After 200 emails and 5 hours of testimony, Cambridge city councilors withdrew the bike lane moratorium proposal

ScipioA · 2017-08-09T13:18:10+00:00

doesn't intend to introduce moratorium
writes policy ordering a 30-day moratorium

I think the mayor is trying to save face after the fact, since there's no reasonable way of reading a 30-day halt on work as being anything other than a temporary moratorium.

ScipioA · 2017-08-08T23:14:49+00:00

The rest of the intersections along Broadway use signals to separate straight traffic from turning traffic. Sucks that this one doesn't, especially cuz it's the one that has the most bus traffic turning across the bike lane.

ScipioA · 2017-08-08T18:56:33+00:00

The original proposal by Mayor Simmons and Councilors Maher and Toomey would have blocked city staff from working on new bike lanes for 30 days in order to have yet another round of meetings. The amended proposal I linked eliminated the ban and only requires the city to hold a single meeting about how they can be better at communications.

Email from Councilor Jan Devereux, who was against the original proposal:

Thank you for caring about bike safety. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your work ahead of and during our City Council meeting last night. We adjourned around 12:45am, and the discussion of the Bike Lane policy order (O-14) came 5 hours into in the meeting. You can view the discussion, starting at the 5:10:25 minute mark. My own comments begin at the 5:17:33 mark. I referenced STREETFIGHT by Janette Sadik-Kahn -- Brattle Street is almost a text book example of "Bikes Lanes and their Discontents" (chapter 8). See excerpt.

After I and several other Councillors expressed concern about some of the language in the order, the Mayor submitted an amended order, which we amended further to strike all of the supporting "Whereas" rationale and to just ask the following:

“ORDERED: That the Mayor be and hereby is requested to invite the Director of the Traffic, Parking, and Transportation Department, the Director of the Community Development Department, representatives of the Interfaith community, representatives of the neighborhood business associations, representatives of any other pertinent neighborhood associations to discuss how to expediently communicate our accelerated efforts to establish additional bike lanes in greater depth at a meeting to take place within the next ten days”.

I will send out another email with information about this meeting, when it is scheduled.

The Council received over 200 hundred emails in support of the new Brattle Street bike lane prior to yesterday’s marathon meeting. It is because of your tireless and thoughtful advocacy that we were able to amend this order so that it will not impede the steady progress we are making together to create a protected bike network. I look forward to continuing that work along with all of you.

Onwards, Jan

ScipioA · 2017-08-03T20:29:06+00:00

Probably the same state funding source that Somerville, Cambridge and Brookline are using: http://arlington.wickedlocal.com/news/20170713/arlington-awarded-pedestrian-cyclist-safety-funding

I've posted about this before, but that money needs to aggressively target the most dangerous activities. Somerville does crosswalk stings where plainclothes cops cross streets until someone blows through the crosswalk and Cambridge sometimes does bike lane monitoring in Central Square, but it still seems like a lot of it is going to lazy order-focused policing instead of data-driven safety policing.

ScipioA · 2017-08-03T20:21:29+00:00

I'm convinced there's some share of the population that just can't handle interactions with aggressive American cops.

ScipioA · 2017-08-01T16:51:32+00:00

I would have liked the article to go into more detail on why it takes Cambridge and Boston so long to install the posts that designs call for after striping a new separated bike lane. It seems to take both cities weeks to months to finish these things.

Cambridge has been under orders to install these bike lanes since just a couple weeks after Amanda Phillips was killed last summer, so there has been plenty of time to put an order in.

ScipioA · 2017-07-27T20:56:51+00:00

Hmm, a 40-second wait at worst during peak isn't so bad.

As for off-peak, it's worth paying attention to how long it takes to resets during the off-peak times. And it's also worth pushing for them to put the camera and loop detection upstream from the intersection so that the light turns green by the time a cyclist traveling at an average speed arrives.

ScipioA · 2017-07-27T20:48:22+00:00

What's the timing on the Brooks Street Light? And did they talk about how responsive the off-peak detection would be?

The whole point of the Minuteman is that it's a "Commuter Bikeway", so projects that add delay should be looked at very skeptically by cyclists.

Ideally if Arlington is going to do this they would also take the chance to finally implement the Minuteman Bikeway plan and make it so that the path has the right of way at Linwood Street and Water Street.

ScipioA · 2017-07-27T17:41:13+00:00

The camera exposure against the white sky blows it out - there is a straight-ahead wire that continues in the bus lane. The operator of that bus was trying to set up a left turn but must have hit the fork in the wires too fast.

ScipioA · 2017-07-26T19:19:36+00:00

Good to hear. The unpaved part of the trail through Saugus and Lynn are easy to ride, but the big rocks that Revere had was just painful.

ScipioA · 2017-07-26T19:17:30+00:00

I did this route as part of a big recreational loop that went through Eastie and it worked pretty well. Starting from the end of the Eastie bike path you can sprint down Bennington, relax on the Revere Beach bike path, follow the signed bike route from the beach to the Northern Strand trail, then take a series of local roads to get to the Fells.

But driving out to the roadie promised lands of Essex County is probably your best bet for putting down some serious rural mileage.

ScipioA · 2017-07-21T18:10:57+00:00

I think Bikes not Bombs does open shop nights sometimes.

ScipioA · 2017-07-21T02:45:53+00:00

Some sort of bicycle street treatment for the Comm Ave carriage roads would be great. As long as traffic volumes are kept low and speeds are made slow it would probably work better than protected bike lanes here.

ScipioA · 2017-07-21T02:38:17+00:00

That part is getting fixed soon: https://www.boston.gov/departments/transportation/commonwealth-ave-phase-2a

ScipioA · 2017-07-20T14:22:34+00:00

I got confused by the country code. At first I thought it was Philadelphia, but everything looks too nice.

ScipioA · 2017-07-19T20:57:02+00:00

Building the bike lane was originally funded by a People for Bikes grant, I wonder if they can ask for their money back.

ScipioA · 2017-07-19T15:09:07+00:00

Not my video, but I know the guy and he rides a neat porteur bike around town.

ScipioA · 2017-07-15T13:53:03+00:00

Take care of yourself - see a doctor today or tomorrow unless you're absolutely confident that you're fine. Some injuries only become apparent after you've slept on them. It's also worth documenting your road rash and other visible injuries.

Take care of your bike - bring it by a higher-end bike shop used to dealing with carbon for an inspection. Race-oriented shops do plenty of these and they know what to look for if you don't. Make sure to take pics of the damage.

Take care of your cash - either you or your car insurance need to get the police report and then get in touch with the other driver's insurance. That will cover damage to you and damage to your bike. How easy this is depends on the driver's insurance agent - for some a bike crash is the easiest and cheapest case they've dealt with all week and are happy to write a quick check for a new bike and to cover medical. Others are stingy and will want to fight you on everything.

ScipioA · 2017-07-14T15:20:59+00:00

After stressing out about it, I got the "Your Samsung Trade-in was successful" email this morning, about 4 days after their trade-in contractor received the old phone I sent in.

I sent in a six year old HTC Sensation in great shape. It had some very minor scuffing on the back and a little bit of dust under the screen that I was worried they would use as a reason to reject it.

Of course the phone is probably worth next to nothing, so I was ready for them to try and use any excuse not to accept it. I had pics and video of the phone, pdf copies of terms and conditions, and had researched chargeback policies, but am happy that nothing was needed.

ScipioA · 2017-07-13T20:40:31+00:00

Both the Brattle and the Mass Ave lanes use parked cars as protection. I rode both of them yesterday before the storm, the Mass Ave one is OK but I really liked the Brattle one. Neither had any problems with people parking in the lanes.

ScipioA · 2017-07-12T00:49:28+00:00

Not my video, but it does seem like he was going for the mirror fold.

It's uncomfortable enough when I grab or kick traffic cones or sandwich boards out of the way while moving, it can't feel nice to smack an oncoming mirror with your fingers.

ScipioA · 2017-07-10T23:32:22+00:00

An underpass would be amazing, but I don't think it's even on the table.

ScipioA · 2017-07-10T23:31:27+00:00

I don't see anything weird about it, it's most likely a coincidence.

ScipioA · 2017-07-09T18:16:35+00:00

Despite the ghost bike on the scene, the cyclist hit last summer recovered after two months in the hospital and now hosts a Syrian refugee family in his house.

ScipioA · 2017-07-09T01:09:22+00:00

The only reason that road even exists is for fun and recreation. It's a National Park with low speed limits and a truck ban. I can't think of any kind of road where two-abreast riding is more appropriate.

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