bostonbiker

Category: Locality

  • Boston Police bicycle training

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    jsallen
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    Are the Boston Police getting the training they need to be safe and effective on bicycles? I don’t think so. I don’t know how they train, but I have seen how they perform. In another post, I described how a participant in a protest march pushed a Boston bicycle patrol officer over — intentionally or…

  • Narrow-Gauge Rail Trail, Bedford: safer to walk across the street?

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    jsallen
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    The photo below, from summer 2011, is a cylindrical panorama: Hillside Road, at the right, is at a right angle to Route 4-225 (the Great Road) at the left. The Narrow Gauge Rail Trail runs from front to rear in the photo, alongside Hillside Road and (at the rear) Bacon Street. (Google map of the…

  • Boston Police tactics at the December 13, 2014 protest

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    jsallen
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    I express my appreciation to the Boston Police for crowd control without excessive force at December 13’s Black Lives Matter protest march. Anything less would have been very unfortunate, particularly in connection with a peaceful march protesting use of force and police immunity from prosecution. But there’s a different issue with police conduct at the…

  • People’s Pike or People’s Pillar to Post?

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    jsallen
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    How would I like to think of the People’s Pike? I want to see a bicycle path and an adjacent footpath which avoid crossing and turning conflicts, passing under the ramps to the Turnpike and to the proposed West Station, with connections up to the overpasses to get to West Station and beyond, to Packard’s…

  • Honked at again

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    jsallen
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    I was bicycling home from church on a Sunday afternoon recently. The church I attend, First Parish in Waltham, has a parking lot on either side, but also the public school parking lot across the street doesn’t get much use on a Sunday, and handles any overflow. As I rode home, I headed south on…

  • Commonwealth Avenue and the BU campus

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    jsallen
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    The Boston Cyclists Union and Livable Streets are promoting cycle tracks for Commonwealth Avenue. The bicycle industry’s Astroturf advocacy organization, Peoplefor Bikes, is asking people to sign a petition in support of them. Not a good idea. Cycle tracks on Commonwealth Avenue won’t prevent the most common car-bike crashes (crossing and turning collisions, doorings —…

  • Bike Lane Goes Under

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    jsallen
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    [Note: Google Street View preserves views of the same location at different times, very helpful in tracing the history of road projects. I have provided links to Street View to verify the images I have downloaded and let you move the view around. But on mobile devices, Street View brings up different and apparently recent…

  • I-90 Interchange project announcement

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    jsallen
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    Governor Deval Patrick announces commitment to a major expansion in the I-90 Interchange project, 2:40 PM, September 18, 2014, Beacon Yards, Allston section of Boston, Massachusetts. The abandoned rail yards are now a 22-acre wasteland in the middle of the City of Boston. Funding, 1/3 from the Commonwealth, 1/3 from Harvard University and 1/3 from…

  • A British study clarifies the problem with trucks

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    jsallen
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    I thank Bob Shanteau, California traffic engineer and cyclist, for this link. The paper, from the U.K., puts numbers on the problem with bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities in collisions with large trucks. A quote: Lorries are involved in around 4,200 fatal accidents in Europe every year, according to the European Transport Safety Council. In Belgium,…

  • Report on Route 9 reconstruction in Natick

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    jsallen
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    On Sunday, August 24, Natick residents Dick and Jill Miller and I had a look at the Route 9 project, which extends either side of the Oak Street intersection. We drove the length of the project in both directions, and I shot video of it. We parked just west of Oak Street. I walked west…