Fractured vote about North Cambridge bike lanes speaks to ‘concern and confusion’ from outreach
An unprotected bike lane on Massachusetts Avenue in North Cambridge. (Photo: Tyler Motes)
A contentious 5-4 vote on Monday approved a policy order asking the city manager to report on fire safety and accessibility for people with disabilities on a section of Massachusetts Avenue getting new bike lanes.
That half-mile section of Massachusetts Avenue between Dudley Street and Alewife Brook Parkway in North Cambridge has ignited debate around bike lanes in general, though current work and the order are squarely focused on the small North Cambridge section.
“There’s a lot of concern and confusion,” said councillor Patty Nolan, who introduced the policy order last week as implementation of that project began. Councillor E. Denise Simmons called outreach around the plans “woefully inept.”
Better communication around updates to the plans was also urged by councillor Marc McGovern, who said many people might not know that parking spaces for people with disabilities had been added to plans for North Massachusetts Avenue “unless you were at the most recent meetings.” But there was always inherent conflict in the model used by the city, which puts “quick-build” installations in place and evaluates the results to see if changes are needed.
The order introduced by Nolan tried to walk the line between supporting new bike lanes and calling for more visibility into issues the community has raised. “I still stand behind the idea that we have a network of bike lanes across the city and we also have to think very carefully about how we can ensure that we do meet the needs of some of the other residents who are not relying on bikes and walking,” Nolan said.
Two factions in opposition
Councillors Simmons and Tim Toomey opposed the order because it didn’t halt implementation of the work that had begun in North Cambridge. “There should be a pause on this until everybody knows exactly what’s going to take place,” said Toomey, despite detailed plans being available on the city website for the last month.
Meanwhile, councillors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and Quinton Zondervan voted no because they worried the order sent the wrong message and would delay implementation, despite its language about not affecting the timeline of the North Cambridge section. “I think we need to have the courage of our convictions and stick with it,” Zondervan said.
In the end, the order passed by the narrowest of margins. The pushback on bike lanes in general suggests the city’s designs for the rest of Massachusetts Avenue will be under intense scrutiny when they are released before their May 2022 deadline.
Public comment on Nolan’s narrow policy order reflected continued concern over the bike lanes in general. Alex Meriwether, general manager of Harvard Book Store – approximately 2 miles from current construction in North Cambridge – called the elimination of on-street parking an “existential threat” to his business posing collateral damage to surrounding businesses and restaurants that benefit when people come to shop or attend events at his store. He also wondered how he would get the needed “hundreds of pounds of books delivered to us with multiple deliveries and pickups every day … [some of which] come on freight trucks, and blockbuster bestsellers are delivered on pallets, which can’t be delivered on side streets or [at] specific hours.”
MassAve4 confusion
New and old Massachusetts Avenue bike lane installations meet at Dudley Street in North Cambridge. (Photo: Tyler Motes)
The city’s updated Cycling Safety Ordinance targets different sections of Massachusetts Avenue with different timelines, depending largely on the complexity of the current configuration. The work underway in North Cambridge coincides with the start of the public outreach process for the so-called MassAve4 – particularly difficult stretches of the road that needed further analysis. The city must get approval for plans on these stretches by the end of April:
- Between Plympton and Dunster streets
- Between Waterhouse and Roseland streets
- Between Beech and Dudley streets
- On Massachusetts Avenue and Peabody Street between Church and Garden streets
The city held four listening sessions between Saturday and Tuesday to begin gathering community input on two of these sections: between Beech and Dudley and between Waterhouse and Roseland.
A preliminary impact analysis on the MassAve4 raised alarms in the community in May for studying options that included the elimination of a large amount of parking. At the time, stakeholders ranging from bike safety advocates to business owners were unified in their opposition to the plan. “It’s not reasonable to eliminate all parking between Harvard and Arlington and make no changes to buses. It’s not what the bicycle community is asking for,” said Nate Fillmore, of the group Cambridge Bicycle Safety.
The blowback from that report continues. On Thursday, Frank’s Steak House, in a MassAve4 section, posted on Facebook highlighting the city’s recent public outreach and saying the city intends to remove “every parking space from Harvard Square to Arlington.” In fact, the city was clear in May that the impact analysis was the beginning of its process and hinted that plans could change significantly by the May 2022 deadline – but outreach hadn’t reached Frank’s Steak House, or wasn’t trusted.
“We really are just trying to start that process by understanding those impacts and then coming back over the next year for discussions with the City Council,” Joseph Barr, director of the city’s Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department, said in May.
This entire process baffles me.
First there is no outreach or true transparency from the traffic department on the neighborhood that will be impacted.
Pop up, outreach meetings started after the process had already begun and our small businesses had to show up at a City Council meeting to have their voices finally heard.
The neighbors and the bike advocates came to consensus on a different plan that has some good workable ideas and they are being ignored.
What is now getting implemented on North Mass Ave is a break it first, fix it later approach, not very professional and extremely unproductive given the majority of our traffic commutes from somewhere else.
This is certainly not the first bike build controversy the city has endured, and the efficacy of previous projects have been really poor.
Time for the City Manager to take a hard look at the leadership of the current Traffic Department and decide if this divisive, unproductive process is the way we are going to effectively implement change in our community going forward.
I made the mistake of trying to drive the section of Mass Ave yesterday.
What a hot, snaking, confusing mess which will largely be violated by road raging drivers
Great job, Cambridge. Problem solved.
Literally in the middle of the night the section of mass Ave from Arlington to Dudley has been…
Is there anyone happy with this abomination? By removing an entire car lane the traffic is literally stopped in both directions.
The small business were already in trouble – sorry.
To turn left you have to turn right into / across the “bus and then the bike lanes” Omg.
Ugh to remove an entire car lane on one of the most congested stretches of mass ave – this can not be the solution to make protected bike lanes.
Maybe you all should start taking the bus/t, walking, or biking, like the majority of Cambridge residents. The unspoken message here is that it’s time to end the ever-increasing line of cars commuting into our city. It’s not sustainable. There is limited space. It hurts our local environment. It’s unsafe. Given the myriad of transportation options, it’s unnecessary for 90% of the people that drive in our city to do so. Either choose these options or sit in traffic. Your choice.
I think everyone agrees to have a bike lane but this is beyond ridiculous. People that work and live in Cambridge drive, bike and take public transportation.
So the solution is to make the automobile traffic on mass Ave into out of Arlington horrible so no one drives. All while destroying the small local businesses.
Amazing idea lol.
Wow just wow.
Patty once all the “bus only” paint is dry and the turn right to turn left signs (you now have to cross bike lane 3x vs 1x to accomplish that) are up please please bike, drive, take the bus during afternoon rush hour so you can see for yourself.
I’m enjoying the changes. A few tweaks here and there, along with finishing up the road markings and signage, and I think this will be successful.
“The neighbors and the bike advocates came to consensus on a different plan that has some good workable ideas and they are being ignored” is not at all accurate.
First, there is a consensus on a plan for _other_ stretches of Mass Ave (south of Dudley to Beech, for example)—see http://www.massaveforall.com/. This project’s stretch was not part of that discussion. Bike and transit advocates very much want this stretch to go forward.
Second, insofar as there is consensus, the people fighting this particular project are going against it, since they’re in general trying to stall the process altogether. Some of them were involved in the Mass Ave For All process but instead of trying to work together decided to fight against the consensus and try to kill the very necessary safety measures being installed.
concernedcitizen must think his sweat doesn’t stink.
Really….the MAJORITY of residents take public transportation.
1) Proof? 2) Have you not be listening to the hand wringing about affordable housing and people being push out? Not everyone has the luxury of living somewhere near public transit or with the ability to carry all their work gear in a laptop bag.
Check your cis privilege will ya?
I said bus, t, walking, and biking. Which IS the majority.
Say you work in Kendall square. It’s a small space, and there is next to no parking. Are you paying 300 dollars a month to park there? It’s not feasible to have everyone drive there who wants to drive there.
This is not uncommon for the rest of Cambridge. Affordable housing is a completely different issue.
Everyone can see the data right here…. https://www.cambridgema.gov/cdd/factsandmaps/transportationdata
Regardless of whether the person lives or does not live in Cambridge, driving is not the majority.
Has there ever been a city “process” where at the end folks generally agreed that is was comprehensive or “good?”
Concerned citizen is fixated on how one goes to work. His “research” ignores the rest of one’s life, as if people do not grocery shop, go to the dentist, go out to eat, drive to the park or library, etc.
he/she speaks about a myriad of transportation options. Please list them!
I live in North Cambridge. This is going to be a disaster. Traffic will only back up, not decline. Car emissions will be worse. Why is it that buses traveling through Cambridge are considered more important than businesses that have been here for years.
Members of the former city council and community development department have done a great job of unnecessarily dividing residents about the issue of bike lanes (I’m looking at you Jivan, so sorry I voted for you, Jan Devereux and Nadeem Mazen ditto). Instead of working with neighbors to come up with a viable solution, teaching and trusting drivers (hello lanes on Huron Avenue, an ideal situation), you just bully on through with your plans. Stop sewing distrust and start working on plans that make sense for everyone. Beverly Mire (still lamenting the Brattle St. disaster, you made my street look like a parking lot, and my neighbors, some of whom have lived here 40+ years never knew what was going to happen. All because it was a “now or wait a few months” situation with the installers.)
Correct – rather than wait a few months to get all stakeholders concerns, ideas it was jammed thru. This isn’t some side street it’s mass Ave connecting to alewife parkway. Arlington and Somerville with locally owned small businesses.
I’ve watched vans pull up in front the the paint store and park in the “bus lane” to load paint cans, one van ran over the white post to get into the bike lane to load paint to get out of the bus lane. Poor Phil is sitting outside waiting for a customer to show up.
Cars are suddenly turning from one lane to another, horns beeping cars doing u turns to get out of the traffic. The automobile traffic has all of sudden gone from 4 lanes to 2 lanes with the same amount of cars instantly doubling the traffic.
Isn’t everyone excited to see this implemented all the way to H Square!?
Everyone wants protected bike lanes but this is very poorly designed and executed. It will surely severely damage small business, handicap accessibility is all but gone and automobile traffic has now doubled.
Please please someone on the city council walk, drive, ride past Pemberton farms during the evening rush hour and turn left on alewife brook parkway to see what everyone is talking about. Thank you!