bostonbiker

Author: jsallen

  • Separate but equal

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    jsallen
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    3:15 PM, Thursday, August 27, 2014: I’m riding home on the stretch of Western Avenue in Brighton a hundred yards or so short of Market Street. I’m riding outside the door zone of parked cars. This stretch is narrow enough that the City of Boston hasn’t even seen fit to install its usual door-zone bike…

  • Massachusetts Motorized Bicycle and “Motorized Scooter” Law — a Mess

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    [Note — these comments have been rendered partially obsolete by legislation enacted in 2023. Laws for bicycles now apply to electric bicycles with a top assisted speed of 20 mph. Electric bicycles with a top speed of 28 mph (Class 3 as usually defined) are still defined as motorized scooters as of this writing in…

  • Columbus Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue Follow-Up

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    [Note: this post has been updated thanks to Charlie Denison’s correct identification of the direction from which the bicyclist approached the intersection.] This post follows from my previous post about the right-hook collision of a garbage truck with a bicyclist at Columbus Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. The image below is from a Boston…

  • Window dressing

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    jsallen
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    I have already described the side skirts on Boston garbage trucks as window dressing. Maybe I should concede a little ground on that, as the cyclist in the most recent right-hook crash merely had severe injuries instead of being killed. [Update, December 2024: I take it back. See photo and explanation below.] To prevent right-hook…

  • A Discussion of Massachusetts Rules on Crosswalks

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    This appeared on the BostonAreaCycling e-mail list. It deserves repeating. On Jun 29, 2014, at 10:13 PM, David Wean  wrote: Vehicle operators are required to stop once pedestrians enter the crosswalk (or when they are, IIRC, within 10 feet of the lane the vehicle is in). A concern I have is that treating cyclists the…

  • My letter to the FHWA about Connect Historic Boston

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    My letter is online.

  • A longer response to Egan

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    jsallen
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    [Note, December 28, 2024: Link rot is appalling but the Internet Archive has preserved almost every citation in this post.] This is a more extended response to the letter from Boston’s Chief Civil Engineer responding to my comments about the Connect Historic Boston project. My comments are at https://john-s-allen.com/pdfs/CHB_Comments.pdf and https://john-s-allen.com/pdfs/CHB_2014-03_comments.pdf Mr. Egan’s reply to…

  • Boston Chief Civil Engineer’s reply to my comments on Connect Historic Boston

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    I have discussed my comments on the Connect historic Boston project in an earlier post. Now Boston’s Chief Civil Engineer, Bill Egan, has replied — but actually, his reply is a non-reply. He doesn’t address the issues I raised about messing up — rather than improving — bus and taxi access to North Station. Or…

  • Comments on the Charles River Basin Connectivity Study

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    jsallen
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    [Note as of December 28, 2024: plans from 2021 and 2024 propose something very much like what I suggested for the rotatry at North Beacon street in Brighton. See project background page here [archived], and related documents. I have prepared extensive comments on the Charles River Basin Connectivity Study and submitted them for review. I…

  • Is This Street Wide Enough?

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    I have posted a video of a group of avid recreational cyclists riding on Hampshire Street in Cambridge, in the middle of the day. You may view it in glorious full-screen high definition here. Is This Two-Lane Street Wide Enough? from John Allen on Vimeo. The cyclists in this video are riding on a stretch…