Bicycle path in Fresh Pond Reservation,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

There has been a path around the pond for many years, but the path to be discussed here is a new and different one. It begins at the rotary intersection (traffic circle) of Concord Avenue and Alewife Brook Parkway, north of the pond. We'll take a tour of the path starting at that point, location A on aerial photo.

In the late 1990s, Concord Avenue west of the rotary was restriped from four lanes to three lanes -- two eastbound and one westbound --  with a bike lane on either side. The reconfiguration significantly improved bicycling conditions, without much impact on the flow of motor traffic. The view of the rotary in the photo below is from the west Concord Avenue entrance. This photo was taken in May, 1999. The end of the bike lane is visible in the photo; it is dashed as it enters the rotary, where bicyclists must merge left if they are passing the first exit.

The photo below looks back to the west along the path toward the location in the first photo. For bicyclists headed west,  the path is on the left side of the road. At night, the cyclists also are riding directly into the headlamp beams of vehicles on the road.  Where the path ends, it leaves cyclists on  the wrong side of Concord Avenue. There appears to be a curb cut for a crosswalk in front of the gas station across from the path entrance. Bases for traffic signal posts indicate that the crosswalk will probably be signalized.. 

The curve here is made necessary by the railroad tracks, which are currently used for shipments to only one business in Watertown.

The hexagonal marking in the left lower part of the photo appears to be a location for a bollard, as yet not placed, which will further force northbound bicyclists out into oncoming traffic on the bridge. The sidewalk next to the parkway also is odd. There are no destinations along this sidewalk; a sidewalk past the waterworks building would have been much more attractive. But there is none, so pedestrians use the bicycle path.

The path ends at the northwest corner of the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Huron Avenue (location H on aerial photo). Bike lanes on Huron Avenue start on the east side of this intersection. This is an intersection not to be taken lightly; it carries heavy traffic in every direction. A young woman walking across this intersection with her bicycle was killed by a left-turning truck in early 2002. The intersection here does have an exclusive (four-way) pedestrian signal phase, the only kind that would be practical for bicyclists to get to the eastbound bike lane in one diagonal movement, but no signs indicate this possibility, and right turns on red are allowed -- so the pedestrian phase is not really exclusive. When the author was observing and photographing the path, some the bicyclists turned around and went back when they reached Huron Avenue, some waited for the light, and others ran the light..

The extension of the path beyond the waterworks building is an example of "connect-the-dots" bicycle planning: the obsession that special bicycle facilities must be connected end-to-end. This obsession can result from the idea that a community is connecting a route "system." However, existing streets, perhaps with improvements, often provide shorter and safer routes. "Connect-the-dots" bicycle planning has led to a hazardous crossing and a longer route here. At the Huron Avenue end of the project, getting from the bike path to the bike lane on the corner diagonally opposite requires crossing two sides of the intersection.

Fresh Pond Parkway is just as bicycle-unfriendly south of this intersection as north of it. Parallel streets are convenient, and carry lighter traffic. For this reason, the likely movements bicyclists will make at this intersection are to and from Huron Avenue. Travel to the west (right) on Huron Avenue would better have been managed with a path starting from location G in the aerial photo and exiting the park at the T intersection with Aberdeen Street, a block west of Huron Avenue . The path would form a fourth entry to that intersection and could be served by ordinary vehicular  traffic signals. A shorter route to the east is provided by the crossing at Vassal Lane and Lakeview Avenue, lightly-traveled streets which connect to Huron Avenue Parkway (dashed light blue lines at right side of  aerial photo).