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Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte
It’s getting harder and harder to navigate a car with all the bicyclists throughout Somerville. When I pass a bicycle, I have to basically come out of my lane to avoid hitting them, which puts me in the path of oncoming traffic.
I get very nervous when driving past a bicycle because sometimes they don’t stay in the bike lane. Those white plastic poles can be daunting. As usual I asked my social media friends to share their comments on the growing population of bicycles in the city. It’s not a question of who’s right, it’s just opinions. Each new quote is a different persons’ comment.
“It would be nice if they obeyed the laws of the road, and paid some taxes for riding on them, like license plates.”
“They should have to pay fees like car owners do.”
“It is a disaster waiting to happen. Powderhouse Blvd. is a mess!”
“It is worse since they put all the spikes there.”
“Well, except for public transit, I am multimodal. I am a pedestrian, cyclist, and car driver. Like, all three.”
“I think they should contribute to the cost of maintaining roads and follow all traffic laws the way cars are expected to.”
“If some, not all, people that own bikes would follow all the traffic laws I wouldn’t care.”
“Drives me nuts when they drive on the sidewalk when there is a bike lane in the street!”
“I do think most have cars so they are paying taxes and do you really want all those people back in cars? Traffic is just going to get worse with all these buildings going up. The city needs people to get on busses and bikes. It’s never going back to the way it used to be.”
“I had a jogger run into the side of my car and scratch it. They just run out I to traffic. I think we need to do something about them.”
“I’m a Somerville lifer who’s been using a bike for many years. I try to bike for the most part when I can because it’s easier than driving and parking in this city. But I also live in the real world and have a pickup and a car for my business and my family of four. I think what the city is doing to our streets and traffic patterns is outrageous. It’d be hard to imagine it being any stupider but somehow the political power in Somerville figures out a way. I get it, ‘cars bad’, ‘save world’ and if we can’t make it difficult enough to drive let’s make gas $6 a gallon!”
“I don’t care for the bikes. I hate the new configuration and see cars driving in and out of the bus/bike lanes. But, in Cambridge they’re taking parking away for the bike lanes. It’s even worse!”
To help lessen the trouble of driving in the city we can stop when it says stop and yield where it says yield and stay in your lane.
A lot of joggers don’t stop at crosswalks or in traffic. Patience and paying strict attention may be the only way to go. Meanwhile there are more bikes and joggers and detours than ever.
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Hi Jimmy, you do have the option of waiting until it is safe to pass a cyclist (or stopped Uber Eats car or UPS truck with its blinkers flashing), you don’t just have to rip into oncoming traffic. Hope this helps!
As a cyclist (but also a driver, pedestrian, etc) I am always saddened to hear that people think cyclists don’t pay their fair share. I do pay excise tax for my car, of course, but I agree it would be fair for me to pay for my bike too! Since wear and tear on the road would roughly correspond to the vehicle weight, it would be fair for me to pay about 1% of the average excise tax for my 20lb bike. Of course I also only ride about 1000 miles per year, so that’s also only 10% as much as the average driver. Please let me know where I should send my check for 75 cents!
It’s interesting to hear how drivers have such a sense of ownership over the roads. My understanding is that this is a real departure from the past, where the roads were shared between many users (street hockey, anyone?). I like the stories of Somerville when there were fewer cars on our roads, and it was safer for everyone, including kids, to use that public space. Adding more bike lanes is going to be a piece of that. How nice would it be if the roads were safe enough that kids could bike places in Somerville instead of having to get shuttled around by their parents? Somerville used to have 6th graders able to act as crossing guards! But we need to have more balance about who belongs in our streets, and who is safe there.
Stephanie, I like those stories too. Unfortunately things change and those days are gone for good. More development means more and more people are being crammed into the city, creating more congestion. Tell me how taking away travel lanes and parking is going to help solve this problem?
Tim K. The population has not changed much in the half century I have been here. Was more when my grandparents moved in back in the 30s.
It has been going up a bit since they started Turning the more industrial areas residential in the last decade, but not that much. You stopped seeing kids playing in the street long before the population went up. I think part of it was the advent of car alarms. Try playing kickball now.
Somerville Population Facts [top]
What was the peak population of Somerville?
The peak population of Somerville was in 1930, when its population was 103,908. In 1930, Somerville was the 85th largest city in the US; now its fallen to the 450th largest city in the US. Somerville is currently 23.2% smaller than it was in 1930.
How quickly is Somerville growing?
Somerville has grown 2.9% since the 2000. Somerville, Massachusetts’s growth is extremely below average. 81% of similarly sized cities are growing faster since 2000.
https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/somerville-massachusetts/population-graph
BMac I hear you, but don’t forget we also have to contend with all the cut thru traffic getting to and from Boston and Cambridge. I would bike or use public transportation if I could, unfortunately neither is practical for where I commute to daily. I’m glad the GLX has finally come to fruition, however IMO the reliability of service has been lacking (especially lately).