[*BCM*] Stupidest Bike Lane

[Hiroyuki Yamada]

>>First off, on the bridge itself as you approach Mem drive the lane narrows 
to about 12 inches wide at the light.  Once you cross Mem drive, the lane
just disappears into parked cars (this may have been fixed with the redoing
of Mass ave in that area.  Anyways, the whole thing is a complete cluster 
through MIT right now, and until the construction is done I'm forced to
give Cambridge a pass on this.



As far as I can tell, the construction is "done," although that is a pretty relative term. There are now bike lanes on both sides of the street, but the street has not been made wider, so this has led the city to cut a 4-lane road down to a 3-lane one. Yes, THREE lanes, which means that the southbound (boston-bound) side suddenly goes from 2 lanes to 1, somewhere inexplicably around vassar street. So you have merging traffic and often people simply driving in 2 lanes anyway (using the bike lane as their 2nd lane) to deal with, on top of the fact that the repainting of the double yellow is terribly shoddy, and this means that you have auto drivers confused and bikers in danger.

And, of course, the bike lane going *into* boston is all good and fine, but soon after you get off the mass ave bridge, it disappears...

--Yuki



Rachel Elizabeth Dillon wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 01:51:07PM -0400, Jim Leonard wrote:
>   
>> cc'd to slatev at slate.com
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 09:54:27AM -0400, Daniel Jared Dominguez wrote:
>>     
>>> I'd say that the bike _lines_ on some parts of Mass. Ave. in northern
>>> Cambridge might qualify as worse.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 09:49:18AM -0400, Lee Peters wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Slate on-line has a report on the stupidest bike lane....check it out:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.slate.com/
>>>>         
>> I would say that a ride the full duration of Mass Ave through Cambridge
>> from the Harvard Bridge (ya know,  the one that goes to MIT?) to Alewife 
>> Brook Parkway would be highly instructive in how not to do bike lanes.
>>     
>
> Amen.
>  
>   
>> But lo and behold, once we get past the intersection of Mass Ave with Brattle
>> St and JFK St, where Mass ave becomes two way again (for about 200 feet
>> before it splits again getting ready for what is, in effect, a large traffic
>> circle around the entrance to the large underground bus stop at Harvard Sq)
>> we've got a bike lane again.  Until... WHAT THE... !!!??? it ends with a 
>> yellow and black caution sign and a curb jutting out from the side of the 
>> road.  But wait, there's another bike lane.  On the LEFT side of the road 
>> that we're supposed to use.  What cyclists are supposed to do in this area
>> (not that it's overly clear) is to go to the right of the caution sign, and
>> into an area to wait for the cross walk to change to cross the road and then 
>> start riding on the bike lane on the left side of the road.  Until that goes
>> away 150 feet later.  Leaving you stuck on the left side of the road as you 
>> enter the traffic circle needing to get right two lanes because no cyclist
>> wants to be in the lane that allows you to reverse direction on Mass Ave and 
>> reenter Harvard Sq (more lanes if you want to go east on Cambridge St, but
>> don't do that).  
>>     
>
> This lane is going to hurt someone someday. The worst part (for bicycle
> advocacy) is that it will probably be a pedestrian, as someone merrily
> follows the bike lane at road speed --- onto the sidewalk. I almost hurt
> someone this way the first time I saw the new intersection. It's one of
> the few places that I think the road would be better with no bike lane
> at all. It's also shiny new construction... there's no hope of getting this
> changed, is there? Someone to write to?
>
> -r.
>  
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