Category: Locality
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My e-mail in support of West Station
Alexander Strysky is the Massashusetts Environmental Protection Agency reviewer for the I-90 Interchange project in Allston. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has backed off from plans for prompt construction of anew West Station on the Framingham-Worcester commuter-rail line, which is an essential element of the project. My comment e-mail to Mr. Strysky is below. ***********…
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My letter to the Globe about the Kurmann fatality
The following is what I wrote. It was not published: I’ve read the Op-Ed piece by Andrew Fischer and Alan Wright, “Killing Bicyclists should be a crime” in the Sunday, January 28 (2018) Globe. I agree with Wright and Fischer that a charge of involuntary manslaughter against the trucker in the Anita Kurmann fatality is…
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Bicyclists always had the right, the Globe got it wrong
The Starts and Stops column in the Metro section of the Sunday, June 10 2012 Boston Globe, and in Boston.com, included a discussion of whether bicyclists are required to ride in bike lanes, under the subheading “Bikers get the right” and concluding that there is no such requirement in Massachusetts. The article quotes Boston Bikes…
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Harvard Bridge connection to the PDW path: proposed improvement
Let’s look at how well bicycle routes around the Boston end of the Harvard Bridge (Massachusetts Avenue bridge over the Charles River) might be improved. Here is a Google maps overview of the area. There are two special bicycle routes in the area: the Paul Dudley White bicycle path along the river, and the ramp…
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Sheet of ice draws praise from advocates
The headline of the Boston Globe article with this picture is “Snowbank becomes accidental hero for area cyclists”. The shiny area in the bikeway is meltwater from said snowbank. When the temperature drops below freezing, the meltwater becomes a sheet of black ice. This problem is unavoidable with a street-level barrier-separated bikeway. I discussed it…
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Drainage Failure on Causeway Street
I took the photo below around 10 PM on January 5, 2017 looking west on Causeway Street in Boston from in front of North Station. Here’s a link to the location in Google maps. The default view in Google Maps is from before installation of the bikeway, as I write this. Streets are crowned (higher…
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More comments on the I-90 Allston Interchange project.
Some important improvements: parkland along the Charles, an overpass over Soldiers Field Road and a better Franklin Street overpass, but also same old, same old, People’s Pillar to Post instead of a People’s Pike. My comments following the December 8 public meeting are online. More extensive earlier comments are in another post on this blog.
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An Alternative to the Inman Square Peanut Proposal
I have posted comments about the proposal for a “peanut roundabout” in Inman Square, and other proposals for the Square, on the Cambridge Civic Forum blog. I think that the City’s “bend Cambridge Street” proposal — with a minor modification to make bicycling safer and more convenient — is the best one which has any…
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Pushback on Cambridge bicycle plans
Cambridge Civic Journal blogger Robert Winters has posted a thoroughgoing critique of a proposal for a great expansion in the number and mileage of on-street, barrier-separated bikeways. City Councillor Craig Kelley also has raised questions on his blog (and sent out the same message to an e-mail subscription list).
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My comments on the North Washington Street Bridge project
The comments below were addressed to Patricia Leavenworth, Chief Engineer at MassDOT. ATTN: Bridge Project Management, Project File No. 604173 Dear Ms. Leavenworth: I attended the 75% design about the North Washington Street bridge project on October 19, and I am commenting on that project. The quote below is on page 13 of the minutes…