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Walking for safety on a major Allston street
By adamg on Tue, 07/29/2014 - 11:24pm
Chris Rich attended the Cambridge Street safety rally in Allston this morning.
Copyright Chris Rich. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
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Comments
Everyone is to blame.
How about pedestrians, bicyclists, AND motorists all step up and accept the blame. Don't run out into traffic from behind a parked car without looking. Don't ride your bike down the middle of a car lane, or weave through traffic. Bicyclists have to follow the rules of the road, too. Especially stopping at red lights!
If you're driving a car, don't blow through stop signs and give the cyclists space. Also, remember that "yield" means that you can merge when it is SAFE to do so. If you have a yield sign, you do not have the right of way.
Uh, the rules of the road
Uh, the rules of the road allow bikes to take a full lane, but nice try.
How about streets that are physically designed to be safe?
Yes, all people need to be responsible and act safely.
At the same time, how about the City and State make changes to the roads so they are safer for everyone to use?
As Mayor Walsh said yesterday on Boston Public Radio on WGBH, "We need to look at reconfiguring intersections to slow traffic down."
Wow. Menino would mainly just do some
..posturing bike pose stunt out of one face while assuring the upper echelons of the motorist cult that he really wants a car friendly Boston with the other one. A regular Janus.
It would be great to see a Substance over Style trend for a change after being smothered by Style for the past several decades.
What's a 'car lane'?
What is a 'car lane?'
128
Has some car lanes.
So....
Did they ticket the State Police car parked on the sidewalk?
Actually the sidewalk ends
About ten feet before where the State Police car is parked.
That's part of what the rally was about: here's where the sidewalk ends and dumps pedestrians next to two lanes of high speed traffic, with no way to continue down Cambridge Street except to run across those two lanes and hope for the best. A person was killed doing that two weeks ago.
In 1963, the highway agency cut that highway ramp into Cambridge Street and gave zero thought to how pedestrians would cross it while walking down Cambridge Street to reach the river or the bus stop. That was typical of the 1960s mindset: all car, all the time.
Yet, in 2014, we're still waiting for the problem to be fixed.
"63"??.. Yikes!!!! Now that's Boston Slob.
Since we've moved on from Boston Strong, lets get back to reality.
I got there at around 7:30 as I've promised Paola I'd make content when the time came.
That gave me time to walk all the way from the first hell intersection near the river on the Allston side to Jack Young making fun of Boston Slob at each notable point.
Then I just headed down the Brighton side and repeated the process with an aside at the failed mess of a sculpture garden near the bike ramp.. some serious Boston Slob.
I got to that spot where everyone perched precariously, chatted with a few and then got out of their hair.
A lot of the motorists were seemingly sympathetic and gave high 5's or honks.
And the cops were the best. I think they like it when people rally for things that make their lives less aggravating too.
Someone should tally all the injuries and fatalities since 1963 and "decorate" with crosses.
It was good to see some of the suggestions everyone is working on become real. I saw some sawed off barrel planters and the city or DOT seems to be tinkering with warning sign blinking things.
That really could be a wonderful demo showcase for traffic calming.
I should have a video photo mash up ready soon.
I also noticed the CSX yard is finally fenced off.
I wonder if someone noticed my video?
That ancient gray painted Pullman baggage car was worth it alone.