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Festive bicyclist takes advantage of new bike lanes on the BU Bridge
By adamg on Wed, 12/21/2011 - 2:51pm
Mike spent some time today watching bicyclists use the newly minted bike lanes across the Charles, including one woman with a lighted wreath.
Copyright mikesssss. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
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Comments
YES
Finally! The deathtrap is gone!
And it carries Christmas trees too!
http://www.universalhub.com/2011/taking-christmas-...
Same bike!
Loving the new BU bridge bike lanes- it was such a challenge getting over the bridge there before. The ends are still a bit dicey, but it's a vast improvement!
The biker has a blog
She's everywhere!
Hilarious!
And great! Two festive bicycling pics in the same week! That just made my day--and I love the wreath, btw.
I saw her at Mem Drive and Mass Ave this AM
I saw this girl at 830a cross over Mass Ave at Mem Drive and hug a man on a bike, and according to her blog, he may have been someone she knows from blogland and she happened to bump into him. She looked great in her boots and her festive bike....Too funny to then see all this about her & the xmas tree the other day
too bad the rest of the bridge/area is a clusterfuck
For example, let's say you want to head northbound and then get on the craptacular bike path along the river which Cambridge has done a fantastic job of neglecting.
That requires either pulling off to the right and waiting for a crosswalk signal, or moving over to the left and then trying to make a hard left turn onto the island, etc.
Want to go eastbound on the Cambridge side? Enjoy navigating a 3-foot-wide section of sidewalk with a 6-inch-high curb.
The Boston-side bike path is spectacular, but there's no way to reach the path from the BU bridge in either direction.
Don't get me started on how much of a pain it is to get to the Arborway path without going way out of your way...
the approaches are tough
The bike path is owned and maintained by DCR, unfortunately, not Cambridge. If Cambridge owned it I think it would be much better maintained because they a) have more money and b) take bicycling seriously as a means of transportation.
Advocates have been pushing to improve the connections at the ends- MassDOT's funding through the "accelerated bridge program" (ABP) is supposedly only for the bridge itself, but they've been pushed, and to an extent been willing to consider issues beyond that (signal timing at the intersections, the sidewalks at the intersections to a limited extent etc).
The 3' sidewalk with a 6" curb is particularly annoying since there's plenty of extra road width there to turn into sidewalk. I suspect that will eventually be fixed, but the "white goose guy" probably will scream and yell and do his utmost to prevent it because it's "close" to their "habitat".
There will be lots of public meetings this spring and summer about the Western and River street bridges, which I encourage you to attend and encourage Mass DOT to fix not only the bridges but the approaches as well.
Additionally I thought that Brookline was looking at a bike route to connect the bridge to the arborway- essex to Ivy to Colchester. There was some neighborhood resistance to the signage as being "not historic", but I'm not sure where it stands now.
1 lane?
Oh dear god it's permanently only one lane now?
Entry to the bridge from both
Entry to the bridge from both sides is 1 lane, it expands to 2 lanes at the ends. There's a jog at the middle of the bridge where the lanes trade off. It's like a street with long right turn lanes at both ends now. The intersections, particularly on the Cambridge side, are much better for traffic flow and safety now. The lights are on loop sensors now too, so no more waiting at red lights for no reason.
BU Bridge light timing
Really? Just last night I got stuck at a really long red light on Comm Ave eastbound at the BU Bridge light, with almost no cross traffic. And then as soon as the light turned green, the light at Mountfort turned red for a long time, also with almost no cross traffic.
Travel lanes too
It looks like they've painted the travel lanes too. There's only room for three, which means each direction starts out as one lane and then widens to two lanes halfway across. I won't hold my breath waiting for MassDOT to do a traffic study to back up their assertion that this configuration will be just as efficient as the old one.
MassDOT/DCR already had
MassDOT/DCR already had multiple traffic studies. The intersections and signal systems at the ends of the bridge were reconfigured to handle the new traffic pattern.
The fact Armageddon didn't occur while half the bridge was closed down to 2 lanes (1 in each direction) for reconstruction should be a hint that 3 lanes vs 4 isn't a big deal here.
I don't trust traffic
I don't trust traffic simulations before the fact. Too many recent road projects in the area have turned out to be total disasters once they were finished (for example, Mass Ave through MIT, and Porter Square).
Once the project is finished, they should spend a day or two standing around next to the intersection watching what really happens, and then make appropriate changes.
How did Mass Ave through MIT
How did Mass Ave through MIT make traffic worse? There are the same number of lanes on that stretch.
No, there used to be 4 lanes.
No, there used to be 4 lanes. Now there are 3.
They also added a light at Mem Drive. Which is a good idea in theory, but the red light for Mass Ave is long (for no reason), and unsynchronized with the nearby lights at Amherst and the 77 crosswalk, which only adds to the mess.
Try waiting for the #1 bus. Northbound, it gets stuck at all 3 lights, even at low-traffic times. Southbound it gets stuck as well, first at Albany, then it misses the light at Vassar after stopping to check for trains at the crossing (for no reason, since trains stop and wait for traffic anyway), then it gets stuck in the lane-drop jam, and then it gets stuck at the 77 crosswalk light.
This is what we got after years of construction?
What you don't get
Changes around MIT were not put in place to make things nicer for drivers of vehicles, who are very often the minority of road users in the area.
Changes were put in place to get more PEOPLE through the area.
Go out and count the number of pedestrians, cyclists, solo drivers, and buses going through that area in an hour on a weekday. Note that people in cars, while they take up a lot of space, are not as numerous as others who need to navigate that corridor.
Not every traffic project is about making things better for people who insist on bringing a very large personal possession into a tight area. Smooth flow of car traffic was likely a secondary consideration to getting pedestrians across Mass Ave. and cyclists through the area safely. If longer travel times result from changes that attract people using more appropriate modes of transportation, and that in turn leads to motorists taking more appropriate routes through the area, so much the better for gettting more people through the area.
Cars!=people. Increasing capacity of a congested area sometimes means disadvantaging solo car travel.
More people? Are you
More people? Are you kidding?
Do you think Mass Ave through MIT is particularly quick for transit passengers? Have you ever ridden the #1 bus? The perpetual traffic jam from Central through MIT is a big reason why it usually runs late and in bunches. (The Charlie fareboxes don't help either.)
A 10-minute traffic jam makes car drivers 10 minutes late (unless they can use alternate routes). A bus stuck in a 10-minute jam not only makes passengers on that bus late, it means all the passengers further down the line late as well, leading to an overcrowded bus which runs even *slower*. This leads to bus bunching which might not clear up for several *hours*.
I have a theory that as traffic gets slower, leading to unreliable buses, it causes *more* people to drive. I'd rather drive through a 10-minute jam, than wait 45 minutes for a supposedly-frequent bus which then gets stuck in the same jam. (Maybe I should go to grad school at MIT and write a dissertation about this.)
Also, it's not at all pleasant to bike through a traffic jam.
The most efficient urban street would have a lot of fast-moving buses and bikes, and a few fast-moving cars. That's so not Mass Ave.
thank you postcards
The Livable Streets Alliance had folks there asking bike commuters to write thank you cards/sign a "thank you petition" to transportation officials as they were riding by. Pretty great idea.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49752072@N04/