bostonbiker

Tag: right hook

  • My letter to the Globe about the Kurmann fatality

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    jsallen
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    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…

  • Pushback on Cambridge bicycle plans

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    jsallen
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    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).  

  • Gillooly’s presentation

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    jsallen
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    Deputy Commissioner James Gillooly’s presentation about the planned separate bikeways on Commonwealth Avenue is online at the URL below. I have prespred a version synchronized to his talk about it at the 2015 Massachusetts Moving Together conference. Gillooly, J. (2015, 11 01). Commonwealth Avenue Phase 2A… Retrieved June 25, 2016, from http://www.movingtogetherma.org/Pdfs/2015presentations/Gillooly-Issued_Move%20Together%20-%20Session%202D.pdf — deleted by…

  • Mass Ave, Arlington, and two approaches to bicycling

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    jsallen
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    This article is about Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, but at a deeper level, it is about two very different approaches to bicycling. I’ll start by recalling Massachusetts Avenue as it used to be. Massachusetts Avenue was striped with two lanes. They were very wide, because there once was a streetcar line down the middle. The…

  • Commonwealth Avenue victory?

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    jsallen
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    I submitted the following comments in response to a Boston Globe article reporting on proposed bikeways on Commonwealth Avenue. [archived] Real solutions to bicycle and pedestrian mobility in the Commonwealth Avenue corridor can be found by connecting parallel streets, an initiative which ties in well with the proposed Allston Turnpike Interchange Project. I have commented…

  • 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 —…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • Is This Street Wide Enough?

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    jsallen
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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…

  • You too can prevent fatal truck-bicycle collisions

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    jsallen
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    I am sick at heart. Last December we lost Chris Weigl, graduate student in journalism at Boston University, a young man of great promise, killed when a semitrailer truck ran over him on Commonwealth Avenue near the BU campus. The green arrow approximates Weigl’s line of travel; the red arrow, the truck’s. (Also see larger…