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(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers.)
On Friday, November 22, Somerville Bicycle Safety delivered a petition signed by almost 700 people to Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone. The petition asks that the mayor make a public commitment to build protected bike lanes on Powder House Boulevard and to build protected bike lanes when the city does significant road work on major thoroughfares throughout the city.
Somerville Bicycle Safety collected signatures on street corners, in busy intersections, at events, and by talking to hundreds and hundreds of people, all of whom want to see more protected bike lanes built more quickly in all neighborhoods of the city. The petition was signed by people from all areas of the city, almost a fifth of who say they are too afraid to bike in Somerville, but would like to.
“Somerville has made great progress in adding protected bicycle infrastructure, including opening the dedicated bus/bike lanes on Broadway this fall, ” says Arah Schuur, of Somerville Bicycle Safety. But the city made the wrong decision on Powder House Boulevard, sacrificing the safety of people on bicycles. This is not an acceptable outcome for one of the city’s major connecting streets.”
“We started Somerville Bicycle Safety to make sure that our elected officials and city staff know that people who bicycle or would like to bicycle, vote, speak up, and get involved.” says George Schneeloch, another member of the organization. “Somerville Bicycle Safety plans to continue to push the administration to meet the goals that the mayor has announced, to finish the citywide bicycle plan and to build protected bike lanes throughout the city.”
The main body of the petition reads as follows:
“In July 2019 the city decided not to build protected bike lanes on Powder House Boulevard despite considerable public support in favor. Instead they will delay making a decision and decide again next year whether to do so or not. This decision unacceptably compromised the safety of people biking on Powder House Boulevard.
Protected bike lanes separate people biking from traffic, preventing many common types of crashes when they are built. Somerville has the highest percentage of bicycle commuters on the east coast. The decision to delay shows a city leadership which does not prioritize the safety of its constituents.
We are asking the city for two things:
– We need the city to publicly commit to build protected bike lanes on Powder House Boulevard.
– We need the city to build protected bike lanes when the city does significant road work on a major thoroughfare.
We need city officials to act quickly to commit to build protected bike lanes on Powder House Boulevard, and we need to see a change of thinking in favor of prioritizing the safety of people biking around Somerville so people of all ages and abilities have safe infrastructure when they bike around the city.”
Somerville Bicycle Safety is an advocacy group working to make streets safer and more enjoyable for people of all ages and abilities in all neighborhoods in Somerville. It organizes people to push elected officials and city staff to meet the commitments of Vision Zero, SomerVision, Somerville Climate Forward and Complete Streets by implementing protected bicycle infrastructure across the city.
The online petition can be found at https://somervillebikesafety.org/petition/?q=w. Please contact info@somervillebikesafety.org with questions.
— Somerville Bicycle Safety
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What’s missing on this proposal is how we are going to pay for these things. I believe it’s time for the 1% (actually 1.6%) of the road users to begin to pay for their fair share. At the same time, we also need to begin applying the same safety regulations that we apply to motor vehicles to bicyclists. A bicyclist traveling at more than 30 mph can do significant harm to a pedestrian during a collision.
Here’s what the rest of us demand/need, and we’re actually the majority:
Register and insure adult bicyclists
Charge them a fee for parking on sidewalks (blocking pedestrian access), for parking at the T, for using rental bikes, etc.
Require helmet use
Enforce bicyclist traffic rules with tickets/fines
Require lights in front and back of bike
Charge fee for inspection of bikes for lights and other safety issues
Make it illegal for any child to be transported like a dog in a cardboard box at street level with no protection whatsoever
I agree that the streets should be safer, but how can there be separate lanes made on all streets in a city that is historically old and has too many narrow streets that have been here for decades?
Many of the streets now are actually serving as both a bike lane AND a roadway, which makes it next to impossible for anyone to be safe. Cars have to compete with bikes, and vice-versa, not to mention pedestrians.
It’s not safe when a car has to drive less than 15 miles an hour on a busy main street because a cyclist is ahead of them. You know that car will speed around them as soon as it is possible to do so, and that’s a potential hazard, and not just to the cyclist.
There needs to be common sense here when deciding how to make the city safer. We are the most densely-populated city in New England. We cannot realistically be all things to all people, and there are simply too many balls in the air to juggle this successfully.
The city needs to make it safe for cyclists, but also accept that not every part of the city can be easily accessible by bike. Pedestrians probably have a better chance of being able to navigate the city than cyclists, and even they have their own issues here.
Powderhouse Boulevard should definitely be made safer, as should any dangerous intersection. Nobody should have to be killed before something is done. But there may be areas where it won’t be possible to do anything, at least until construction is done. If the city CAN do something, then, they should do it. But there may be areas where that is not feasible under the current circumstances.
All we can really do to ultimately make things safer is take personal responsibility for being alert while moving through the city, no matter how we are doing so. Everyone needs to be careful, and if the city is not able to fit separate bike lanes, then drivers and cyclists need to both be extra cautious when dealing with one another.
There is no public support from anyone who actually lives near PowderHouse blvd. The only dangerous part for biking is between North St and Rt 16. How many supporters of this need cars b/c they have children, are elderly, have elderly relatives they need to take care of, or work in a trade and need a pickup/van? I’m guessing zero. Eliminating parking will create chaos near the WSNS, put the funeral home and church at Curtis St out of business, and make soccer at Triangle field very difficult.
The Bicycle Safety group is increasingly antagonistic and ableist. They can’t seem to appreciate the needs of others. I agree that car culture needs to be reigned in, but there are very legit reasons that people in W. Somerville need cars.
Its infuriating that this wasn’t addressed when they repaved the road and re-did the streetscape. An 20″ nibble on both sides of the road would have allowed for parking and bike lanes to coexist.
It’s funny how I got by on that road for over 50 years biking and it was never a problem. In my 60 years driving I have been hit by a car once and twice by a bike while I was walking on a sidewalk. I am not against biking but the biggest percentage of cars that do hit bikers are speeding. And it looks to me like the city took care of that so problem solved. Maybe they should be biking at a safe speed so they can bike safely. The space to make a special road just for them does not exist. We have to get along and common sense is the answer. Aggressive driving or biking should not be tolerated. Many places around the country are reversing these because it made it more unsafe.
I concur with “What Majority Says”Here’s what the rest of us demand/need, and we’re actually the majority:
Register and insure adult bicyclists
Charge them a fee for parking on sidewalks (blocking pedestrian access), for parking at the T, for using rental bikes, etc.
Require helmet use
Enforce bicyclist traffic rules with tickets/fines
Require lights in front and back of bike
Charge fee for inspection of bikes for lights and other safety issues
Make it illegal for any child to be transported like a dog in a cardboard box at street level with no protection whatsoever
it’s more an act of greenwashing than anything else. The street is plenty wide enough to safely accommodate bikes, cars and parking without carving it up into token nonsensical elements. Thus the rational for proposals like this more about putting on the appearance of greenness to impress others than to solve an actual problem. In that this ultimately just projects silliness to the greater world around us, it could be argued that it does more damage than good to the cause.
It is atrocious how the bicyclists behave. Since being in town.i have seen bicyclists not paying attention to lights at all. Bicyclists riding on the sidewalk. Bicyclists without proper lighting at night. The city i love has turned into a joke. The bicyclists need this or that but aren’t fined for not using them. There is no way to turn in the bicyclusts cause there is no way to track them. It’s ridiculous seeing people almost get run down by bikes because they don’t follow the same rules of the road.
I’m wondering just what “majority” we’re talking about here. If it’s that there are more motor vehicle drivers than cyclists, that’s certainly true. But some bold assumptions are being made here concerning how many of these motorists are actually against the installation of the bike and bus lanes. It’s been proven that the general population in the area is definitely in favor of improved alternative transportation options. This has always been the case. If the “majority” being discussed here is merely the usual gaggle of grouchy old curmudgeons that post comments on this site, well then, it’s just the usual hot air. Make you a deal, don’t go blocking the special access lanes and I’ll stay off your lawns. Fair enough?
What a life you must lead when the thing that sets you off is a protected bike lane. Well, the anti-bike folks lost this battle on Beacon Street and on Broadway and they’re going to lose it on Powder House. Get ready for endless losing.
The protected bus lanes on Broadway are not used and that lane is causing a lot of problems and will need to go. The outside lane like the other side will work until there is a change in traffic. And this is not anti bike. The bus lane does not work here at this time. I say it that way because things change. Road is too short to have any real impact. Better to keep things moving for now until the other 4 bridges that are about to close reopen. My postings are not anti bike, I am one.
I remember the good ol days when our elected officials would work for us and with us, instead of ramming stuff down our throats and dictating to us what we “need”.
The bike lanes put on Broadway to me present nothing more than a FALSE SENSE OF SAFETY. Just because there is red paint everywhere, doesn’t mean it is automatically safe. I tried the new bike lane on Broadway ONE TIME and a bus whizzed by me just missing my elbow. Never again. How can a 5 ton vehicle and a 100lb person share the same space? The same goes for Powderhouse. The area is just not designed to handle bicyclists safely no matter how many bike lanes they put. Want to ride your bike everywhere? Then move to California where there is actually room on the streets.
Think about the following and you will understand the true motivation behind promoting bike lanes–
Colleges encourage cyclists through monetary incentives. What are they? We don’t know because this information is only shared among those forcing their agenda.
GLX millions provides the creation of useless bike lanes. Who is signing off and how much are they receiving in donations?
Let’s demand the names, local addresses of the 700 on the petition, along with proof of voter registration, utility, lease, water bills, etc. I call their bluff.
True local residents should ban together and file a petition against more bike lanes, a design of their own for Powderhouse Boulevard, etc., to include restoring Broadway to the original lanes prior to the new poorly designed bike and bus lanes. They have proven to be detrimental to our already dense, hazardous and dangerous to everyone using our roads, especially pedestrians.
Powderhouse Boulevard should be left as is–how much has been spent thus far? These people are never satisfied. They enjoy spending the money of struggling local taxpayers while giving away our city to trustfund interlopers and carpetbaggers.
The petition against more bike lanes should include a demand that our local law enforcement (not city hall minions), along with an independent agency and local volunteers, to monitor how many cyclists currently use our roads. Many of our drivers have provided information to discount their claim that a great number of cyclists depend on the increase of lanes. To the contrary, the bike lanes are virtually empty except for a small amount of whiners who are probably getting a paycheck from some far left organization who love pushing their ill conceived propaganda.
We the Somerville taxpayers are fed up with the useless freeloaders. Tell daddy to hire a full time Uber. Obviously, they are failures always looking for handouts at the detriment of hardworking local taxpayers.
Speak up local residents. Tell your councilors No More!
A. Moore, your fight on Broadway is done. The bus and bike lanes won. Saw somewhere it’s knocked 8 minutes off rush hour bus times. They aren’t going back.
I even biked over to Broadway just to check it out. Nice ride, made a point of stopping at one of the local spots there for lunch, which I’ve never done driving through there.
25 Seconds according to Brad Rawson. If you went there you must have seen the bike poles eliminating the nail and hair salon from having the less mobile elderly and the handicapped from going there anymore. Businesses are down 25 to 75%. I think the city owes them that loss. And if you have been following me I am not trying to end them for good. We have 4 more bridges about to close. I have been watching for many hours at different times so I know exactly what happens at different times of the day. And I am not against the bike or bus lanes, just the timing. Except for the protected lane which gets no use. There is much more to this than just that. The meeting is next week. Feel free to come over and express your views.
Hey Villenous, tell us all how the bike lanes are working for you in the snow/sleet. Less than 1% of the city’s population utilizes those bike lanes, but because they (the bike mafia) are “made members” of the progressive movement they got what they whined for and more.
Trust me. A generation from now there won’t be any bike lanes on public ways and people will look back and say how stupid people of our generation were to think that an 18 lb bicycle would do well versus a 2 ton vehicle. Many of those vehicles driven by people who are distracted and/or impaired.
This coming from someone that averages 100 miles a week in good weather on bike paths, but smart enough to know to avoid streets when cycling around here. At all costs I avoid streets when cycling. And I have never understood the login to remove car lanes when the # of cars in the greater Boston area has gone up by 300,000 since 2014. More cars, less lanes – on what planet does that make sense?
Just another example of the elitist crowd here that has taken over and has made this city significantly more expensive and a lot less desirable a place to live.
Reality check: A generation from now they will look back on certain Neanderthal types with laughter and disdain. And yes—you guessed it—there will be far more cyclists and a lot fewer gas guzzlers. Now, back to sleep.
Reality Chick: you’re right, a generation from now there will be a lot fewer gas guzzlers. However there will be a lot more cars. If you think cars are going away you’re mistaken. The majority will always need vehicles for whatever reason. My reason, unlike the biking activists, is to get to and from work.
There will be fewer motor vehicles and increasingly more bikes on the road as time passes. You can be contrarian about it and say otherwise. Won’t change a thing.
I saw one. Winter Hill had the bike lanes nicely plowed out.
Our first snow storm of the season continues, and meanwhile I drove to WORK today and I counted exactly zero (0) cyclists along the way. Maybe they are still in bed?
Bikes and cars aside, what about the amount of diesel spewing trucks that are are around every corner all day? Why hasnt the city waged a war against them like they did on us that have to drive a car? The air every where in the city smells like exhaust all day. Its so disgusting living here with all this construction and truck after truck after truck…
Not sure we have the tech for big trucks yet but the delivery vehicles are about to change. Amazon, DHL, UPS and others are just starting to use the electric bike vans or whatever they call them that are very successful in other parts of the world. They fit in the bike lanes so it gets them out of the car lanes. It is a start. Things will be bad for a while in our city as we are about to close four more bridges. Sigh.