Tag: bicycle
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Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, Boston petition on Change.org
One Joshua Grolman has published a petition on Change. org asking for “protected bike lanes” on Centre Street, the main street through the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in Boston. Centre Street is two-way, narrowed by parallel parking on both sides everywhere except at special locations — bus stops, turn lanes, approaches to intersections etc. While the…
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Non-responsive signal actuators in Waltham
Why are we still seeing traffic-signal actuators which won’t trigger the signal for bicycles or motorcycles? I have made a short video of a Waltham intersection, Bedford and South Streets. This illustrates the problem which a bicyclist or motorcyclist faces with many traffic-signal actuators. Another issue at this same intersection is that many westbound motorists…
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Some questions about bicyclists’ rights in Massachusetts
The bicyclists’ advocacy organization Massbike has as of today, November 27, 2018, posted a quiz online and promoted it in an e-mail, and the first question is “True or false: Massachusetts law considers a bicycle to be a vehicle.” Massbike says true, and gives this explanation: It’s true! The law considers a bike a vehicle.…
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Fatal crash of November 9, 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
This morning’s fatal crash was reported by State Police as another in the string of tragic right-hook collisions which have become the largest cause of bicyclist fatalities in the Boston area. Once again, a bicyclist was crushed by a large truck which turned right.[ Update: the cyclist was Meng Jin, a male graduate student at…
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Riding Lexington Street, Waltham, July 4, 2015
It should be noted that bike lanes have been installed on much of the stretch of Lexington Street shown in the videos. Videos showing the new conditions are in preparation. Two videos, for now: A demonstration of lane control in a slow, uphill bicycle ride on a suburban speedway, with light, fast traffic. How controlling…
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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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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…