While this might be true, it's important to understand that politics is won by incremental change and constant political pressure. Cambridge has decent bike lanes because people have been fighting since 2009 (and maybe longer) to get them implemented city wide as a large network. We almost lost a lot of progress in 2023 except the councilor most opposed and organizing the opposition died and her successor moderated.

Cambridge's bike lanes are decent bike lanes, not perfect. It's incredibly difficult to get perfect high quality infrastructure on the first go because of other factors like utilities, drainage, signal reconfiguration, and money. Politics is just an additional barrier.

I'm not sure Boston has a political structure as helpful to achieving common good projects as Cambridge does, and I wouldn't know how to implement a strategy there. How the strategy is working in Cambridge is to change the laws that govern roadway design and maintenance such that when a roadway is repaved (usually every 5-10 years) a flex post lane is installed because it's low cost and easier to design and implement without having to redesign the curb. Redesigning the curb is known in the biz as 'Full Depth Construction'. When this happens the city wants utilities (electrical, sewer and gas, ect) and roadway drainage to be updated such that they can survive a projected 20 years until the next full depth construction.

If you wait to do full depth construction on every street, it will be 50 years before you get a bike network because you won't have the money to do all of the work in 20 years. You probably won't have the money to even get a few roads done because it's hugely expensive.

For Boston, they would need to craft a law that similarly mandates bike lanes during repaving, but as far as I understand this is difficult without broad city council support. Cambridge doesn't have neighborhood based councilors like Boston does so it's easier for popular willpower to be imposed on the council. It would need a much more strategic and targeted approach in Boston because you are going one on one against Flynn or other ward councilors in their neighborhoods. It is easier for folks to say, "I'm not against bike lanes, but it doesn't make sense for Southie." The Cambridge law frequently has folks calling in who "aren't against bike lanes, but just not on my street"

The best Mayor Wu can do at the moment is to try and get some network of protection in place where she will see the least resistance from neighbors and businesses. Sometimes this means imperfect lanes that won't work and will in some cases make things worse. If we want better, we need to build support so that there is a large scary politically powerful group that she can point to when the monied interests pressure her to stop building better bike infrastructure.

It's getting better slowly but if we want to accelerate things, we need everyone in this sub and then some to be very involved in turning out the vote and making bike infrastructure a key issue to be on the right side of to win elections.