Meng Jin, and Charles River Dam Road

MIT student Meng Jin died as he rode up to and past the corner in a bike lane on Museum Way, to the right of a truck that turned right onto Charles River Dam Road. That tragedy has led to a call for barrier-separated bike lanes on Charles River Dam Road, a non sequitur, in two ways: Meng Jin was not riding on Charles River Dam Road, and he died due to an intersection conflict.

What would actually resolve such conflicts at Museum Way, and on the other side, at the Museum of Science driveways? While separation would make it more pleasant to ride on Charles River Dam Road, how could any kind of bike lane resolve the conflicts?

There are options do resolve them, at least somewhat: instruct bicyclists not to ride up on the right side of the first vehicle waiting at an intersection (and don’t design bike lanes to encourage that); instruct motorists to be more careful to look before turning right; separate traffic-signal phases.

But the conflicts would be completely resolved only by infrastructure which achieves real separation. That could be achieved with a path behind the Museum of Science, and a bicycle-pedestrian bridge over the canal which carries boat traffic. Unfortunately, parkland upstream from the bridge has been obliterated by the Museum’s building an expansion and its parking garage out over the water. The Boston area is painted, or rather, walled, into a corner by decisions made decades ago and which might only be resolved by construction of a separate bicycle bridge, or a complete reconstruction of Charles River Dam Way and its connection to streets and driveways, as this aerial view shows.

An earlier post about the same crash, with advice on how bicyclists can avoid such crashes, is here.