Peter Furth is spreading the misinformation (as has Pete Stidman before him) that I prevented the installation of bike lanes in Boston. This is absolutely not the case. The Mayor was opposed to bicycling and bicyclists at the time, and of course the default in any road design project is no special bike lanes. I [...]
This bicyclist had to swerve as the oblivious motorist flung open her door on Centre Street in the heart of the business district where parking turnover is high and traffic is slow. This Thursday the City of Boston will present its proposal for bike markings on South Street and Centre St from Forest Hills to [...]
Concord Avenue north of Fresh Pond in Cambridge has perfectly nice, five-foot bike lanes. They’re not even in the door zone, since there is no on-street parking. But Cambridge is planning to take them away, narrow the roadway, and force bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk. The bike lanes were striped 10 years ago as part [...]
1 comment Paul Schimek | Bike Lanes, Bikeways, Roads, Sidepaths
I remember seeing these signs in Berkeley some years ago. They are in complete violation of the MUTCD (wrong color, symbols, and font), but they do convey a useful message, particularly by citing the relevant city and state codes. I think (an improved version of) these signs would nicely complement Shared Lane Markings that I [...]
A proposal for bike lanes on Centre Street between Lamartine St and Sunnyside St (near Jackson Square) was floated at the March 23 meeting of the Centre South Transportation Action Plan Citizens’ Advisory Committee. The 42-ft curb-to-curb width is just a bit too narrow for the bare minimum bike lanes proposed for Centre Street between [...]
The “Centre/South Streetscape and Transportation Action Plan” is proposing bike lanes in the Centre Street business district in Jamaica Plain from Eliot Street to Lakeville Rd. The images from the presentation at the January 2010 meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the project show bicyclists safely out of range of car doors in the existing [...]
Peter DeMarco’s “Who Taught You to Drive?” column recently took up the subject of mopeds. This topic is timely, since people are discovering these small motorcycles now that gas is more than $4/gallon. He also brings up two issues related to non-motorized bicyclists: passing between lanes of stopped traffic and parking on Boston sidewalks.
This month the trolley tracks in Jamaica Plain were paved over. All gone. It took two days. They had been a hazard and a nuisance, especially for cyclists, causing many injuries. And they had not been used by a trolley since December 1985. That’s 22 and 1/2 years of unnecessary pain. Completely unnecessary, because the [...]
Newsflash: In Boston, the filling of potholes “appears to be a totally subjective decision of the supervisors and is unsupported by any records, data bases, or even a planned survey approach.”
A few weeks ago I bought a new bike — a Jamis Commuter 3.0. Mine is black, the 2008 model, but Harris Cyclery was good enough to put on the 2007 bars, which are more of the moustache variety, and a shorter stem. I also put on a lighter, narrower seat, a Delta rack, toe [...]