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Guerrilla lane marker strikes again
By adamg on Thu, 10/08/2015 - 7:28am
ICYMI The Congress St bike lane got cones & flowers last night.
#DemandMore pic.twitter.com/wZaXS265AK
— Jonathan Fertig (@rightlegpegged) October 8, 2015
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Comments
We need more people like him
or maybe, a city that cares about cyclists safety and puts real meaningful action to show that.
or maybe, a police force that can actually enforce the current laws and protect the tiny sliver of infrastructure we have .
or maybe, a state legislature that can pass some meaningful laws with teeth to deter distracted and aggressive driving.
But for now we have to settle for guerrilla tactics. Fun.
Vigilantism ain't cool
Leave traffic engineering to the professionals. What if a firetruck or ambulance needs to pull over to the curb? What if a car needs to make an emergency stop?
To take this to a logical extreme, could I go around installing turnstiles on the sidewalk, to keep scofflaw cyclists from harassing pedestrians?
Where to start
Vigilantism? He's not out cracking down on alleged law breakers, he's putting a visual reminder in the space you're not supposed to drive in anyway.
If an ambulance, fire truck, or regular old car needs to pull over, they will run right over these things. It's mums in plastic pots and traffic cones--they'll get less wear and tear than from the potholes.
He's not engineering anything--that's already there. Maybe you should get off your phone and pay attention when you're driving.
Didn't realize that flower pots
were certified by FHWA as acceptable breakaway devices for use to channelize traffic on streets. Just one of many reasons why we should leave placement of obstructions in neutral spaces to the professionals.
I hope you are anti-space
I hope you are anti-space saver then.
Vehemently
.
Absolutely
opposed to the concept.
Oh, sure.
I just wait for the day that I have to drive over a traffic cone and/or plastic pot, possibly to ensure damage to the undercarriage of my vehicle.
Can I send you the repair bill?
(Note: I do not drive with a phone in my ear. However, could you talk to your bike friends that ride with their ear buds in...seeing more and more of those each day. Thank you.)
How about this?
Why don't drivers who illegally use this lane pay for the damage to the paint? Also pay for a detail cop to sit there and make sure it isn't used illegally?
If you aren't driving where you aren't supposed to be driving, it won't be a problem.
Unless a cone or flower pot
Unless a cone or flower pot somehow makes its way into a general travel lane.
Which is why leaving loose junk in the street is a bad idea for everyone involved.
"somehow makes its way"
And by what means would it do this? Divine intervention? Spontaneous animation? It would grow legs and walk there?
Yeah? You really should tell all the utility companies, highway crews and detail workers about that. Or do cones only become dangerous when they're used to block off a bike lane?
tl;dr: you're being kinda silly about this, you know?
Wind. Earlier vehicles
Wind. Earlier vehicles bumping into them. People shoving them around.
Cones are designed to be visible, and not that dangerous to run over with a car. But they are for a bicycle.
Flower pots could cause serious damage if a car hits them. Or injure someone, especially a nearby pedestrian or bicyclist. Plus flowerpots aren't usually reflective.
"Have to"?
What legitimate need would cause you to "have to" drive over a section of roadway that's clearly marked NO YOU MAY NOT DRIVE/PARK HERE? For that matter, if you decide to drive your vehicle at 50 mph over a speed bump, do you also feel that someone else should foot the bill for damage to the undercarriage of your vehicle?
What legitimate need?!?
For one, to avoid hitting a car that suddenly stops in front of me. For another, to avoid being hit by a car that swerves from therie lane into mine. Because, in the real world, such things do happen from time to time.
It is both a Federal requirement as well as an accepted standard in traffic design and construction that any object in or immediately adjacent to the road that is likely to be hit by an errant vehicle must be an accepted breakaway device. Cones meet those requirements, flower pots do not.
As for your speed bump example, if the authority in charge of the roadway a) verified that a speed bump would be appropriate for the class of roadway and b) designed and built the bump for safe travel up to a given maximum speed (say 30 mph), then, yes, a person who damages their car by going over that speed bump at an unreasonably high speed would likely have no recourse to collect damages. However, if that same speed bump was installed by a local resident who has no legal authority to do so "because they wanted to slow down traffic", I'd say the person who damages their car on it, even if they were traveling as an "excessive speed", would indeed have recourse against that resident.
Oh, we're talking about the real world. That clears things up.
I see. And so the idea is that all roadways must include an area to the right of the travel lane, which is not a travel lane, but which must be kept for the use of vehicles in the travel lane at all times, because of real world things happening? How many Boston streets do you know where that's the case? Or are you saying that you want to remove all the parked vehicles from city streets so that you can have your emergency real-world evacuation lane? Face facts, if you were to "avoid hitting a car" in the manner you describe on a typical Boston street, you'd go straight into a parked car. In other cases you'd go up onto a sidewalk, into a hydrant or a sign or something else that's located where you're not meant to be driving. And you're really complaining about the potential damage to your car done by a plastic flowerpot?
Thats my point.
Didn't realize that was a ringing endorsement.
If you are so concerned about
If you are so concerned about ambulances and firetrucks then you should be in favor of bikes because cars are the ones blocking emergency vehicles on a constant basis.
I walk on this block pretty often and I can't remember the last time there wasn't a car or three in the bike lane(or on the sidewalk) so good on this person for doing something to make this city more safe.
Exactly
When cars use this lane illegally for parking or, in this case, driving and stacking up and blocking it, ambulances can't get through.
If only cyclists are using it, they can pull their bikes on to the sidewalk while the emergency vehicles pass.
And if the bike lane were
And if the bike lane were separated by its own curbing, like it is in many cities (which are way more world-class than Boston)? Would the ambulance ride over the curb? Onto the sidewalk?
To be fair
Have you ever driven in this city? Also, it's not like they're marking off new lanes, just protecting the ones that are there.
Well then, I guess the taxis and delivery trucks will have to move.
Being serious, what do they do in areas where lane barriers are used in Chicago or Seattle? It's really easy to plan and take action, but nearly impossible to get anyone with power to do so. Remember that time Menino parked in the bike lane while he was dedicating said bike lane? Welcome to the mindset of anyone with power around here. All talk and slow walk.
Win.
Win.
Wait wait wait wait wait... can comeone explain something to me?
How long have there been professional traffic engineers in Massachusetts?
We train them here
It's an excellent training ground in "how not to do it." Our world class higher education institutions send traffic engineers all over the world, where they presumably do not make the same mistakes we make here.
Well, way back in the colonial day...
The original Boston traffic engineers were herds of cows.
(Or so I've heard all my life...)
Why don't you check out the Citizen Connect complaints on this
I and others documented the abuses of this lane OVER TWO YEARS. Very few complaints were even ANSWERED let alone anything about ENFORCEMENT of the regulations.
The usual gambit was "oh cars are parked there? well they weren't at 10 pm".
This is what happens WHEN REQUESTS FOR ENFORCEMENT OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME ARE IGNORED.
I have long considered doing something similar - but not so very nicely.
As for "traffic engineering" you really must not understand what that means. The traffic engineers decided that a bike lane should go there. Massholes like you decided that did not apply to them and started driving down it. That makes you the vigilante, doesn't it?
No, the traffic engineers
did NOT decide the bike lane should go there. The traffic engineers were FORCED to put a bike lane there because the bike lobby convinced the legislature to pass a law MANDATING the installation of bike lanes on street and road projects, even if there was no demand or it made no sense from a traffic flow perspective.
If traffic engineers were really in charge of deciding to install bike lanes, most of them would never be built for one simple reason. Traffic engineers decide whether or not to add lanes, traffic lights, etc. based on the number of vehicles using the street. They also weigh the safety benefits of improvements against the safety risks - that's why traffic signal installations have to meet very specific warrants for even initial consideration.
FWIW - 99% of the bike lanes I've encountered would have never passed a "traffic volume" requirement based on the usage (or lack thereof) I've seen.
Great fertilizer
You got there.
Now tell me - how much time do you spend in this area? The bike lane was there because they had varying amounts of lane space over the length of the roadway, and not large enough for vehicles in some stretches. You might actually know that if you were familiar with the roadway, darling. Or if you had any sense of the city other than your favorite train station to Reading.
It makes no sense to go to three then two then four then three lanes between intersections. You really need to get a clue.
This lane would have much greater volume if it wasn't constantly used as an I'm An Asshole MEEEEEEE lane by motorists. It is a critical connecter when available.
From MGL Chapter 90E
Also take a look at https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/8/docs/EngineeringDirectives/201...
Hardly waste product of cow here.
The cones might actually have
The cones might actually have been the city. They've done it a few other places recently, e.g. Mass Ave at Columbus and at Comm Ave.
That pumpkin one is excellent
That pumpkin one is excellent!
http://gothamist.com/2015/10
http://gothamist.com/2015/10/07/bike_lane_flower_power.php
Where did all the cones come
Where did all the cones come from?
You can buy them
$5,000 will buy a fair number of cones.
Will it cover the fines?
He should be fined large amounts for littering and/or illegal dumping
Exactly! Fined the same amount that space saver users get!
So exactly nothing.
Same as the fines for driving in the bike lane?
Those are about the same as the ones that are handed out to drivers and pedestrians and cyclists throwing lit cigarettes around indiscriminately. And the fines for space saving.
Sure. Fine the flower pot guy that much.
Or do you mean "illegally dumping a vehicle where it does not belong". That would be cool - trap, tow, crush and charge the owners!
Yeah -- if the city can
Yeah -- if the city can confiscate cones and mums, in a marked boundary area, why isn't it confiscating cars parked in an actual lane? And if the cones and mums were just trashed, why is that not similarly appropriate for vehicular trash?
No kidding A Man , another
No kidding A Man , another internet proof of pudding. So you got a collection up, lets see a bill of sale. Perhaps they were purloined from other hazards. Who is responsible for them if unknown persons kick them into the roadway and they cause property or personal injury damage. You just cant be coning up the joint, we are trying to have a civilization here. Some people dont drink the koolaid , are they any less citizens?
You just can't be coning up the joint!
Sorry. Thought it bore repeating.
One question, how does the
One question, how does the City of Boston feel about all this?
Embarrassed?
Given that this all points up an issue that the City of Boston is persistently not solving, I'd imagine they feel embarrassed. At least I hope so. "Ashamed" would be better but is probably a bit of a reach.
I'm going to go with... not
I'm going to go with... not giving a fuck.
He is saving lives
This guy is saving lives, and doing what the City should have been doing all along. Hopefully the City is embracing it. The cones at Mass Ave and Tremont remain and make my commute safer every day.
How do you know for sure that
How do you know for sure that this action makes things safer, rather than less safe?
Heh.
I was happy to see that they cleared the cones and flower pots out in plenty for cars to use the bike lane during the evening rush.