Mayor Menino Unveils City's First, er... Fourth Bike Lanes

Mayor Thomas Menino held a press conference outside Boston University's College of Communication on Commonwealth Avenue to announce: the near-completion of Boston's first bike lanes; progress on the installation of 250 bicycle racks around the city; and that the city is now calling for a bike sharing program like the one in Paris, France.

"I'm proud to announce the first bike lane in Boston," said Mayor Menino. It is part of a "program to make Boston a world-class bicycling city," he continued.

Grumbling from city bike advocates said that the Comm Ave stripes are actually the city's third or fourth set of bike lanes, not their first. I'm not sure why they were grumbling, since the others, I believe, were also created during Menino's tenure as Mayor.

Grumbling from UniversalHub and the Boston Phoenix is that Councilor-At-Large John Connolly is being snubbed ("wifi-ed") on the bike sharing idea -- another example, according to David Bernstein, of Mayor Menino adopting other people's ideas as his own. Hats off to Bernstein who predicted on July 15th that Mayor Menino would do just that with the bike sharing concept.


New Bicycle Lanes

The new bike lanes are being rolled out ten months after Mayor Menino announced his new initiative to improve bicycling infrastructure in Boston. The Mayor had announced plans for these lanes in his State-of-the-City speech in February 2008. The lanes have been designed and laid out as part of the Comm Ave rebuild project, while painting of the lanes is incomplete but in progress.

At least a couple of bicyclists at the press conference took interest in the Mayor's wheels: he arrived on four, not two, in his black Chevy Tahoe hybrid suburban assault vehicle.

At right is a all-to-common image for those of us who use Cambridge's bike lanes: a car parked in them. (Look behind all the yellow bicycle police.) Only this time it's the Mayor's vehicle in the bike lane.

The other bike lanes in Boston are apparently (I haven't visited all of them):

1. Ruggles Street near Northeastern University (see comments);
2. Dorchester, near the South Bay Shopping Center (only around a half-block long!); and
   
3. Perkins Street in Jamaica Plain [see Google Street View image at right].

According to one bike advocate, the Perkins Street lanes were installed on a state-owned street with city input into the design.

The latest lanes, however, are a significant and substantial addition to Commonwealth Avenue, a major thoroughfare, where it passes alongside Boston University.

Much credit was bestowed on the Livable Streets Alliance (nee Boston Bicycle Coalition) for their advocacy of this particular project. Phil Goff, a member of the Board of Directors, noted that this project came with a price. "The City of Boston did something unheard of: remove a lane of traffic" to make way for a bike lane. He looks forward to "one day seeing people of all kinds riding on the bike lanes" from Chestnut Hill to downtown.


More Lanes Coming Soon

Vineet Gupta, Director of Planning at the Boston Transportation Department, said that the city is currently working on several additional bike lane projects. Lanes on the American Legion Highway in Roslindale are likely to be rolled out next, and design work is underway for lanes on Boylston Street in the Fenway and Columbus Road in the South End. It sounds to me like a couple of miles per year might be the rate of bike lane rollout.

A reader comment at the "Boston Biker" blog said that a Northeastern University civil engineering student design has been created to extend bike lanes to continue from the public garden all the way to Allston. If those lanes would be installed, they would represent a major accomplishment.

Gupta further acknowledged that, in the past few years, there has been a "sea change in the way we think about roadway design" regarding bicycles, accompanied by a "cultural" shift in the way the public views the importance of such lanes. Mayor Menino told the assembled crowd that when he goes around the city, he hears about cycling issues more than most any other issue.


Bicycle Rack Installation In Progress

Mayor Menino also announced that the city was in the process of installing 250 new bicycle racks across the city. According the his office's press release: notes that the location of the racks were chosen "per resident recommendations" and by working with "several City departments and local business owners."

In Allston-Brighton there appears to be one that will be installed near the D-14 police station, two in Union Square in Allston, one in Allston Village, one near Boston University, one near the Weeks Memorial Footbridge, and two near the Brighton Mills shopping area. (I couldn't determine exact locations due to the limited resolution of the map.)


Overheard, Or Not

Last summer, the Mayor himself took up the sport of bicycling. He challenged today's crowd to see who was the first one to ride their bike this morning. Answer: he was, at 5:00 am, while everyone else was still trying to "get sand out of their ears."

Nicole Freedman, Director of Bicycle Programs for the City of Boston, took the oneupsmanship one step further, challenging the Boston Police Department bicycle cops assembled behind her to a bike race. Their stone faces told everyone they weren't about to accept the former Olympian's challenge.

No word on whether or not Brighton will get a bicycle lift installed on Parsons Street.

New Bike Lanes On Comm Ave Near BU

Part of Commonwealth Avenue due east of Allston will soon be getting bike lanes, according to an announcement Thursday by the City of Boston.  The proposed bike lanes were part of Mayor Thomas Menino's State of the City speech on January 15, 2008.

The new lanes should be painted by summertime.

Mayor Menino has shown renewed interest in expanding the city's bicycle infrastructure since he took up bicycling himself last summer.  (No word on how often he has been keeping on the bike over the snowy winter.  I hope he has, because it's a great way to learn first-hand about mediocre snow removal and how quickly potholes can form during wintertime.)

The Boston Herald reports:

The city’s Boston Bikes department announced Thursday that the strip of Commonwealth Avenue between Kenmore Square and the BU Bridge will have 5-foot-wide bike lanes available in each direction by this summer.

The bike lanes will reallocate space on the street and sidewalks as part of a planned reconstruction of Commonwealth through the Boston University campus.

“That project ends at the bridge, so that’s why the bike lanes won’t be extended further, at least not (as) part of this project,” said David Watson, executive director of bicycling advocacy group MassBike...

That could mean eventually extending the bike lanes past the BU Bridge and into Allston, a college neighborhood full of cyclists and the scene of a bike fatality last spring when 23-year-old Kelly Wallace was struck by a motorist.

“The bulk of students (who commute) live in Allston,” said BU grad Diane Akerman, 24, of Somerville. “Whether they go to BU, Emerson or Berklee, they need to get down Comm. Ave.”...

But he expressed concern that the planned bike lane will sandwich riders between traffic and parked cars.

“It often winds up even more dangerous due to the chance of getting (struck by a car door), and motorists swerving across cyclists to snag a just-noticed parking spot,” Braiotta said.

Bike Lanes at Kenmore Square and Cleveland Circle

While Commonwealth Avenue between Kenmore Square and the BU Bridge lies outside of Allston-Brighton, improvements to it will impact transportation for Allston-Brighton residents.

In his State of the City speech Tuesday, Mayor Thomas Menino proposed to put bike lanes along that stretch of roadway alongside Boston University. The Mayor himself took up cycling last year. Harry Mattison has the story about the State of the City speech, and some of the things that are in it, over at the Allston-Brighton Community Blog.

Bicycle lanes on streets within A-B have been discussed seriously during the last year in a number of different venues. Harvard University's expansion proposals into North Allston have included bicycle access in various ways. The Allston-Brighton Neighborhood Planning Initiative sponsored by the Boston Redevelopment Authority included discussion of improvements for access to and from the Charles River, as well as possible lanes on several A-B streets like Cambridge Street, Washington Street, and Beacon Street.

And as recently as last Wednesday night's meeting of the BC Task Force (on traffic, transportation, and parking in BC's institutional master plan), several people raised the issue of striping bike lanes on Beacon Street west of Cleveland Circle in order to create connectivity between the new bike lanes on Beacon Street east of the intersection and bike lanes being planned further west in Newton proper. Putting bicycle lanes along that stretch of roadway is likely to be a relatively easy project: the road is wide, which means that it would probably require little more than striping itself.

Several members of MassBike made the pitch, while also noting that bike lines need to be designed carefully and intelligently so that they do not actually make the streets more dangerous for cyclists.

It is unclear how such proposals for bike lanes would become an element of BC's IMP. Some possibilities are that they would be: part of mitigation for traffic and transportation demands from the increase in 454 workers (100 faculty, 12 staff, 342 graduate students) at BC in the 10-year IMP; part of an improved Transportation Demand Management program in order to reduce the use of cars for commuting to and from the campus; or part of the community benefits package as spelled out in the zoning code's Article 80 process. Alternatively, it could just be something that the city does on its own.

The Mayor likes to talk about private-public partnerships. Beacon Street bike lanes could be one.