Commonwealth Avenue Improvement Project

I'm a huge fan of Toole Design Group. Boston picked the right design consultants for this job!
 
MassDOT approved the $20.4 million redo of Comm Ave with dedicated bike lanes & bus islands between Packards Corner & the BU Bridge today.

http://www.universalhub.com/2016/dedicated-bike-lanes-part-204-million-redo-comm

See previous page for renders.

Eh, I'll throw em here:
datadyne007 said:
Protected bike lane & bus boarding islands!! This looks like Europe!!

From Twitter:
https://twitter.com/tooledesign/status/580506848916344833
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https://twitter.com/StreetsBoston/status/580501312959320064
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The Commonwealth Magazine article on the approval says: "...The project also includes transit signal prioritization – where transit vehicles are given preference at stop lights."

http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/20-4m-comm-ave-reconstruction-approved/

That'd be a good start for the Green Line and great, but I've heard nothing about this before now and don't see anything about it in this thread. Anyone have some other confirmation of this including signal priority?

It also raises the question to me of what is the status of the 4->2 stop consolidation in the Babcock-BU West stretch?
 
I believe that they are trying to coordinate the MBTA station rebuilds along with Phase 2A, as suggested.

The consolidation is definitely happening, it's linked to AAB-compliance, it's just a matter of when.
 
Does anyone know where to access a fuller set of plans? Particularly curious to know whether they plan to add a legal pedestrian street crossing at Naples Rd. just inbound from Packard's Corner.
 
ErnieAdams said:
Does anyone know where to access a fuller set of plans? Particularly curious to know whether they plan to add a legal pedestrian street crossing at Naples Rd. just inbound from Packard's Corner.
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I posted a set of revised plans in the bike thread a couple months ago: http://www.archboston.org/community/showpost.php?p=261679&postcount=2771

Unfortunately, Naples road is just west of where the plans start.

edit: These are only the major changes to the design, not the full set of plans.
 
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Thanks, Scipio. I followed the link you provided, and nothing was mentioned in the larger document about a potential crosswalk. Everyone should check out those plans on Scipio's post, though, if you haven't seen them yet.

So it looks like the western end of the project site (per MassDOT's project database) is at Alcorn Road. Here's the street view from that corner of Alcorn Road. Looks like a crossing would be just within the project site. Matthew has previously posted that the community has requested a crosswalk there. Fingers crossed.
 
This project will not include a crosswalk at Naples Road. I hope it will not preclude it. However, the general thought is that the long-term solution there is going to be addressed as part of Comm Ave Phases 3&4. Packard's Corner currently only has crosswalks on 3 legs of the rather massive misshapen intersection. The next phase of Comm Ave will have a reworked Packard's Corner with (signalized) crosswalks on all 4 legs, to make it much more pedestrian friendly. While not quite as short a route to the supermarket as a Naples Road crosswalk, it may be the best we can get making the T happy about people crossing the tracks.

(Again, I'll note that here in Europe, there really isn't this crazy fear of people crossing tram tracks... it's just a tram. No need for fences or barriers. Comm Ave itself, with the speeding Masshole drivers, is much worse.)
 
This street is wildly dangerous for biking so I'm glad to see this, these changes matter far more in terms of actually living in this city than how many tall buildings we have.
 
I'll reserve judgement until I ride on it, but these lanes look too narrow. Definitely the right concept, but I'm not sure it's wide enough to facilitate safe passing by faster bikes.
 
HenryAlan said:
I'll reserve judgement until I ride on it, but these lanes look too narrow. Definitely the right concept, but I'm not sure it's wide enough to facilitate safe passing by faster bikes.
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That might be a feature, not a bug, especially given the ped cross traffic to the bus stop
 
Yes, in bike facility design there's a tension between making something you can go fast on and something that's slower but facilitates broader use. As an experienced urban cyclist who likes to ride fast I generally favor the latter, actually, as things that get more people biking are good things. If it's too slow I can ride with traffic as always.
 
CSTH said:
That might be a feature, not a bug, especially given the ped cross traffic to the bus stop
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Given that the path appears to be wider in the third image where there is no cross walk, I expect this is the case.
 
In most places, the bike lanes will be wide enough for a faster bicyclist to pass a slower one, except for when the bike lanes dip behind bus stops. The design intentionally forces bikes to go single-file through there for the sake of pedestrian safety.
 
Cool but lets also narrow Comm Ave to 1 lane for cars whenever there is a crosswalk.

Safety first.
 
jass said:
Cool but lets also narrow Comm Ave to 1 lane for cars whenever there is a crosswalk.

Safety first.
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Good thing the crosswalks have crossing lights to control traffic and pedestrian flow already.
 
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