Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

May 20, 2011

Response to City officials’ comments about Concord/Follen

Filed under: Cambridge government,City Council,cycling,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 8:49 pm

Robert Winters has posted a comment (#3 here) to my post about bicycling issues on the May 16 City Council agenda. Robert quotes Assistant City Manager for Community Development Brian Murphy and Traffic, Parking & Transportation Director Susan Clippinger about Follen Street and Little Concord Avenue. Their response, by way of the City Manager, is addressed to the City Council at next week’s meeting.

Their response (again, in comment #3 here) addresses some of the issues with the Follen Street/Concord Avenue installation, and reflects some progress.

Serious design issues, however, will still remain:

  • The configuration still has the same blind corners.
  • Because of the location of the curb cut into the brick plaza, bicyclists traveling away from the Common must still swerve to the right, toward approaching motor traffic, to reach the curb cut at the crosswalk on the far side of Follen Street. Bicyclists entering from the brick plaza are still close to a wall which also obscures motorists’ view of them.
  • Motorists approaching on Follen Street still won’t have a stop sign — see this Google Street View (and still not in 2020)– despite the blind corners.
  • The contraflow bike lane adjacent to wrong-way parking remains.
  • There is another blind corner at the Garden Street end of the pedestrian plaza, particularly for cyclists who continue toward the Radcliffe Quadrangle on the sidewalk (and many do, though that is inadvisable).
  • The “bike box” on Concord Avenue leads to more confusion than anything else, as described here. Also, many cyclists ride east on the north sidewalk, so they can access the plaza directly, posing a risk of head-on collisions with westbound cyclists and pedestrians at the blind corner between the sidewalk and the plaza.

Contraflow bicycle travel would be safer if parking were removed from one side of Follen Street — however, the public insists on using public street space for private car storage. As a bicycling advocate and former Cambridge resident who owned a (rarely used) car and had no other place to park it than the street, I can see both sides of this issue. It is not going to go away. The people who laid out Cambridge’s streets could not foresee the deluge of private motor vehicles that would descend on the city, and had no plan either to accommodate it or to forestall it.

I do think that a very significant safety improvement could be made without removing parking, by reversing the direction of one-way motor traffic on Follen Street and Little Concord Avenue. Then cyclists headed toward the blind corner would be going in the same direction as motorists. The motorists would be going very slowly here, and cyclists could easily merge toward the center of the roadway. A curb cut into the plaza in line with the center of the roadway would avoid cyclists’ having to swerve right. This curb cut would lead cyclists traveling toward the Common to the right side of the street.

A contraflow bike lane could then be installed on the south side of Little Concord Avenue, but it would still be adjacent to wrong-way parking. I’d rather see shared-lane markings far enough from parked cars to allow a motorist to start to exit a parking space without running head-on into a cyclist or forcing that cyclist into oncoming traffic. One-way, slow streets where bicyclists are allowed to travel contraflow are common in Germany, without bike lanes, and research has demonstrated their safety.

As to Murphy’s and Clippinger’s comments:

Motor vehicle volumes on the street are very low and most drivers are ones who live there and use the street regularly. The contraflow lane was installed to improve safety for cyclists by creating a dedicated facility for them to ride in and through the presence of pavement markings to remind motorists that bicyclists are traveling there.

The low motor-vehicle volume argument is an example of what I call “bean counter” safety analysis. I have heard the same argument before from Cara Seiderman, in connection with the wrong-way contraflow lane on Scott Street. This approach offers cyclists and motorists only statistical comfort, leaving them defenseless against actually preventing a crash through their own actions — as in “well, I can’t see over the SUV parked in front of my car, but probably no cyclist is coming so I’ll pull out.”

The bike lane does serve as a buffer to help prevent collisions between cars and other cars, but it doesn’t pass the test of preventing collisions between cars and cyclists. The comforting words “dedicated facility” don’t actually describe how it works in practice. Reminding motorists that bicyclists are traveling in the bike lane doesn’t count for much if the motorists can’t see the bicyclists.

Clippinger describes a safety analysis which looked at generalities about traffic volume. The claim that the dedicated facility was installed to improve safety may describe intention, but it does not describe either the design, or the outcome. This is a crash hotspot, remember. I have described design issues, and some solutions that look rather obvious to me. The city, as usual, installed a boilerplate bike lane design without much insight into whether it actually would be functional and safe.

May 16, 2011

About bicycling issues on City Council agenda tonight, May 16, 2011

Filed under: City Council,cycling,planning — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 11:03 am
A cyclist and a motorist approach the blind corner at Concord Avenue and Follen Street

A motorist cuts off a cyclist at the blind corner of Concord Avenue and Follen Street

The city's own picture of this scene shows a cyclist happily steering straight toward a curb.

A picture of the same scene from the City's Web site shows a cyclist happily steering straight toward a curb, which is cropped out of the picture.

Looking from the opposite direction, this is the path a bicyclist must take, swerving toward traffic to reach the curb cut.

Looking from the opposite direction, this multiple-exposure photo shows the path a bicyclist must take, swerving toward Follen Street traffic to reach the curb cut at the crosswalk.

This post attempts to shed some light on agenda items on tonight’s City Council agenda.

The quoted sections are from another commenter. I’m not sure I know how to reach him, and time is pressing. I don’t know whether I have permission to use his name, so I won’t. The unindented paragraphs  are my own. We’ll start with the other person who commented.

Two of the three items on the city council agenda are interesting examples of problems related to bicycle infrastructure that has been implemented over the past several years.  The third is simply a request to fill potholes, but includes an ignorant comment about bicycles needing to ride near the curb (not true according to Massachusetts law or Cambridge ordinance).

That is agenda item O-7 on the page linked here

The first bicycle facility problem is a contra-flow lane through a blind corner where motorists have no expectation that there will be contra-flow traffic of any sort as they round the corner on a one-way street.

http://bit.ly/iAHCfU

That is agenda item O-3 on the page linked here.

The street view is looking south on Follen Street as it intersects (Little) Concord Avenue.  The bike lane crosses in a contraflow manner from left to right, and then continues across the small brick plaza to the right to join with Garden Street and the continuation of Concord Avenue.  The intersection just beyond the plaza is the same one where Cambridge has installed a bike box critiqued by John Allen

(http://bit.ly/jQN595).

The contraflow bike lane is adjacent to wrong-way parking, another odd feature of this installation — see this for a description and explanation of wrong-way parking:

http://bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/lanes/contraflow.htm#scottst

Upon reaching the corner, bicyclists have to ride out past a stop bar and stop sign before they can see around the corner. A stop sign requires two actions, a stop and a yield. The yield is what actually prevents a collision — but it is only possible where you can see conflicting traffic.

Many if not most of the bicyclists approaching this intersection are Harvard students headed up to the Radcliffe quadrangle. Are we to assume that they aren’t bright enough to figure out that they must yield? The problem is that nobody ever instructed them, and many have little bicycling experience as they suddenly find themselves dependent on a bicycle for transportation. Also, the stop bar isn’t where there’s anything to yield to unless a pedestrian happens to be crossing — it encourages running the stop sign, sort of like traffic ju-jitsu: aha– fooled ya!.

See Google Street View looking toward the stop sign:

http://tinyurl.com/4yfz9bc

I have a discussion of this contraflow bike lane in the page linked below this paragraph. The third photo down the page shows the stop sign. I prepared the page linked below years ago, shortly after the installation. This was clearly going to be a problem location.

http://bikexprt.com/massfacil/cambridge/harvardsq/litlconc.htm

The curb ramp on the far side of the intersection is located at the end of the crosswalk rather than in line with the bike lane. Bicyclists must ride toward approaching traffic to reach the ramp.

Bicyclists coming in the opposite direction off the little pedestrian plaza are hidden by a wall and subject to similar risks. This entire treatment is a prime example of Cambridge’s principle of Design by Wishful Thinking.

The second problem is at a rather unremarkable intersection, so it is not clear to me why there would be issues.

See Council Order O-19 on the page linked here.

http://bit.ly/kQWgBQ

The street view is looking south on Ellery Street as it approaches Broadway.  Ellery is a narrow one-way street with a bike lane.  Traffic is typically slow, but can be heavy at rush hour.  Broadway is a two-way narrow connecting through street with parking and no bicycle infrastructure in this area.  Traffic typically runs about 25-30mph, slower and heavier at rush hour.  The intersection is also at the corner of a local public high school campus.  Neither street is difficult to cycle on if you have at least modest traffic experience.

There is a flashing yellow and red overhead signal indicating a stop sign for Ellery Street entering from the north.  I tried to find data related to the several accidents cited, but did not see anything apparent on the Cambridge city web site.  I can speculate that most of the car/bike accidents are probably due to scofflaw behavior — either bicyclists in the Ellery bike lane not heeding the stop sign as they continue across Broadway, or wrong-way riders in the Ellery Street bike lane illegally approaching Broadway from the south.  Also likely would be standard right hook, left cross, and failure to yield collisions caused by motorists, but I don’t see why those would be any worse at this intersection.

I see a double-whammy right-hook provocation for bicyclists headed south on Ellery Street, in that the bike lane on the far side of the intersection is to the left of parking (and in the door zone, as is usual in Cambridge), while the bike lane on the near side is at the curb and carried all the way up to the intersection. So, bicyclists are encouraged to overtake motorists on the right, then merge left inside the intersection where motorists turn right.  I think that the high traffic volume and prevalence of high-school students probably also account for the number of crashes. There probably are scofflaw crashes too. Yes, it would be very interesting to see details so as to get a handle on what is actually happening here.

I’m not looking for any answers, but I thought people on this list might be interested in what Cambridge lawmakers are thinking.

November 3, 2010

Specific issues with Western Avenue project

Filed under: Cambridge government,cycling,planning,water — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 2:24 pm

In this post, I’m going to examine some of the drawings of its Western Avenue project which the City of Cambridge has provided.

All of the illustrations below are from the City’s conceptual design booklet.

Western Avenue concept drawing

Western Avenue concept drawing

The cars shown parked at the left are real cars, in the original photograph that was modified to show the conceptual design. Typical sedans are about 5 1/2 feet wide, not counting the side-view mirrors, but common light trucks are as much as 6 1/2 feet wide. Big trucks and buses can be 8 1/2 feet wide.

The cars shown parked at the right are drawings added when the photo was modified. All of them are micro-cars, very much smaller than the cars on the left — only about 4 1/2 feet wide.

Bicyclists complain about “door zone” bike lanes — where opening car doors pose a threat. On the other hand, the door zone serves an important function. A motorist can open the car door without its protruding directly into the path of motor traffic, and can walk around the car.

In the drawing below, I have copied the nearest car in the original drawing into each travel lane. This drawing shows too little clearance between parked vehicles and moving ones to allow motorists safely to walk around to the street side of their vehicles or open the doors. The right lane as shown is especially tight, even with micro-cars parked on the right and ordinary sedans in the travel lanes — though Western Avenue is a designated bus and truck route.

Western Avenue concept drawing, modified

Western Avenue concept drawing, modified

To show how wide the left lane is at present, the white line in the foreground replaces the gray patch that is dimly visible in the original drawing, covering up the location of the present lane line.

The parts of the illustration that are from the original photo are to scale — including the cars I have copied into the travel lanes. The drawn-in elements are conceptual, and some are not to scale.

The drawing below, also from the City, is dimensioned, showing a 36-foot wide roadway. The elements are to scale: 10.5 foot travel lanes, 7-foot parking lanes and mid-sized cars 6 feet wide, not counting the mirrors — like a a Ford Taurus. This drawing shows more room between vehicles than the right lane in the photo, but on the other hand, the parked cars are tight against the curbs, and no trucks or buses are shown.

Cross-section of street with cycle track

Cross-section of street with cycle track

Now let’s look at an overhead drawing, which shows a typical treatment at an intersection.

Western Avenue at Jay Street

Western Avenue at Jay Street

Let’s put more cars and some bicyclists and pedestrians into the picture. I’ve put three bicyclists on the blue strip which represents the cycle track. Two are headed with traffic and one is headed opposite traffic. (Off-street facilities encourage two-direction traffic, and this is particularly so on a one-way street where there is no opposite-direction paired street conveniently nearby.) There also is a group of pedestrians standing on the bulbout before the intersection. Excuse me if the bicyclists and pedestrians look like ants, I’m no Picasso.

Pedestrians and parked cars conceal  right-way bicyclists from drivers of cars A and B, increasing the risk of a “right hook” collision. Also, Car B  is blocking the right-hand travel lane. Such blockages will increase congestion. The more bicyclists, the more often turning motorists will have to wait in the position shown. At present, motorists can keep moving as they prepare to turn right, because they can merge behind a bicyclist before reaching the intersection.

Car C in the drawing must wait far back from the intersection, what with the separate sidewalk and cycle track. Then, on reaching the intersection, as shown in the illustration below, the car must block the cycle track as the driver scans for traffic. If more than one car is in line, both the sidewalk and the cycle track will be blocked at the same time.

Western Avenue at Jay Street, cycle track blocked

Western Avenue at Jay Street, cycle track blocked

Presently, without the cycle track, this kind of blockage happens only for the sidewalk. It is more troublesome and hazardous for bicyclists than pedestrians, because bicyclists are faster, and farther away when the driver must first see them, and can be hidden by buildings or by pedestrians on the sidewalk. The crash rate for wrong-way cyclists on cycle tracks like this one is very high — research in Finland, Sweden and Germany has shown it to be about 10 times as high as for right-way travel on the street. Right-way travel on a cycle track located, like this one, behind parked cars, and with unsignalized intersections and driveways, has been shown only two or three times as hazardous.

There is also a much greater risk of collisons with pedestrians, and with other bicyclists, than when riding in the street. This cycle track has about 6 feet of width where bicyclists are clear of car-door hazards or plantings — very substandard for a two-way facility.

There is a question what the wrong-way bicyclists will do when they reach Franklin Street and the cycle track ends. Most likely, they will go up onto the sidewalk or ride opposite traffic in the bike lane.

Finally, let’s look at the intersection of Western Avenue and Memorial Drive. At present, Western Avenue has four travel lanes approaching the intersection.  The rightmost lane is a right-turn-only lane which the City describes as underutilized. I agree with that description — even in the evening rush hour, I have been able to filter forward to the intersection on my bicycle in that lane.

The City proposes to change that lane into a cycle track, so right turns are made from the next lane to the left. In this connection, I question the City’s conclusion that its plan will not increase congestion. In the evening rush hour, traffic already queues on Putnam Avenue and Memorial Drive, all the way back to River Street. Even one vehicle waiting to turn right, while bicyclists overtake on the right, will block all other vehicles in the lane behind it. This is aside from the issue of institutionalizing the “right hook” — placing all responsibility for bicyclists’ safety on the motorists, and stripping away bicyclists’ defense of merging into the line of right-turning traffic.

Western Avenue at Memorial Drive, conceptual drawing

Western Avenue at Memorial Drive, conceptual drawing

I suggest instead that bicyclists be encouraged to travel along the left side of the right-turn lane, by means of shared-lane markings and signage, or better, if there is room, a through bike lane.

The question remains of how to handle opposite-direction bicycle traffic. It does not admit of an easy answer.  At this point, I’m most inclined to try to address it on River Street.

And, I’ll add: the sacredness of on-street parking is the issue that makes the problem insoluble. If parking could be removed form one side of Western Avenue, a contraflow bike lane would be an option.

There is no such issue on River Street, because there are many parallel streets in Cambridgeport that allow travel in the opposite direction.

Signing off…

October 27, 2010

Western Avenue proposal: ill-considered

Filed under: Cambridge government,cycling,planning — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 12:35 am

Cambridge has posted its preferred design proposal for Western Avenue.

Conceptual Design Selection booklet, October 2010. This NEW booklet details the current draft proposed conceptual design. Online/ download: http://www.box.net/shared/g4hl7zupht

Conceptual Design roll-plan. This shows the draft proposed conceptual design in plan form.
Online/ download: http://www.box.net/shared/9emm0tq29j

Neighborhood Walk this Thursday, Oct 28, 5:30pm, Andala Cafe, 286 Franklin Street

Community-wide Public Meeting, Wed Nov 3, 7:00pm (open house 6pm), Cambridge Senior Center, 806 Masssachusetts Avenue.

Cambridge continues with its plan to slow traffic by making streets narrower, and so more stressful and hazardous for motorists, while moving bicyclists onto glorified sidewalks where it is difficult or impossible for crossing and turning motorists to see them. The repeated invitations for right-turning motorists to turn across the path of through-traveling bicyclists in this proposal leave me breathless, especially where groups of pedestrians will wait on a bulbout, concealing through-traveling bicyclists. Also, the proposed cycle track will greatly encourage contraflow bicycle travel without making any reasonable or safe provision for it. If you have any doubt about the hazard of contraflow travel on a bicycle sidepath, here’s a link to a study which addresses it. There also will be the same issues of snow clearance as already occur on Vassar Street. It is predictable that bicycle-pedestrian collisions will be a problem, as they have been on Vassar Street.

The word “protected”, in traffic engineering used to mean, for example, a left-turn traffic signal phase where opposite-direction traffic had a red light.

Now in the Cambridge proposal it is being used to mean “motor traffic turns right across through bicycle traffic, with interrupted sight lines and no traffic signal.”

The word “protected” sure sounds good, if you don’t know that the treatment under discussion results in increased crash rates.

“Traffic calming” in very ancient times (50,-100 years ago) used to mean traffic-law enforcement. Despite the availability today of efficient tools such as license-plate cameras to record speeding and traffic-signal violations, Cambridge chooses a hardware solution — narrow lanes, which make for more stressful, difficult and dangerous driving conditions — to address the software problem of poor motorist behavior, and emphasizes the point by using bicyclists as obstacles.

Cambridge’s message to its motorists, delivered by creating an obstable course: drive real slow, and look back over your right shoulder when you turn right, or you might kill one of our highly valued and highly vulnerable bicyclists, and it’s all your fault if you do, because, you see, they are protected.”

Please don’t peg me as a naysayer. I made suggestions for alternative treatments in an earlier post, which led to a lively and welcome discussion.

Also see Paul Schimek’s post on this blog.

I hope to see good citizen participation at the public events.

Your comments on this post are welcome too.

September 27, 2010

Sept 27, 2010 City Council Agenda Highlights

Filed under: City Council,cycling — Tags: , , , — Robert Winters @ 1:01 pm

Sept 27, 2010 City Council Agenda Highlights

Perhaps the hottest item on tonight’s agenda is one that has received far more attention than it deserves. Earlier this year, staff at the Community Development Department suggested that changes might be in order for the current practice of seeking variances to the part of the Zoning Code relating to signage on buildings. This led to a City Council Petition that would regularize this process and shift things from seeking a zoning variance from the BZA to seeking a special permit from the Planning Board. Part of the logic was that the Planning Board and related staff were more attuned to design issues and that the mechanism might in this way be made more fair and consistent with citywide planning goals and standards. Then the excrement hit the blades.

This proposed zoning amendment should never have been a big deal, but this changed when inflammatory material showing the Charles River’s Cambridge shoreline lit up like Las Vegas with major corporate logos was circulated by opponents to the amendment. There were deficiencies in the original draft that could have led to unintended consequences around the city, and these were best illustrated by a spoken “virtual trip” through Cambridge by Kevin Crane (legal counsel for a major opponent of the proposed change) before the Planning Board during one of two summer meetings on this topic. However, the inflammatory rhetoric and graphics were never a realistic depiction of even the worst-case scenario of what could have happened as a result of the proposed changes. A series of amendments were proposed, the matter had its hearings before the Ordinance Committee, and it’s now ready for a City Council vote.

Whenever zoning controversies loom over the Cambridge City Council, they will often simply punt. That is, they will either re-file the petition under the hope that a settlement can be reached or that the controversy will die down. Either that or they will seek some kind of Solomonic compromise that averages the interests of both sides not necessarily to find the best solution but to get past the controversy. In the case of zoning petitions strategically filed so to come to a vote immediately before a municipal election, populism will often prevail. In the case of the sign ordinance changes, there is no municipal election in sight and it would seem that recent modifications to the original proposal should help grease its way to ordination. However, anything could happen. The relevant agenda items follow:

Unfinished Business #5. A communication was received from D. Margaret Drury, City Clerk, transmitting a report from Councillor Sam Seidel and Councillor Timothy J. Toomey, Jr., Co-Chairs of the Ordinance Committee, for a meeting held on Sept 7, 2010 to consider a petition filed by the City Council to modify the Zoning Ordinance regulation of signs. the question comes on passing to be ordained on or after Sept 27, 2010. Planning Board hearing held July 6, 2010. Petition expires Oct 5, 2010.

City Manager’s Agenda #6. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to a Planning Board recommendation on the Zoning Petition to Revise the Sign Ordinance – Article 7.000. [The Planning Board recommends that the original Petition be approved with amendments. The changes recommended by the Board to the original Petition language of the Building ID Signs section are summarized below.]

  • Establishment of a special permit process before the Planning Board.
  • A narrowing of the zoning districts where such signs may be permitted, to areas of concentrated office development at the eastern and western ends of the city.
  • Restriction of the signs to non-residential buildings only that are at least 100,000 square feet in size.
  • Limiting the signs to identifying the whole building or an office tenant occupying a significant portion of the building. The Planning Board recommends that at least 25% of the leasable area of the building be presumed to be significant.
  • Prohibition of such signs in local conservation and historic districts.
  • Enumeration of the criteria for approval of the Building ID Signs, including: how the sign would be viewed from nearby residential districts, open space, historic districts, and the Charles River; light pollution.
  • An articulation of the purpose of the provision.
  • A relaxation of one standard in the current Sign Ordinance to allow the placement of an ID sign on the screening wall of mechanical equipment located above the building’s roof where that placement would better integrate the sign into the architecture of the building.

If this were the only item on the agenda, we might be treated to a hefty dose of public comment by those who choose to remain only partially informed, followed by a quick vote and the dismissal of otherwise routine matters. But, alas, there are a couple of other juicy items on tonight’s menu – specifically on the Reconsideration portion of the agenda.

Reconsideration #1. Reconsideration filed by Councillor Toomey on the affirmative vote taken on September 13, 2010 to refer to the Ordinance Committee and to pass to a second reading a proposed amendment to the Municipal code that would increase the residential parking sticker fee. [Charter Right exercised by Councillor Toomey on City Manager Agenda Item Number Thirty-Six of August 2, 2010. On September 13, 2010 motion of Vice Mayor Davis to refer to Ordinance Committee and Passage to a second reading on roll call 7-1-1.]

After a summer committee meeting on this topic, I was inclined to believe that this would actually pass with only token opposition. After all, the current fee of $8 has been in place for nearly 20 years and it was stuck at $5 for long before that. There is an obvious logic to some kind of fee increase. However, besides the argument that these fees were never meant to be anything more than nominal fees, the matter is complicated by the fact that these fees are now embedded into an ordinance (the Vehicle Trip Reduction Ordinance) which restricts the uses for this revenue. Perhaps more significantly, the collection of fees for resident permit parking was established in a 1965 Special Act of the Legislature that specifies that this revenue may only be used for traffic & parking related matters.

Normally this would be fine, but it has been publicly stated now by the City Manager and others that one use of this proposed fee increase would be to “get the message out” about climate change in conjunction with the agenda of the recent “Climate Congress” of activists that took place in a series of City Hall meetings this past year. It is clear that some members of the public and some city councillors take issue with this earmarking of revenues for the benefit of one interest group. Some have argued that, despite the virtue of the proposed purpose, use of this revenue should be subject to the same budget processes as all other matters while remaining consistent with the uses specified under state law. Of course, the real bottom line is that there are political advantages to saying that you stood in opposition to a fee increase, and that inclination could prevail if the rhetoric starts to thicken. This could come to a vote as late as October 18 and still be viable for the 2011 calendar year.

Reconsideration #2. Reconsideration filed by Vice Mayor Davis on the vote taken failing to refer to the Ordinance Committee a response relative to Awaiting Report Item #10-116, regarding a report on the impact of decriminalization of marijuana possession. [Motion of Councillor Cheung to refer to Public Safety Committee failed 4-4-1. Motion of Vice Mayor Davis to refer to Ordinance Committee failed 4-4-1.]

Regrettably, I was gone by the time this vote was taken on Sept 13 (as was Councillor Decker – hence the tie vote). I believe the sole purpose of the Ordinance suggested by Police Commissioner Robert Haas in this report was to give Cambridge Police more tools for controlling public consumption of pot, including the ability of police to confiscate the dope. I would be curious to know who stood on either side of this issue as well as their reasons, but for that I may have to watch the video.

Order #2. That the City Manager is requested to report back to the City Council on the planning process for the  Concord Avenue redesign, the outreach efforts to inform the public of the project and how the planned changes in bike facilities in the project area were advertised in the outreach efforts.   Councillor Kelley

Committee Report #2. A communication was received from D. Margaret Drury, City Clerk, transmitting a report from Councillor Craig Kelley, Chair of the Transportation, Traffic and Parking Committee, for a meeting held on Aug 10, 2010 to discuss bike facilities including bike lanes, bike tracks and bike parking.

I was not a bystander in this matter. There does seem to be a growing trend within some City departments to treat cyclists as children and to move them onto the sidewalk along Concord Avenue and in some other locations. While it’s good to create this sidepath option for children along some roads with higher speeds and for most cyclists along highway-like throughfares such as Memorial Drive, it is a dreadful precedent to require most cyclists not to use the road along with all other vehicles. Besides the multiple inconveniences of these sidepaths, they often provide only a perception of enhanced safety when, in truth, they may actually be less safe. [Related article]

At issue in Councillor Kelley’s Order #2 is the especially annoying and very un-Cambridge recent practice of whisking some of these projects through with little opportunity for the public to respond until after the project is either under construction or out to bid.

Order #6. That the City Manager is requested to investigate the feasibility of adding historical sub-signs to street signs and replacing those sub-signs that were installed for the Bicentennial and commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 in 2012 with street sub-signs or some other method.   Vice Mayor Davis

Though an excellent idea, one has to wonder how it can be that we are still permitted to have celebrations of any war in this ultra-politically-correct enclave. I’m sure there are those in Cambridge who would rename Hamilton Street as Karl Marx Avenue, Erie Street as Lenin Street, Perry Street as Fidel Castro Boulevard, Lawrence Street as Sisterhood Avenue, and Decatur Street as Obama Way. – Robert Winters

August 15, 2010

Construction detour at Mass. Ave. and Alewife Brook Parkway

Filed under: Cambridge government,cycling,planning — Tags: , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 8:20 am

I attended a Livable Streets StreetTalk event on August 4, at which the city of Copenhagen, Denmark was praised for, among other things, always providing a good detour for bicyclists during construction projects.

Only a couple of days later, I got a report from a cyclist who had attempted to take Massachusetts Avenue across Alewife Brook Parkway (Route 16) , and found that the official detour was on Alewife Brook Parkway to Broadway in Arlington — circuitous, and Alewife Brook Parkway has to be one of the least bicyclist-friendly roads in the area. The detour apparently was in effect from 8 PM till 5 AM each night. I don’t know how for how many days this situation continued.

A quote:

It took over 5 minutes for them to stop the 16 traffic and let the Mass Ave traffic go…there are different people out there every day from 5 different agencies. I was not looking for special treatment, just direction when out there as to what the cops wanted me to do. I ended up scooting up the traffic for the last 2 blocks on the sidewalk (because of the lane closing) and waited with many pedestrians at the corner for an extended amount of time until they let the rest of the traffic go and did not try to give us a safe way to cross. I had to cross onto the sidewalk and then get onto the road further down. It took over 5 minutes for them to stop the 16 traffic and let the Mass Ave traffic go.

If Cambridge can’t get something as basic as this right…?

August 11, 2010

“Cycle track”: a sidewalk by another name

Filed under: Cambridge government,cycling — Tags: , , , — Robert Winters @ 12:00 am

Paul Schimek submitted the following letter on August 10, 2010 to the Cambridge City Council’s Transportation, Traffic and Parking Committee. [Paul is the former Bicycle Program Manager for Boston and former MassBike and Charles River Wheelman board member.]

   As City planners race ahead with plans for a separate bicycle facility on Concord Avenue (and possibly elsewhere), some would argue that this is a giant leap backwards in terms of bicycle safety and convenience. Count me among the naysayers. – RW

"Cycle track": a sidewalk by another name.
August 10, 2010
Paul Schimek, Ph.D.

Cambridge has recently been promoting a bicycle facility dubbed a "cycle track." The cycle tracks that Cambridge is building on Concord Road and proposing on Western Avenue are simply wider than usual sidewalks created by narrowing the roadway and removing bike lanes. Once these roads are reconstructed, bicyclists will be forced off the roadway by vigilante motorists who believe that only cars are allowed on the narrowed roadway. Bicyclists using a cycle track instead of the road will need to travel much more slowly, and even then they will be less safe due to the greater risk of collision with pedestrians and motorists turning or entering at side streets and driveways. In fact, Cambridge rightly recognizes that sidewalk bicycling is dangerous and severely restricts it. A number of careful studies have shown that cycle tracks increase the rate of bicyclist collisions.

I would like to have Cambridge officials address the following questions about cycle tracks:

1. How is bicycling on a cycle track meaningfully different from bicycling on a wider sidewalk where bicycling is permitted?

Bicycling on cycle tracks has all the same concerns as bicycling on the sidewalk, none of which are solved by making it wider or changing its name:

a) Even though pedestrians will have a separate part of the sidewalk, they will continue to walk or stand on the bicycle part. Experience on Vassar Street shows this. Will the city issue tickets to pedestrians on the cycle track? Under what ordinance? Pedestrians are not permitted in bike lanes, because it is part of the "roadway," but there is no law prohibiting pedestrians in a cycle track or bike path. Pedestrians must cross the cycle track to get to and from parked cars and stopped buses.

b) At intersections, bicyclists will often be invisible to cars turning into or pulling out of side streets and driveways. Drivers are generally required to yield to pedestrians in marked crosswalks, but pedestrians must not enter the road so quickly that a driver cannot yield. This suggests that bicyclists cannot safely approach cycle track intersections at faster than walking speed.

c) Cycle tracks, like sidewalks, will be used by cyclists going in both directions. A bicyclist traveling on the left half of the road (or going the wrong way on a one-way street) can be ticketed. Under what law can (and will) police ticket "wrong-way" bicyclists on a cycle track?

d) A bicyclist on the roadway can move left (after looking and yielding) to avoid road hazards, overtake, prepare a left turn, or avoid right-turning motorists. A bicyclist on a sidewalk—or cycle track—can do none of these things because there will be a curb or row of parked cars separating the bicyclist from the roadway. Placing the cycle track at the roadway level instead of the sidewalk level does not change these facts.

For these reasons, the city advises bicyclists to stay off sidewalks:

"State law permits bicyclists to travel on sidewalks in the interest of safety except as directed by local ordinance. In general, it is more appropriate and prudent to bicycle in the street, and Cambridge is making every effort to making the city streets safe and comfortable for bicycling. However, it is recognized that there are times when sidewalk riding will be used, for example, with young children. Cambridge traffic regulations require that bicyclists on sidewalks travel at a walking speed and yield to pedestrians."
http://www.cambridgema.gov/cdd/et/bike/bike_faq.html#riding

The Cambridge Police Department states succinctly, "Cambridge discourages the riding of bicycles on sidewalks throughout the city and has provided bicycle lanes on certain streets."
http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPD/CommRes/bicycles.cfm?pv=Yes

2. Will bicyclists be allowed and encouraged to use the roadway instead of the cycle track?

Many bicyclists prefer using the roadway to a sidewalk–even a wider one—for all the reasons stated above. Forcing these bicyclists to use the sidewalk means delaying them significantly and increasing their risk of injury. Knowing that state law guarantees bicyclists the right to use the roadway, many will continue to use it. Will there be sufficient room for motorists to pass a bicyclist without changing lanes? If not are motorists intended to slow to bicycle speed if there is only one travel lane or if the passing lane is occupied? How will motorists know that bicyclists are allowed to use the road, given that they will see signs directing bicyclists off the roadway?

3. What design standard is Cambridge using for cycle tracks?

Cambridge has called the planned cycle track on Concord Road a "raised bike lane," but legally it is not a bike lane, since it is not part of the roadway. A "cycle track" would possibly be considered a "shared use path" under state and national design guides. There is no provision for a bike path that prohibits pedestrians, recognizing that doing so is impossible, and therefore a prudent design must consider their presence.

The Massachusetts Project Development & Design Guide says that "Shared use paths are facilities on exclusive right-of-way with minimal cross flow by motor vehicles. Shared use paths should be thought of as a complementary system of off-road transportation routes for bicyclists and others that serves as a necessary extension to the roadway network. The presence of a shared use path near a roadway does not eliminate the need to accommodate bicyclists within a roadway" (Section 5.3.2.4). By contrast, Cambridge’s proposed cycle tracks will have significant cross flow and they will be created by removing adequate room for bicyclists from the roadway.

Noncompliance with engineering directives and design manuals could mean that Cambridge would be held liable by a court in the event of a lawsuit by an injured bicyclist or pedestrian.

4. What is the safety record of sidewalks and cycle tracks for bicyclists?

Cambridge recently completed a study of six years of reported car-bike collisions. What percent of these collisions involved bicyclists using a sidewalk, crosswalk, or sidepath? What percent were caused by motorists overtaking bicyclists in daylight? Several careful studies have shown that crash rates increased when cycle tracks were installed in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland, and other places. Has the city reviewed these studies? Does the city believe that the crash rate would decrease in Cambridge, even though it did not in these places?

Related topics:
Concord Avenue     Western Avenue

June 22, 2010

Comments on Cambridge’s Western Avenue project

Filed under: Cambridge government,cycling,planning — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — jsallen @ 12:01 pm

This post contributed by John S. Allen

Note as of May 20, 2015: The document linked in the paragraph below is no longer on the City’s Web site. It has been retrieved from the Internet Archive.

Western Avenue is a major one-way arterial street, a truck and and bus route, the only direct route from the Central Square of Cambridge to Allston, Brighton and other points west. Western Avenue presently needs full-depth reconstruction, which also provides the opportunity to reconstruct sewers. The City of Cambridge has recently posted conceptual drawings showing three ways to reconstruct Western Avenue. These and additional information are posted on the City’s Web site.

View Google Map

Western Avenue is lined with typical Boston-area “three-decker” apartment buildings for most of its length. These date back to the early decades of the 20th Century. There are a few businesses as well. Between Pleasant Street and Memorial Drive, Western Avenue presently has two travel lanes, with parallel parking on both sides, except at bus stops and at the right turn lane before Memorial Drive. There is a bike lane for part of the way.

The construction of a Massachusetts Turnpike extension interchange just across the Charles River in Allston in the mid-1960s led to an increase in traffic on Western Avenue and on River Street, which carries traffic in the opposite direction. The much-despised Inner Belt limited-access highway – Cambridge’s equivalent of Boston’s Central Artery – was never built. Governor Francis Sargent vetoed its construction in 1971. It would have diverted traffic from Western Avenue, but it would have split Cambridge in half, just as the old Central Artery separated downtown Boston from the waterfront.

Western Avenue and River Street join at Central Square in Cambridge, but they diverge from each other toward the river. They do not form a convenient one-way pair for short trips.

Western Avenue presents a difficult problem of accommodating all interests, as an arterial lined with residences. Accommodating through traffic including trucks and buses conflicts with the interest of residents in safe walking conditions, in peace and quiet, and in on-street parking.

I am writing this to comment on three conceptual drawings which Robert Winters has sent me. These were posted on a Cambridgeport neighborhood e-mail list. I’ll make my own suggestions after discussing them.

Concept 1

Western Avenue, Concept 1

Western Avenue, Concept 1

Note as of May 20, 2015: The 2010 Cambridge Bike Trends report has been moved from its original location to a different location on the City’s Web site.

Concept 1 is the most conservative. It keeps the two travel lanes but has a bike lane and bulbouts on the right side. This design would presumably somewhat increase the appeal of the street to young and timid bicyclists. However, the bike lane, like most bike lanes in Cambridge, is in the door zone of parked cars. Cambridge’s recent report on bicycle trends showed that doorings amounted to 20% of all reported car-bicycle crashes, the highest percentage I have seen anywhere. Bicycle facilities that encourage riding in the “door zone” do nothing to resolve this problem and probably increase it. Educating cyclists to avoid riding in the “door zone” becomes more difficult when bicycle facilities direct cyclists to ride there.

Due to the total width’s being unchanged in the Concept 1 proposal, Western Avenue would remain suitable for longer-distance through bicycle travel at normal speeds for adults who make regular use of a bicycle. Shorter-distance neighborhood bicycling would not be encouraged because, as mentioned, Western Avenue is one-way and River Street does not make a convenient two-way pair with it for shorter trips.

The drawing shows a bus shelter. A bus shelter is nice in wet weather, but this one is shown on a long bulbout (at sidewalk level) in the no-parking zone currently occupied by the bus stop. With this arrangement, buses will have to stop in the right-hand travel lane and bike lane, blocking them.

The bulbout on the right side of the street shortens crossing distances for pedestrians – but the drawing shows no bulbout on the left side of the street, where there is parallel parking but no bus stop. Why not? At bus stops, there could be bulbouts on the left side only, resulting in the same crossing distance but still allowing buses to pull to the right and avoid blocking other traffic.

All in all: Concept 1 would only improve conditions for pedestrians and for people waiting for buses, and clear the way ahead of buses by blocking other traffic. Conditions would worsen for other motorists and for bicyclists.

Concept 3

Western Avenue, Concept 3

Western Avenue, Concept 3

Concept 3 shows a so-called “cycle track” – a bicycle path – at the right side of the street, located behind the bus shelter and parked cars. I use the quotes because the term “cycle track” has been used to describe various types of facilities. All they have in common is that they parallel roadways like sidewalks.

The “cycle track” would be fitted in by narrowing the travel lanes and eliminating the bike lane on the street. The drawing does not show whether the “cycle track” would be intended for one-way travel or for two-way travel. Two-way travel would occur in any case, because many bicyclists would perceive the “cycle track” as a safe facility, separate from motor-vehicle traffic.

Research on bicycle paths adjacent to streets in Germany, Sweden, Finland, the USA and Canada has shown alarming increases in crash rates above those for riding in the street, due to increased conflict with motor traffic at intersections and to conflicts with pedestrians and other bicyclists everywhere. These results have been confirmed in a recent study in Copenhagen. There are exceptions when the paths are very carefully engineered, with traffic signals to prevent conflicts and with adequate width, but this one does not meet those requirements. The “cycle track” as shown would be partially in the door zone on the right side of motor vehicles, and would be crossed frequently by motorists making turns into and out of side streets — with sight distance problems due to the parked cars; also by pedestrians getting in and out of cars, going to and from bus shelters and preparing to cross Western Avenue. People on inline skates and skateboards, and pedestrians overflowing the sidewalk, would also use the “cycle track.”

One effect of Concept 3 would be to discourage longer-distance through bicycle travel, and to encourage shorter-distance, low-speed bicycle travel by children and novice cyclists. This encouragement would be purchased at the expense of a higher construction cost, more crashes, increased congestion of motor traffic, and making future reconfiguration expensive. Also, it is very difficult to keep a “cycle track” at sidewalk level clear of snow and ice though winter; probably only a single sidewalk width would be plowed, as with the existing “cycle tracks” on Vassar Street; plowed snow would melt back onto the surface and refreeze. Transitions from street level to the “cycle track” typically also are difficult to keep clear of ice and plowed snow.

The bus stop in Concept 3 is just like that in Concept 1, but the travel lanes are narrower, making it even more difficult for other traffic to overtake stopped buses. Placing a cycle track behind a bus stop was shown in the recent Copenhagen study to lead to an increase of 17 times in bicycle-pedestrian crashes, and 19 times in injuries.

Concept 3 is at the very least ineligible for Commonwealth funding, and probably unlawful, because required signage would not comply with the Massachusetts Project Development and Design Guide. A procedure does exist through the Federal Highway Administration to legalize projects that are not within design standards, and to exempt non-standard treatments from liability. The procedure defines new treatments as experimental, and requires that research data be collected, so that non-standard designs may serve to direct the standards-setting process. That is very desirable outcome from the installation of non-standard treatments, of which Cambridge has not taken advantage despite its having installed a number of such treatments.

Concept 5

Western Avenue, Concept 5

Western Avenue, Concept 5

Concept 5 shows Western Avenue with a bike lane, only one so-called “car lane” and back-in angle parking on the left side. Vehicles would have to stop and back up to enter the parking spaces. The bike lane would not be in the “door zone”, because all the parking would be on the other side of the street, but buses would block the bike lane and the one general-purpose lane. Truckers making deliveries would block it for extended periods of time, as trucks would not fit into the back-in parking spaces. Other vehicles might just be able to squeeze by, it’s not clear, but even so, a reduction from two lanes to one would result in gridlock, absent a Cambridge Big Dig to divert traffic.

General comments

What happened to concepts 2 and 4? What did they show? Or does the City just like odd numbers?

I have put the term “car lane” in quotes. There is no such thing as a “car lane”, and it is odd for the City to use this term. Cars are not the only vehicles — there are also trucks, buses, motorcycles, motor scooters, bicycles, and yet others. All may use these lanes under Massachusetts law. However, narrowing the roadway and creating a separate bikeway, as in Concept 3, will recruit motorist animosity to chase bicyclists off the road.

The conceptual drawings are notable for what they do not show. They are far from a complete plan. Though there is some technical data on existing conditions in other documents which the City has provided, there is no analysis of traffic capacity and volumes or signal timing to go with the different concepts. Good decisions about street layout can not be made without this information.

It is clear, however, that all three options for Western Avenue would increase congestion, due to the placement of the bus stops. Option 3 would increase congestion further due to conflicts between cyclists and turning motorists. Option 5 would create congestion all day long.

Transportation reformers like to point out that building road capacity results in an increase in traffic. In practice, if demand exceeds road capacity, traffic does indeed increase — until congestion prevents it from increasing further. An increase in capacity may lead to development and make longer trips convenient. Cambridge is already a built-up area, and development has occurred elsewhere as the Turnpike has encouraged commuting to/from distant suburbs.

Western Avenue can’t comfortably accommodate all current uses. Reducing its capacity, as in the proposed concepts, isn’t going to solve its problems. Only draconian measures – extreme taxation of motor vehicles and motor fuel; a major build-out of public transportation to serve suburban commuters; removal of on-street parking from one side of Western Avenue, and/or a Cambridge Big Dig to provide an alternative route – would relieve Western Avenue of the competing pressures that have resulted in its intractable problems.

Removing parking on one side of Western Avenue would allow a contraflow bikeway behind a median barrier, so the street would be two-way again for bicycle trips. University Avenue, in Madison, Wisconsin, offers an example of such a treatment. I don’t think it would be as successful on Western Avenue, though, because University Avenue is much wider, making room for an ample with-flow bike lane and discouraging wrong-way travel in the contraflow bikeway. Another possibility if parking were removed on one side would be a bus/bike lane — but this would have to be policed with license-plate cameras, or else Massachusetts motorists would ignore it.

What can be done until/unless political will builds to make the needed changes?

If Western Avenue is to remain one-way, then the bus turnouts should remain. Bicycle accommodation on the left side of one-way roadways is not a new idea; it is common in New York City and has been used recently on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. It might make sense here, and would avoid conflicts with buses. But then there is the issue of transition from/to the right side, and especially to get to the right of left-turning traffic before Memorial Drive and the Western Avenue Bridge. Traffic-signal timing and special (experimental) bicycle signals in the block before Putnam Avenue could ease the transition back to the right. A bike lane on the left side would still most likely be in the door zone, though there would be fewer door openings.

The simplest improvements, and those which can be done now, would be to leave Western Avenue with two travel lanes but to place shared-lane markings in the right lane and bulbouts only at the left side if there is a bus stop on the right. Strict speed-limit enforcement would be helpful, too. In the last block between Putnam Avenue and Memorial Drive, it would be helpful to remove parking entirely on the right side, so as to relieve congestion caused by the large volume of traffic turning from Putnam Avenue and the long red on the traffic signal at Memorial Drive. Perhaps the removed parking can be accommodated off-street, so as not to decrease the number of parking spaces, which are held sacred by business owners and residents. There appears to be space for parking around the city-owned generating plant in the last block before Memorial Drive. Synchronization of traffic signals also would be very helpful, as well as strict speed enforcement and a lower speed limit. These might be enforced by means of license-plate cameras if the objection to them as an intrusion on privacy can be overcome. Since when is speeding on a public way a private matter?

Comments on presentations

Now, some comments on presentations and meeting summaries from the task force studying Western Avenue:

Note, as of May 20, 2015: all three of the documents linked in this section are no longer online, or possibly have moved to different addresses. The versions now linked have been retrieved from the Internet Archive.

The April 15, 2010 presentation most addresses design goals: Notes on this presentation are also online.

“Pedestrian safety a main concern.” The cycle track option will decidedly worsen pedestrian safety.

“Design goals: safe, efficient pleasant” Choose any two as long as one of them isn’t “efficient”. All three of the proposed concepts would reduce efficiency.

Page 47 (page 8 of PDF): shows narrowed travel lanes and cycle tracks on a street that extends to the vanishing point in the background without any cross traffic or parking. The apparent goal of narrowing the travel lanes is to reduce travel speed and make the sidewalks more pleasant for pedestrians, though it’s unclear just where pedestrians would be going on this endless street without destinations. On a street with cross traffic and multiple, conflicting uses, narrowing the traveled way results in seriously decreased efficiency. Reduction in speed is best achieved by rigid enforcement, rather than by reducing efficiency.

Page 10 of PDF, lower left: shows a bus blocking the bike lane, because a bulbout has been placed at the bus stop, exactly what will happened with Concepts 1 and 3 for Western Avenue.

Page 11 of PDF: shows 3 different kinds of inconsistent and nonstandard markings for speed humps and speed tables.

Some notes on the public meeting summary from March 31, 2010:

goal #22, page 6 of PDF:

“Undertake reasonable measures to improve the functioning of the city’s street network, without increasing through capacity, to reduce congestion and noise and facilitate bus and other non-automobile circulation.”

Not achieved, all of the concepts increase congestion. Concept 3 produces gridlock.

Goal 23, page 6 of PDF:

“Encourage all reasonable forms of nonautomotive travel including, for example, making improvements to the city’s infrastructure to support bicycling and walking.”

The concepts generally improve walking conditions, though concept 3 drastically increases conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians and will predictably increase the crash rate.

Preliminary project goals, page 7 of PDF:

“Ensure corridor is safe for all users • Maintain adequate traffic flow • Reinforce residential character • Appropriate traffic speed • Improve conditions for walking, bicycling, and transit riders.”

None of the concepts furthers all of these goals. Achieving goals of reinforcing the residential character and improving bicycling conditions is particularly difficult.

Conclusion

Improving conditions on Western Avenue isn’t going to be easy. The City’s concept drawings show three plans which, at best, improve conditions for pedestrians, but which worsen them for motorists and which either effect little change or worsen them for bicyclists. Some alternatives are more promising, but any that are to effect major improvements are unlikely to be politically palatable until and unless the price of motoring gets much higher.

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