my favorite was the directions to a wedding reception which read <no lie> "about 5 miles before town, turn right on Hebron Valley Road")

I think the problem for the bike paths that people are driving ever more distracted and are taking less and less time to anticipate/admit the quirks of navigating (like do you really know which left when the GPS says "turn left"

The GPS folks also need to do a better job of tying the car's heading and speed to the phone's. It is too easy for a phone held vertically to guess wrong about which way the car is heading. I really wish that my car had a compass and comlink to my phone on which it would share what the car thinks its current heading and speed are.
 
The City of Waltham has released its draft Traffic master plan with several bicycle improvements including a wider use of bike sharrows to make a actual bike network. Also installation of bike lanes along sections of Main Stree & Lexington Street as well as Gore Street, Seyon Street, Vernon Street, Charles Street, Highland Street & Felton Street is being proposed. The consultant also recommends the City build it's section of the Wayside trail and possibly join the Hubway Bike share. Also bike parking in downtown city lots.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Jeez...how did people drive 5 years ago without the ubiquity of GPS and ceding all brain function to the GPS? You'd think the highways would've been all full of pulled-over cars with sobbing drivers waiting in line at those old landline highway emergency call boxes calling for help from Mommy. Yet somehow we managed to get by with wayfinding just peachy in the days before Siri.
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Stupid people were always stupid. They just made different stupid mistakes.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's a DCR trail so that would be state police if you're quoting a license plate number. DCR has their own traffic ticketing office, but since commuter paths don't have the constant park ranger presence like state park and associated roads/lots do it defaults to State Troopers who patrol DCR roadways as first responders. If it's somebody actively parked there and getting them to scram is time sensitive, obviously local PD would be the best bet on quickest response.
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The car was too far so I wasn't able to see the plate, just that it was a Mass plate. Would DCR still care to address the problem if I didn't give them a plate? BTW, how come the picture was removed?
 
autonomy said:
The car was too far so I wasn't able to see the plate, just that it was a Mass plate. Would DCR still care to address the problem if I didn't give them a plate? BTW, how come the picture was removed?
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If this is an occurrence you've noticed happening more often I'd absolutely report it to DCR so they can assign more regular patrols. They do care about that stuff because it's conservation land and a liability issue. If it's just a one-time thing, obviously just a one-time thing. But if you see again, get the plate number if it's visible because DCR's ticketing office will ding the driver with a fine.
 
Weymouth just opened another section of road through the former Naval Air Station and current Union Point development. "Patriot Parkway" includes what are probably the first suburban parking protected bike lanes in the state:

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