It might be time for BU to teach students how to play Frogger
By adamg - 8/13/10 - 1:20 pm
Penny Cherubino reports two pedestrian bridges between the Esplanade and the rest of the continent (Fairfield Street and Silber Way) will be shut through November for repairs. BU students take note that motorists go even faster on Storrow Drive sometimes than they do on Comm. Ave.
Comments
These closings do not seem to
These closings do not seem to include the pedestrian bridge that is closest to BU, approximately behind the chapel.
hopefully it will push bikers
hopefully it will push bikers off the esplanade over to comm ave since the pedestrian bridge behind the chapel has quite a few stairs (yes, I'm a pretentious runner who doesn't like bikers on the esplanade, but I also bike down comm ave every day to commute and think all the people commuting on the esplanade are being silly).
You mean you don't like bikers
on the Paul Dudley bikepath?? On your left! Oh, you didn't hear me because you have Death Cab for Cutie blaring out of your earbuds.
The path on the Esplanade
The path on the Esplanade with the white dotted lines? Yeah, that's a bike path, not a runners path.
When they plan construction
When they plan construction on storrow drive, the plan is to detour cars onto the esplanade. After all, a quick trip for cars is more important than the park. Heavens forbid people take memorial or comm ave.
When they plan construction on pedestrian bridges......sucks to be you. Have fun walking to mass ave.
What kind of policy is this?
If they route cars through
If they route cars through the Esplanade, that's the last straw, when I give up on Boston.
What kind of policy is
Atlanta-envy.
See also: The approach planners have taken to pedestrian life at the Seaport.
Pedestrians? Not in Menino's Boston!
If there's an approach to pedestrian life in the Squidport, it sems to be recreate the Route 9 area of metrowest, a Framingham-on-the-water of sort.
Squidport!
:o)
Storrow detour plan onto Esplanade was cancelled
several years ago. I don't remember the exact details, but it's not going to happen.
BU Bridge
While we're on the topic, is there any way onto the BU bridge from the river-side bike/jogging path, if I'm coming from Brighton on the Boston side of the river? Or do I have to pass it by, cross the pedestrian bridge, then double back and run up to Mass Av?
Yes, there is
There's a metal staircase on the up-river side of the Brighton side of the bridge. It brings you up next to one of the granite pillars and you can go towards Comm Ave or over the bridge from there on the sidewalk that is open to pedestrians still.
Is that before or after the
Is that before or after the over-water section of the pedestrian path?
(And yeah, obviously I meant Comm Av, not Mass Av. Moving to the other side of the river from Brighton has me all messed up in the head.)
Ah, you know what...
I just realized you'd be on the wrong side of Storrow still to use that staircase.
The staircase is on the Pike-side of Storrow, not the river side of the road, so you'd still have to cross Storrow to get to it to get up to the bridge level. Sorry.
Here's a Street View from Storrow of the staircase.
So, your safest path would be to go past the BU Bridge, use the Bay State Road pedestrian bridge someone mentioned above (brings you up behind the BU School of Law and Chapel Quad). You could run out past the chapel to end up on Comm Ave about a block downtown from the BU Bridge OR run west on Bay State Road past the BU Academy and up the staircase directly onto the BU Bridge.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew about that stairway, but it doesn't help me when I'm running. I've been doing exactly what you suggest, which is fine. I was just hoping that I had been missing a stairway somewhere that was accessible from the river side of Storrow (Or is it Soldier's Field by then? Who knows.)
Stairs may be planned for BU Bridge
Another runner told me that the current renovation/repair of the BU Bridge will eventually add a staircase to the bikepath. I haven't found any independent confirmation of that (and haven't looked very hard for it) so take that for what it's worth.
Storrow Drive used to have a crosswalk there
Back in the 1970s when the Esplanade bike path ended at the BU bridge, there was a painted crosswalk (and a gap in the median barrier) so that pedestrians could get from the end of the bike path to the stairway up to the BU bridge.
Crosswalk on Storrow?
That seems like it's flirting with disaster.
Streetview shows it clearly,
Streetview shows it clearly, the bike path curves directly to where a crosswalk would be.
Ah, must be right here
Ah, must be right here --
Street View
If I recall, that sign facing the path says to not cross the roadway.
Indeed. You can see the old
Indeed. You can see the old curb cut across the road as well.
Storrow has many of these, where they all crosswalks?
Yep, that's exactly the place
and if you rotate the street view 90 degrees, you'll see the stairway up to the east side of the BU Bridge on the south side of Storrow. (That stairway has now been removed, at least temporarily, due to current BU Bridge construction.)
The bike path ended right here until the late 1970s or early 80s, and crossing Storrow Drive was the only way to continue travelling west once you reached this point. The 'CROSSING ROADWAY PROHIBITED' sign was not there then, and neither was the wooden walkway that now juts out into the river to get around the BU Bridge support pier. The median guardrail had a gap here.
-- Ron, who lived nearby on Bay State Road from 1975 to 1979
I guess it's not much
I guess it's not much different than the crossings of Memorial Drive, but Storrow seems like a much faster road, and doesn't have the wide median of Mem Drive.
Fairfield Street is not near BU
It is one of the alphabetical Back Bay cross streets, three blocks east of Mass. Ave.
There goes my fall bike commute
As a biker who regularly commutes to work on the Esplanade (from Charlestown to the Fenway) and needs to cross Storrow on Silber Way, you'd think a much more logical solution would be to close one bridge at a time! What are my options now?
Closure timing is the pits
That's what I was wondering - and why can't this project be done in November and December, before the ground freezes but after the time that the Esplanade is most heavily used? Somebody needs to re-learn the 6 p's.
Route
Three options:
1) Bike down a bit further to the footbridge that comes over to Bay State Road (you'll have to walk the bike over the bridge) and then cut across St. Mary's to Park St back into Fenway.
2) Get off of the Esplanade at Mass Ave and bike down Mass Ave to take a right on Boylston and then come in from the NE corner of the Fenway.
3) Get off at the Hatch Shell and use Arlington St to get to the bike paths on Comm Ave and take Comm Ave all the way down to Kenmore and go left down Brookline into Fenway.
I don't think any one of these would extend your commute too badly. You'd have to judge traffic, etc. for yourself. I'd guess #2 was probably the worst for traffic because of that piece of Mass Ave from the river to Boylston. They all might also depend on where exactly in Fenway you wanted to go.
Yeah
Yeah, those stairs aren't so bad, I guess (since St. Mary's to Park is the way I normally go). Option 3 is good, too, but there's definitely something to be said for Esplanade riding vs. street riding :) I've also considered riding over the Mass Ave bridge to the Cambridge side then back over the BU bridge, which is probably what I'll end up doing. Who knows, the extra minutes might do me some good.
Not recommended
I wouldn't recommend the BU Bridge while it's under construction. It's really dicey on a bike. If you choose to take the full lane, then cars become extremely impatient with you. If you choose to ride against the concrete barrier, then the cars feel invited to pass and put everyone in peril when oncoming traffic pops up again. It's a lose-lose situation for a bike unless you stick to the sidewalk...which is often full of pedestrians since there's only 1 sidewalk open right now. I would do anything but cross the BU Bridge on a bike right now unless there were no other simple way.