OMG: Boston Police Cite Bicyclist for Improper Lighting

I am always amazed when the police in any town or city in eastern Massachusetts cite a pedestrian for jaywalking or crossing illegally, an automobile driver for opening a door into traffic, or a bicyclist for failure to stop for a stop sign or red traffic light. These infractions just seem never to be enforced, although they should be.

Which is why I offer a tip of the hat to the Boston Police, working out of Jamaica Plain's E-13 station, for citing a bicyclist for "Riding a Bicycle without Proper Lighting."

State law requires a red light on the rear of the bicycle and a white one on the front whenever in use at a time more than 30 minutes past sunset (until 30 minutes before sunrise). They also require some kind of reflectors, although these can often be provided by the cyclist's attire.

Why did the police ticket this particular bicyclist? It has something to do with riding erratically at 2 am and unlawful possession of a firearm that had its identifying numbers obliterated. I guess that's the threshold for a citation about unlawful bicycle operation.


Image of Red Bike Reflector by sillygwailo provided through a Creative Commons license.

Beacon Street Bike Lanes Finished -- and End at Newton's Border

The new bicycle lanes on Beacon Street are finished: stripe painting and stenciling.

Sean Roche at the Newton Streets and Sidewalks Blog has images of the lanes, including where the westbound lanes end abruptly at the border with Newton.

The ball's in your court now, Newton!

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.

Red Lights and Bike-To-Work-Week

For those still driving their Suburban Assault Vehicles to work this week, you must have missed the memo: this week has been Massachusetts Bike-To-Work-Week, also called the Bay State Bike Week.

As a regular bicycle commuter, I can say that I saw more than the usual number of cyclists on the road this week, which was an encouraging sight.

But my most unexpected observation was how many of the cyclists were obeying the road laws: stopping for stop signs and red lights. During the week, I often saw 3-4 cyclists wait out the red light at intersections when there was no cross traffic. They may be newbies, but they can teach those hardened, old, aggressive cyclists a thing or two about safe riding practices.

A few tidbits:

• Adam Gaffin has a nice wrap-up on blogging about the week's events.
• The Boston Herald has a video of Mayor Thomas Menino bicycling; he should visit his local bike shop to get his seat height re-adjusted.
• A couple of Cambridge thug-clists did some bad work on a motorist.
• The week's events didn't get off on the right pedal when a crazy series of accidents in Allston's Packard's Corner took out a bunch of cars -- as well as a poor, parked bicycle in the pictures that no one seemed to want to note in the captions.
• Eric from JP got nailed by a taxi that failed to yield to him in a bike lane -- but he lived to tell about it because of his helmet. Where are those bumper stickers "Bicycles Are Everywhere"?
  

Image of traffic lights by B Tal provided through a Creative Commons license.

Bicycle Misinformation in Boston Globe

The Boston Globe's City Weekly section ran a story today about the bicycle pathway conditions along the Charles River (part of which is signed as the Dr. Paul Dudley White Bikepath).  The conditions are based on "a Globe staffer [who] recently cycled about 15 miles of it."  Nice story idea, mostly got the story right, but there are a number of mistakes -- and a truly dangerous suggestion that is just-plain wrong.

1.  The big mistake?  The accompanying graphic, based on the Globe staffer/cyclist's information, describes the location where the bikepath crosses the Eliot Bridge as:

Bad crossing, no matter what side you're coming from. You'll need to carry your bike over metal barrier that separates traffic lanes.

Ummm... NO.  There are tunnels underneath the Eliot Bridge on both sides of the river so that the bikepath continues, uninterrupted, past the bridge.  The text of the article (where it continues, six pages later) is accurate:

There are paths under the Eliot Bridge, but they're frequently muddy and wet from large puddles.

Yes, sort-of, but certainly not when the Globe staffer presumably took his/her ride -- because it has hardly rained in the last five weeks! Nonetheless, I can tell you as a commuter who has taken the path along there many times, these tunnels are mostly passable most of the year. You just need to have fenders over your bike wheels if you don't want to get mud splattered in the middle of the winter or the week after a significant rainfall.

The big problem is that the Globe's graphic suggested that cyclists should carry their bikes across the Fresh Pond Parkway / Soldiers Field Road at the location of the Eliot Bridge!  That is an extremely dangerous suggestion that the Globe should immediately retract.

2.  While the Globe's cyclist/graphic is correct to identify the Cambridge Street crossing at the River Street Bridge (Allston side) as in need of a pedestrian/cyclist crossing signal, he/she completely missed the similar lack of crossing signals at the Arsenal Street Bridge (both sides in Watertown and North Brighton) and North Beacon Street Bridge (both sides in Watertown and Brighton).  MassBike has identified all of them as top priorities for improvements to the bike path, since the latter two bridges connecting Watertown and Brighton are extremely dangerous intersections.

3.  The bikepath between the Eliot Bridge and the Larz Anderson Bridge, on the North Allston side, is misleadingly labelled as "Good" condition in the graphic.  There are actually two paths on the westernmost section:  a paved one next to Soldiers Field Road and a gravelly one along the riverside.  The graphic follows the path of the gravel path, which is not IMHO in "Good" condition.  (Note that the same kind of split path is not misleadingly labelled between Arsenal Street and North Beacon Street Bridges on the Watertown side.)

4.  The secluded section of the bikepath east of the Arsenal Street Bridge on the North Brighton side is not dangerous at night because it is secluded; it is dangerous at one section (immediately west of the Northeastern Boathouse) due to poor drainage, poor snow/ice removal, and uneven surfaces.

5.  There is an eastbound hazardous bump/step in the pavement on the Cambridge side east of the BU Bridge that is not identified in the Globe's graphic.  (I haven't ridden this little stretch in a while, so it might have been fixed...)

It is nice to see a story of its kind in the Globe, even though I think the Globe's reporter would've done better to have a MassBike expert ride along with them on the route.  Hopefully it will help MassBike expand their base to push for modest improvements in the bikepath.  


Oh, and the Boston Globe correctly labelled the "Weeks Footbridge", unlike me (I mistakenly called it the Weekes Memorial Footbridge).  I can verify from its sign that Weeks is the correct name deriving from the former Senator and Secretary of War:

Bicyclists to Action: Enter Your Bike Routes Into MassBike Survey

For those whose idea of a hybrid vehicle has two wheels, not four, MassBike has rolled out a survey to find out your riding routes.

What you do is go to this website, and follow the instructions to enter your route into Google Maps. Note that you will have to log out of your own Google account in order to enter the route into massbike's survey account on Google. Here's MassBike's description of the survey:

We are looking at the array of programs and services available for cyclists in Boston and we want your input. We are hoping to gather information on cycling patterns to use as a guide when updating and evaluating cycling routes, lanes, rack disbursements, etc. We hope you will help us gather information on cycling behavior in Boston by tracking your rides through Boston.

We invite everyone who rides a bicycle within or to/from Boston to participate including commuters, racers, recreational riders, families, and even people who exercise once a year… All ages are welcome.

Participation takes just a few minutes. We will ask you to go on-line and track an actual day of riding for us using a website we have created. We want you to record exactly where you biked on this given ride.

Who do they want to do it? Anyone who rides once a year or more often. That list of people would appear to include Mayor Menino, too:

Menino purchased a silver Trek road bike three weeks ago and has been riding it regularly through his Hyde Park neighborhood. Each weekday at about 5 a.m., the 64-year-old mayor straps on a black cycling helmet and an arm band with red reflector lights and sets off alone on a leisurely, 45-minute pedal. He acknowledges that another public crusade is brewing.

"We're going to do more in our city with bikes," Menino decreed upon his return home from a ride yesterday.

Well, the first thing to do is to bring back the Boston bicycle coordinator position that he created and then promptly canned. Second thing: tell those guys in BTD to change their thinking to install bike lanes throughout the city.

Funny, I didn't see Menino's route entered in MassBike's survey. I don't think he does the internet... maybe one of his henchpeople can enter his photo-op morning route for him. Also, the pre-dawn, 5:00 am photo appears to be more than 30 minutes before sunrise. According to State Law [MGL Chapter 85, section 11B (8)], his bike should have a rear red light/reflector and a front white light; it is hard to tell from the picture, but it appears as though he has only a reflector on the front which, if true, qualifies him for a fine of $20. Safety begins at home, in Hyde Park, and in City Hall. Cute, retro choice in a bike:


(photo credit: GEORGE RIZER/GLOBE STAFF)

What will be the most immediate benefit to having a Mayor who rides a bike? Potholes and other road surface problems, at least in Hyde Park, will get fixed pronto. Nobody notices potholes as much as a cyclist.

A cyclist I know wrote a letter to Menino recently offering him a tandem ride into work. Imagine the look on the face of the City Hall parking garage attendant if the Mayor were to pull in on a tandem?

SUV-Riding Mayor Bans Seven-Seat Bicycles

Mayor Menino is poised to ban seven-seat fun-bicycles from the streets of Boston, according to the Boston Herald.

His reasons? "[They] impede traffic on city streets. Emergency vehicles couldn’t even get around them." Ummm... Bikes have the right to travel in any lane of a city street -- right in the middle of those lanes. Even if they are going five miles per hour. And these seven-seaters are far smaller than ambulances and fire trucks. Shouldn't he ban them instead, since they presumably can't get around each other?

And those pesky seven-seat bicycles are certainly smaller than the Mayor's 5,000-pound Chevy Tahoe SUV monstrosity, which the City bought for him two years ago to replace his previous monstrosity -- a Ford Expedition. One blogger, who posts a nice picture of bicycle contraption, thinks that Mayor Menino has bad childhood memories about riding bicycles. Maybe other memories might encourage him to seek out the biggest possible SUV to ride in. Freud, anyone?

Vote on whether or not Menino should also ban horse-drawn carriages from the streets of Boston.


UPDATE (9:33 pm): The Boston City Council voted to ban the seven-seat bicycles, according to the Boston Globe.

Cyclists: Avoid a Pothole, Or Tell Somebody About One

For Boston-area cyclists: there is now a website that lists road hazards (or just plain bad streets and/or intersections). It also gives you the opportunity to enter into the database the hazards you hate. Just go visit: The Right Ride. Here's what it looked like a few hours ago:



Based on those few markers, you might think that Brighton is a good place to bike, with nearly all the streets free of potholes. Yeah, right.

I think that we cyclists in Brighton need to go onto the website to enter new hazards. Off the top of my head I can name a lot of potholes and bad intersections that aren't yet on that map. A lot. I'll do my turn... thump, thump, thump.

Harvard Fails to Live Up to Its Promises, and the BRA Fails to Enforce Them

The Boston Globe ran a story last Thursday about how Harvard University promised in 1997 to install streetscape improvements to North Harvard Street in North Allston by 2002:

A decade ago, Harvard pledged to replace the asphalt and fence and plant up to 52 trees here.

It never did.

The BRA brokered a deal with Harvard to extend the date to July 1, 2006 -- a year ago -- but, alas, still no new concrete sidewalk, chain link fence, or trees. And the BRA has not enforced the deal, although they have issued a press release:

"We expect [the improvements] to be done immediately," [BRA Spokesperson Susan] Elsbree said last week.

On both sides of Allston-Brighton, every month we hear BRA employees try to assure the neighborhood that agreements reached as part of the Article 80 institutional master planning process will be "legally binding" and "enforceable." Yet the BRA can't even seem to twist Harvard's arm to get a little bit of work done on one worn-out street carrying lots of pedestrian, bicycle, Havard Shuttle Bus, MBTA bus, truck, and automobile traffic.

The Boston Globe published three letters today from area residents outraged by this failure to enforce existing agreements, including one letter written by me:

HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S failure to follow through on long-promised street improvements in North Allston is yet another example not only of Harvard's broken promises but of the Boston Redevelopment Authority's failure to enforce agreements made in the master planning process ("A street of broken vows runs in Allston," City & Region, July 12).

Allston-Brighton is currently besieged by massive new expansion proposals by Harvard to the north and Boston College to the south.

Every month at neighborhood meetings we hear BRA officials claim how the master plans will be enforced, whether it be lighting hours or dormitory use. Harvard's failure to improve North Harvard Street, however, demonstrates the hollowness of the BRA's words.

Harvard should agree to a hiatus on BRA approval of their new projects until they satisfactorily resolve past promises. Only then will they live up to their school motto: Veritas.

But wait, it gets worse. The BRA's failure to assure compliance with such agreements may be endemic, since another case was recently reported in SAMPAN (thanks to Harry Mattison for finding this one):

Four years after the City of Boston approved the development of a controversial apartment tower in Chinatown, most of the promised benefits of the project have yet to be delivered.

You might think that the BRA's team of compliance officers would be swarming all over Harvard demanding they live up to their agreements. But despite the broad array of projects and agreements that the BRA oversees, they didn't even have a Deputy Director for Compliance until 2004 -- seven years after Harvard agreed to the improvements in the first place! The BRA's 2004 press release states that:

The compliance position grew out of the BRA’s desire to formally monitor the commitments made in the Article 80 process.

You mean that they didn't even bother to have the "desire to formally monitor the commitments made in the Article 80 process" until 2004, eight years after Article 80 was adopted? What has Christine Colley been doing during the past three years? Shouldn't the BRA's compliance officer be proactive in enforcing these agreements, rather than being reactive by sending out a press release a year (or five years, depending on who is counting) after the work was supposed to be done?

If the Big Dig were overseen by as few regulators as the BRA uses to review these master plans and ensure their compliance, then every tunnel would have collapsed by now. It's no wonder many members of the community are deeply distrustful of the BRA.

Will somebody please grab the steering wheel of that BRA before it mows down more neighborhoods?!?!

Bicycling Storrow Drive

Someone was bicycling down Storrow Drive recently at 11:30 pm without wearing any bright or reflective gear.

I have to admit that I have ridden my bicycle down Storrow Drive westbound -- twice.

I did so during daylight (not 11:30 pm), always with bright clothing (not dark blue), wearing a helmet, bicycling with traffic (not against it), etc.

I did so legally, but received dirty looks and gestures from the State Police. I don't think they believed someone would ride along there on a bike. Yes, it is legal to ride a bicycle along Storrow Drive (MGL 85-11B):

Every person operating a bicycle upon a way, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth except limited access or express state highways where signs specifically prohibiting bicycles have been posted...

Storrow Drive has no postings prohibiting bicycles, so they are therefore allowed.

Why would I do something so crazy as to ride on Storrow Drive?

I did it in the Esplanade section during massive daytime, weekend events, like something-or-other "Walk For [Against] Hunger." Otherwise I would've had to walk my bike through wall-to-wall people along the Esplanade, whacking people the whole way with my tires and handlebars. I hopped back onto the Paul Dudley White Bikepath somewhere near to the Harvard Bridge (i.e., Mass Ave). Storrow Drive traffic was so slow due to the events (especially with all the cars parked along the right-hand-side) that it wasn't dangerous at all.

Riding Soldiers Field Road west of the Eliot Bridge, and Memorial Drive (or Greenough Boulevard) all along the Charles are actually quite nice rides. Wide lanes, smooth surfaces, great for doing "time trial"-like training in the City. But don't try Nonantum Road eastbound... potholes the size of beavers line the right-hand lane. And I once saw a beaver along the side of the road there, where it approaches Brook Street, though he wasn't trying to build a dam in one of the potholes.

Norwegian Bike Lift: Coming soon to Parsons Street?

Newton Streets and Sidewalks blog reports on a Norwegian technological device to assist bicyclists getting up a steep street: a bike lift. When you come to a steep hill -- a 20% grade, in this case in Trondheim, Norway -- you push the button, set one foot on the device, and a metal plate pushes your foot up the hill while you continue to sit on your bike.

Easier to see in action than describe, so watch it on youtube, of course.

I'm a bicycle commuter between Brighton Center and North Cambridge (except when there's snow around or it's pouring rain). On my nightly return, I bike up the steep hill at Parsons Street south of Arlington Street. Why not install one there?

This Trondheim bicycle lift is undoubtedly a great idea: a mechanical device to help a two-wheeled transportation appliance go uphill. I wonder if anybody has ever patented such a clever machine? Oh, yeah, they did back in 1884: the motorcycle. It was a good idea at the time... maybe someone could revive it.