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Cambridge Police force bicyclists to obey the law
By adamg on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 12:46am
Rob Bellinger advises that Cambridge Police are actually ticketing bicyclists who run a red light at Mass. Ave. and Pleasant Street:
... They got eight bicyclists for this while I was having lunch nearby, plus ticketed another for biking on the sidewalk in front of 7-11. ...
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Comments
Almost hit a bicyclist in that vicinity this week
Glad to hear it! I had a close call with a bicyclist who ran a red light near there this week. Of course, I had a green light and was proceeding slowly. He didn't even stop to look if traffic was coming. Scared the heck out of me.
Thumbs up on the sidewalk enforcement
If there's one thing I'm clear on in this world, it's that bicycles belong on the street, not on sidewalks.
the *state* law...
...is actually that bicycles aren't allowed on the sidewalks in business districts.
Is it a bad idea to ride them on the sidewalks in general? Yep. But unfortunately, it's not illegal, at least according to state law. PRoC may have their own regs.
It depends
There are some places where it's safer for everybody if bikes are on the sidewalk, for example busy, narrow roads with no shoulders and wide sidewalks... e.g. the J-way.
huh?
The Jamaicaway has a bike path about 50-100 feet away...
The Jamaicaway bike path sometimes is the sidwalk
It is true that a bike path parallels the J-way for part of its length on one side; I know it well. It's a great path, but at places it is also one and the same as the sidewalk.
If you want to ride a bike up the length of the J-Way/Fenway bike trail, you have to either go on the street (which might be dangerous) or use the sidewalk (which is not) at several points. If you want to get from the Arboretum to the Pond, the safest way to do that is also absolutely the sidewalk. Try it sometime... or just ride your bike through the Centre street rotary - your choice.
A lot of local roads are the same way. If you want to ride your bike over to Allandale to buy some corn and cherry tomatoes (in season now!), you're best off going down the sidewalk on the left hand side of the road. Otherwise, you share a narrow, shoulderless road full of speeders, and put yourself at needless risk.
Memorial Drive for one has
Memorial Drive for one has ample space for both, assuming everyone is accomadating. The lanes are so thin you can barely fit two cars on the road with parked cars on the right, let alone two cars, a parked car and a bike.
Normally Im an anti bike on the sidewalk guy but when youve got wide sidewalks and thin streets with fast traffic you have to get those bikes up on the sidewalk.
Random law enforcement
Random enforcement of the law in between long stretches of not enforcing it isn't good for anyone except those collecting the revenue. Cops in Harvard Square could ticket a hundred jaywalkers in five minutes if they were so inclined. It wouldn't change anyone's behavior if this were done just once, though; it would just make people not know what's de facto legal and what isn't.
Good!
These jokers endanger other cyclists, too. Them and the wrong-way riders.
Bikes really don't belong on sidewalks - particularly given Cambridge's bike lanes. I will sometimes use a short stretch of sidewalk if there is an obstruction or I'm doing a half block wrong way and there are not easy alternatives, but I either walk the bike, or I ride at walking speed, be patient, and yield to any pedestrians. My kids are even trained to not ride sidewalks unless there are not other choices, and to yield to all pedestrians if they do - ignorant busybody enormous school lunchlady trolls be damned!
I have been known to block a sidewalk and force a fixidiot off the walkway on the very very narrow walks downtown. If you want traffic the right direction, ride the extra block or walk it folks! Ain't hard to do when you are superbike!
Now they need to work to keep right turning semis off the sidewalks and all set.
or eliminate the semis from
or eliminate the semis from city streets altogether. That would actually be a great level for small local stores, which will get everything delivered from multiple sources in smaller box trucks, vs. national chain retailers, which collect everything in a warehouse and load onto semis to deliver to several stores around town.
It would make our streets safer, quieter, cleaner, and we'd spend much less money maintaining them.
Likewise I've always said that license fees, taxes, tolls., etc should be more closely based on how much of the public ROW (vertical and horizontal) they are using, so wider, taller, longer, heavier, etc SUVs shoulder more of the cost than, say, a mini cooper. Anyway, in a dream world i guess.
Trick for bicyclists: cross illegally instead
Cambridge police seem to be the only ones in Massachusetts who regularly have sting operations to ticket bicyclists who run red lights or stop signs.
Note that the intersection in question is part of the Central Square Business District, where bicycling on the sidewalk is illegal. In Cambridge, you cannot ride on the sidewalk in any of the officially-designated business districts, including Harvard Square, Central Square, and Huron Village. They used to have maps of those districts at Cambridge Police website, but I can't seem to find them at the moment.
A long-time bicyclist I know told me of a trick he uses at that very intersection in order to avoid getting ticketed (since it's down the street from the police station): hop off your bike and cross illegally in the crosswalk (against the light). Then hop back on your bicycle, and off you go.
If a Cambridge cop tickets you (a pedestrian walking a bike) for crossing illegally -- as opposed to ticketing you for running a red light -- then you can pay the pedestrian ticket fine, frame the ticket, and sell it for mucho dinero on ebay. You would have a one-of-a-kind souvenir.
Personally, I just wait for the green light.
Yay
Enforcing the rules of the road for bicyclists is a good thing.
Now if they can make sure that motorists obey the law too.
One good place to start is Memorial Drive at JFK Street where drivers regularly run red lights causing pedestrians to scatter. And just across the Larz Andersen Bridge, motorists turning left on to Soldiers Field Road will drive on the left side of the road head-on into oncoming traffic when they don't have right of way. I see these things happen every single day.
What they need to do is
What they need to do is change the lights at these intersections as they make no sense.
I actually noticed that 6 months ago there was never a green light left arrow for people driving from JFK and taking a left on Memorial Drive and now there is. That was a major problem because the only way people could make that left previously was to wait in the intersection then barrell onto memorial drive where pedestrians started crossing a little early because nobody was coming. So thats one part of that equation fixed, but they need to fix the whole light structure on that bridge.