bostonbiker

Author: jsallen

  • Massachusetts passing-on-right law

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    jsallen
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    We’ll start with a video where a motorist abruptly changed lanes to pass a vehicle on the right at speed and had to swerve left to avoid striking a bicyclist who had been concealed by the vehicle being passed. Here is a shortened version. The full video is on YouTube. I’ve also seen a YouTube…

  • Sparks Street

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    jsallen
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    Let’s have a look at Huron Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts as it crosses Sparks Street and Royal Avenue.This stretch is downhill right to left in the overhead view. The buffer is on the wrong side of the bike lane, placing it in the door zone. Faster bicyclists can travel as fast or nearly as fast…

  • Making Commonwealth Avenue work for everyone?

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    The Barr Foundation has published an interview with Livable Streets Executive Director Jackie Douglas under the headline “Making Our Streets Work for Everyone”. The main point which Douglas makes is that progress, and a victory, as she describes it, were achieved by bringing groups with different interests onto the same page. The Boston Globe published…

  • Massachusetts law omissions

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    In a previous post, I mentioned that Massachusetts General Laws include no requirement to wait at a red traffic signal. Here are details,  from a search of the Massachusetts General Laws online, http://www.state.ma.us/legis/laws/mgl/ . Chapter 89, section 8 of the General Laws includes rules for drivers to stop at a stop sign or flashing red…

  • MHD bicycle detection document

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    jsallen
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    The Massachusetts Highway Department published the document Bicycle Detection at Signalized Intersections in 1998. This includes the recommendations for quadrupole loops in the 1986 San Diego study, which is cited as a reference. The Massachusetts document reflects progress, in recognizing the importance of bicycle detection, but includes some recommendations which reflect an inadequate understanding of…

  • Meng Jin, and Charles River Dam Road

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    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…

  • Connect Historic Boston complaint

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    Charles Denison, who is generally in favor of infrastructure projects, expresses his dislike of the part of the Connect Historic Boston project on Causeway Street.

  • Boston Bike Party

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    I rode a Boston Bike Party ride. The Boston Bike Party is more or less a friendlier version of Critical Mass — not in-your-face confrontational, but still they held a parade without a permit, corking intersections, riding through neighborhoods with bike trailers pulling sound systems playing rock music at deafening volume — three different ones…

  • Seen in Lexington

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    jsallen
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    I have not yet ridden on the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue where bike lanes have been placed to the right of parked cars. I missed that opportunity when my bicycle had a flat tire and I couldn’t fix the inner tube — so I Ubered up to Ride Studio Café to buy and install a…

  • What is the authority for this sign?

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    jsallen
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    The sign in this photo, which I have copied from a Facebook post, is well-intentioned, but it arouses very mixed feelings in me. I have no sympathy for people who ride at unsafe speeds around other path users, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD9u01lVxe8. There was a death on the Minuteman path in Lexington, Massachusetts this year resulting from…