Cambridge Street’s bike lane process is familiar, reiterating concerns and adding a kind of protest
Residents look over materials at a Nov. 29 meeting held by the city about changes coming to Cambridge Street, including bike lanes. (Photo: Ian McGoldrick)
The latest project in Cambridge’s Bicycle Network Vision is raising complaints familiar from past bike lane installations about lost parking and poor processes, but opponents have added a wrinkle: declining to suggest improvements as a form of protest.
Cambridge Street will get separated, curb-adjacent bike lanes next year between Inman Square and Second Street separated from moving vehicles by white flex posts. The change comes as part of a Safety Improvement Project that includes changes for pedestrians such as shortened crossing distances and curb ramps reconstructed for accessibility.
The project contributes to an aspirational map of the city with separated bike lanes and some streets designated as low-speed and low-volume. “By having a network of facilities that allow people to get everywhere they want to go on a bike, we can really encourage people to opt to cycle,” said Brooke McKenna, transportation commissioner for the city.
McKenna’s team is implementing the Cycling Safety Ordinance passed by the City Council in 2019. A 2020 amendment set a timeline for the 25 miles of separated bike lanes to be in place before 2027. These miles include all of Massachusetts Avenue, Broadway from Quincy Street to Hampshire Street and the current Cambridge Street project.
Dating back to 2017
These changes are expected to be positive for bikers and walkers, but drivers are worried: They mean on-street parking is reduced to one side of the street. If less parking means less driving, local businesses could suffer. At open houses hosted by the city Nov. 29 and Dec. 2, tensions flared.
“There are a lot of people that are not sure why we’re doing this, that are not sure how this is going to work,” said Jason Alves, executive director of the East Cambridge Business Association, who noted that he saw concern and anxiety from residents as well as business owners over how this will affect Cambridge Street. It’s a continuation of a “bikelash” dating back to the installation of the first bike lanes more than six years ago, before passage of the CSO.
“Frankly, I don’t know what to tell business owners,” Alves said. “That’s hard, and that’s scary.”
Joan Pickett, a longtime anti-bike lane, pro-business advocate who ran for council this November and won, cited the challenges facing business owners. “All of the business owners are very concerned about the loss of parking and the impacts on their businesses – not just the customers but also any deliveries, drop-offs,” Pickett said. “Where’s the short-term parking? What about deliveries?”
Not just businesses
It’s not just business representatives worrying. Pickett spoke to a father at the Nov. 29 meeting who wondered how he would drop his children off at day care once parking becomes sparse.
Maureen Foley is a third-generation East Cambridge resident who attended the Nov. 29 meeting. As a driver, she also expects problems.
“I have to drive my daughter to Danehy Park to play softball. What am I supposed to do? How am I going to get there?” Foley said. “This is a city. People go to one end of Cambridge for this store, the other end for another store. You can’t always walk or bike there. Sometimes you have to drive. Then what happens?”
Bikes also don’t work for everyone. Foley is 72, and said she would not be comfortable cycling around the city. Marie Elena Saccoccio, who was at the Nov. 29 meeting, said someone complained that “the city does not care about lifelong residents or elderly people or disabled people or businesses, and caters to cyclists only passing through.”
Pickett is the former chair of Cambridge Streets for All, an advocacy group that sued the city over the bike lanes. Though the suit was dismissed in Middlesex Superior Court in March, Cambridge Streets for All continues to fight. In a newsletter emailed after the Nov. 29 meeting, it urged members to attend the next presentation with the encouragement that “the large turnout of residents made a strong statement. Let’s keep up the pressure at the next two meetings!”
Residents don’t feel heard
Residents who oppose the addition of bike lanes see a disconnect between themselves and the city. They come to the meetings, but they don’t feel heard there or satisfied by the city’s method for collecting feedback.
“We went there with the understanding we were going to be able to speak, but that wasn’t their intention at all,” Foley said. “They didn’t want any public comments, nothing said.”
At the meetings, the city provided a 20-foot map of the affected section of Cambridge Street and asked attendees to write notes on Post-its and stick them on sections they want to give feedback on. Some did not find this effective.
“I didn’t do it, that’s not how I communicate. Let’s be human beings here, let’s have a discussion about it, let’s talk about it,” Foley said.
Even if the city wants to listen to residents’ feedback, the Cycling Safety Ordinance requires the addition of these bike lanes, so staff hands are tied – there isn’t much wiggle room for changes. It already seems to be a “done deal,” as Foley put it, so people feel their feedback doesn’t matter.
“I think people went there expecting it to be something else, and there was a lot of frustration because people felt there was no real point to provide feedback since the decisions are already made,” Alves said of the meetings.
Standardized approach
The approach has been similar at least since passage of the CSO, with staff taking standardized approaches to lane installation, getting feedback to the results that can be paired with data recorded at the scene and making changes to improve the results if necessary. Recent bike lane installations have included more notice to neighbors and gathering of feedback before road work begins.
“It’s not a conversation about if this should happen,” Alves said. “The question ends up becoming ‘What side of the street do you want parking on?’ That’s not good.”
Saccoccio felt the Post-it map was pointless considering the bike lanes are being installed. “You could presumably comment on a Post-it if you want a tree or a bench or some special treatment for a crosswalk,” she said. “Pretty crazy.”
Ian McGoldrick, a cyclist who lives in Kendall Square, found the Post-it idea to be “very productive.” “It allowed people to come and give feedback to the traffic department, but also to intermingle and talk to other people at the meeting,” McGoldrick said.
“I refuse to be forced”
Saccoccio, the Cambridge Streets for All officer for East Cambridge, said the Post-it method was used at a meeting she attended outside the Valente library branch during the pandemic. “As soon as anyone posted they did not want bike lanes they were corrected that the bike lanes were not open for comment,” Saccoccio said.
City staff say they want feedback and will use it to help mitigate negative impacts such as the loss of parking. “The whole reason we have events like our open houses is to hear people’s perspectives,” McKenna said – yet residents who don’t agree with the city’s process for feedback shut down, and don’t participate at all.
“Either you are corralled into doing what they want or you get to say nothing,” Saccoccio said. “I refuse to be forced into a presumptive process. Once you agree to this process, you become part of the problem.”
Residents such as Foley and Saccoccio feel certain that more bike lanes will harm the businesses that line Cambridge Street, and Alves emphasized the fear that business owners are experiencing.
Looking to data
Data from cities around the world suggest that bike lanes improve local economies. In a 2015 article, Bloomberg compiled a dozen studies that collectively suggested replacing parking with bike lanes has little to no impact on local business, and may actually increase business. A study on Manhattan’s East Village found that cyclists spent about an average of $163 per week in local businesses, while drivers spent $143; a project that replaced car lanes with bike lanes in notoriously car-heavy Los Angeles was found to have little effect on businesses, property values or customer shopping patterns.
Groups such as Cambridge Bicycle Safety, which advocate for improving Cambridge’s bikeability, point toward these kinds of studies. Chris Cassa, a volunteer with the group, said, “I live in the area, and I really value these businesses and I want to see them succeed. I really think it’s going to be good for the street.”
Cassa also pointed toward street intercept surveys conducted by Cambridge Community Development staff that found that less than a third of customers traveled to business squares such as East Cambridge, Inman Square, Central Square and Harvard Square by car. And some of the businesses most vocally worried about closing because of bike lanes – including Skenderian Apothecary in 2017 and Fast Phil’s barbershop in 2021 – have managed to stay open.
Even so, business owners remain worried. “It’s hard to find a true comparison with studies, and you don’t know what’s going to happen on a particular block until that block has bike lanes,” Alves said.
Because of the Cycling Safety Ordinance timeline, this project is happening fast. The city’s estimate for installation is less than a year away, in the summer or fall of 2024. “Bike lanes were just put in on other streets – we don’t have enough time to get data on how it’s working there to be able to have that help inform the project on Cambridge Street,” Alves said.
“They just don’t know how it’s all going to work,” Pickett said.
Positives of the development
Cycling outside of protected bike lanes can be unsafe, and accidents are plentiful. In 2016, a cyclist was killed on Cambridge Street.
Cassa has also been hit, and less than two weeks later someone was hit at the same intersection at Cambridge and Windsor streets. Seven people have been hit there since 2021, according to state transportation data.
For cyclists, the Cycling Safety Ordinance and its projects are unequivocal wins.
“This is really important to being able to get around safely in our community,” Cassa said.
But for those who don’t bike, it just feels like a loss of their streets. “We’re never going to be able to make everybody happy,” McKenna said.
McKenna said the city is making an effort to optimize parking and looking for opportunities to increase it, such as adding meters on side streets. “The more people who can opt to bike, the less demand we have for the parking that remains,” McKenna said.
The city recognizes that not everyone can stop driving and ride a bike, but wants to make it easier for people who can to make that decision. “That is what will really help with congestion and making the city more sustainable,” McKenna said.
- The city holds a community meeting online from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
As this article highlights, bike lanes benefit local businesses and enhance safety. They significantly reduce accidents and save lives. It’s concerning when convenience is prioritized over human lives.
Bike lanes have been implemented in cities worldwide, cutting accidents in half, thereby preventing injuries and preserving lives. Balancing the inconvenience of dropping kids off at softball against the safety of a child riding a bicycle home should make the choice clear.
It is time for some people to start thinking about what is best for the community, not their own convenience.
Make sure to stress following the rules for bikes like STOP AT RED LIGHTS!!!
Big shrug? People have spoken multiple times now and a majority want these bike lanes. Why is this so hard to understand
People that comment “don’t put in bike lanes” have been heard (countless times). They shouldn’t confuse “being heard” and “being catered to,” particularly when their suggestion is for the city to break its own laws.
Will restaurants still have patio access along Cambridge St? Is that part of the plan? I think the north cambridge study never looked at loading or it was “tbd” in the study. Is there any sense that loading will be considered? It’s a long corridor and very narrow it wouldn’t be a great result to force double parking through out.
These pedestrian and bike infrastructure improvements are happening far too slowly. How many people have to be injured before the pace increases. When was the last time you heard of a pedestrian injuring or killing a car driver? I don’t feel heard
Having been thru the City’s way of handling feedback and community meetings, I have learned not to bother to show up to them anymore as I know that they do not like criticism or intend to use most of the feedback.
When the grand Western Ave Street reconstruction project was going on the neighbors that showed up at the various meetings and events were told they could ask questions and get feedback… basically the answer was inevitably “Because our Engineer Said it would work” and “Our Studies gave us data that said X” rather than the practical experience of the people that lived on the street.
We told them the flaws in their design and plans and problems they were not addressing… they ignored most of them and I watched and lived thru those events as 90% of my neighbors sold off their properties or moved out of the rental properties they had lived in for many years and we had instead speculators dive in because they could get some places for lower than values than they thought they would be worth later on… and some because part of the Air B&B craze for a while with no permanent residents in them etc.
Everyone I knew then is gone. The nearest businesses to us on the Street are gone. The city did have to invest in some of the things we told them would be necessary (like a snow plow for the bike lane itself to make it functional) that they claimed at the meetings they wouldn’t need to do. We have regular traffic Jams in the summer months several hours a day because of the affects of how they changed the street. They insisted that there would be no such jams, that their studies (which were not done during the busy traffic months) had not detected such an issue would occur. They didn’t know the neighborhood and its patterns.
Without expressing or implying any opinion on the wisdom of bike lanes or the Cycling Safety Ordinance, I feel the need to point out that the CSO is one of the very few important city ordinances the City shows any interest in following. To name only two examples, the property disposition ordinance has never, to my knowledge, been fully obeyed, and the various city authorities charged with implementing the noise ordinance are only very recently taking it seriously (outside of the intense antipathy towards leaf blowers). State law is similarly given short shrift, such as the Public Records Law and the law governing the Traffic and Parking Department, again to name only two. Why is this particular law binding in every respect while so many others are taken simply as suggestions, to be followed or not, depending on the whim of the authorities?
Let’s get this straight: the same folk who sued to have the bike lanes removed are now turning their noses up at a nearly a year long process, all while complaining it’s too short? Will somebody get me a fainting couch?
I guess being a “third generation” resident means you are entitled to whatever you want, it doesn’t have to be fair and our kids safety doesn’t matter to you. What a selfish perspective
It’s really disappointing how childish the approach to the pushback has become. The quotes attributed to Foley in this article are the epitome of this. The entire point of these maps + stickies is to leave feedback on parking, add local knowledge, etc.
“I didn’t do it, that’s not how I communicate.” is unproductive. The city is trying to collect feedback on the exact nuances people are complaining about. You can specifically request things you have issues with (parking, loading zones, whatever). There is a process in place – you can either engage with it, or sit on the sidelines and complain.
And then there’s this quote which is even less relevant:
“I have to drive my daughter to Danehy Park to play softball. What am I supposed to do? How am I going to get there?”
What does that have to do with this project? You can drive to Danehy Park. Congrats.
Apologies if I’m singling out these quotes too much. I’m just so tired of articles like these where we get a handful of fearful quotes and slippery slope arguments. Meanwhile, the city, whose population overwhelmingly votes for bike safety in elections, continues to make strides on street safety and bike safety, and they’re trying to have a robust process. Engage with it and see what happens. That’s all we can do.
“I have to drive my daughter to Danehy Park to play softball. What am I supposed to do? How am I going to get there?”
If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a car, you could drive there. Danehy has multiple parking lots. Just please be mindful of the children who are biking to and from baseball/softball. I live near Danehy and I can tell you there are quite a few!
Thank you to Madeleine Aitken for an even-handed discussion of the bike lane issue.
While this article notes the number of crashes at the Cambridge/Windsor intersection specifically, it’s also important to highlight that Cambridge St is a high-crash corridor overall. The project webpage has the following summary of CPD crash reports between January 2021 & September 2023:
* 73 driver & driver crashes (34% resulting in injury)
* 28 driver & object crashes (14% resulting in injury)
* 31 driver & cyclist crashes (84% resulting in injury)
* 18 driver & pedestrian crashes (89% resulting in injury)
* 0 cyclist & cyclist crashes
* 0 cyclist & pedestrian crashes
A total of 149 crashes and over 40 cyclists & pedestrians injured by drivers in less than 3 years… it is incredibly clear that this street is in serious need of a redesign to improve safety for all users, rather than only prioritizing car throughput and access. I can’t understand how some people simply accept these numbers as the cost of doing business/maintaining convenient street parking.
A key issue that has been ignored by planners has to do with the effects of bike lane / bus lane installations on the adjacent streets – specifically, I am talk ing about the streets leading to and from and around Mass Ave in North Cambridge.
You see, the same volume of traffic flows through the area and when Mass Ave backs up, the vehicle traffic spills over into neighborhoods rendering them all but inaccessible to emergency vehicles. OUr side street is grid-locked on a daily basis – often more than twice a day.
Basing the installation of bike / bus lanes on data (e.g. where are cars going to and from / how many when?) including consideration of the option of having bike lane with no bus lane would provide valuable insights for future planning.
It was telling to see Joe Barr on the Zoom calls a year or so ago using a “bus lane Joe Barr” sign as background.
We repeatedly attended Council meetings and raised concerns about the adjoining neighborhoods – all of which fell on deaf ears.
I look forward to the day when I see Cambridge in my rear-view mirror for the last time.
The East Village of Manhattan is a world different from Cambridge and is not a meaningful data point for comparison. Few people are shopping in the village by car. If you are shopping there you and don’t come from the immediate neighborhood, you probably took a subway or a bus, you might have walked or biked, but few shoppers drive. In my ten years living in Manhattan I came with a car and quickly sold it because the cost of renting an off-street parking spot was as much as my rent.
We do need meaningful data on the impact of bike lanes in Cambridge, but what was cited in this article was ridiculous. Please find some better statistics!
Come on, people. By 2030, in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 42 PERCENT. “Immediate, accelerated and relentless mitigation action is needed to bring about the deep annual emission cuts that are required from now to 2030 to narrow the emissions gap.” This data and that quote are from the 2023 Emissions Gap Report published by the United Nations Environment Programme. If you don’t want to read a government report, here’s a clearer explanation of the dire situation we’re in.
https://www.meer.org/resources/the-rapidly-deteriorating-climate-emergency-and-the-meer-initiative
There’s no more “business as usual,” and that’s not just for business, but for every living, breathing human on the planet. Every single decision we make matters if we want all the children currently in our lives to not be suffering in 2050. Encouraging more use of bikes by prioritizing bike safety with our infrastructure is a decision in the right direction, period.
I don’t have an issue with bike lanes, I commute on bike almost everywhere I go in Cambridge / Boston more broadly.
What is problematic to me personally about the bike lane installation method in Cambridge is that it was conducted on a very standard “we will have x miles” goal rather than a performance-based goal. For instance with broadway and Hampshire street it doesn’t really make sense that both get protected bike lanes given that they run nearly parallel and one (Hampshire street) is much more connected to bike lanes and trails farther out in Cambridge.
I haven’t looked at the plans in extensive detail, but my general feeling si that this is all happening on a “we want to brag about how may miles we put in” rather than a “we want to generally make biking in Cambridge better mindset. For instance there are many locations where it would probably be better to narrow the car lanes to force cars to slow to a similar speed as bikes as a compromise rather than have wide lanes and bike lanes.
That’s all my opinion, anyway.
>>“I have to drive my daughter to Danehy Park to play softball. What am I supposed to do? How am I going to get there?”
Maybe let your daughter bike there? I hear we even have dedicated bike lanes now for safety.
One point that I think does not get emphasized enough in these discussions is that protected bike lanes are part of a road diet. A big problem with Cambridge streets is that drivers go too fast on them.
Slowing the rate of vehicular traffic is especially good for pedestrians, and I have heard many, including the Saccoccios, complain about the high rate of speed of cars and trucks on Cambridge Street.
It’s great to see the support for bike lanes, and I’m pleased that more people are recognizing their benefits.
Bike lanes reduce accidents, not just for cyclists, but for everyone. They also help slow down traffic, which can be a matter of life and death, even a 10 mph reduction can make a significant difference.
Injuries caused by cars on our streets are unfortunately a daily occurrence. We must prioritize improving street safety.
The complaints mentioned in the article seem unfounded and self-centered.
Concerns like “How will I drop my daughter at the park?” are baseless; the park already has a parking lot, so bike lanes won’t affect that.
Criticism about the speed of implementation is unjustified. The planning for these bike lanes has taken years.
Claims that bike lanes harm businesses and increase side-street traffic and congestion are all untrue and have been debunked.
Bike lanes have numerous benefits with very few, if any, downsides. They positively impact everyone.
Toby!
You were posting here about your concerns with auto congestion back in November. At the time, I was surprised to hear these concerns. You see, I bike this section of Mass Ave 4-5 times a week, at either 8:30am or 5:30pm. Under the conditions that you describe, I guarantee that the bike lane would be blocked by drivers trying to force their way out onto Mass Ave. But I have not seen this. Since I read your previous comment, I have had an eye out for traffic backups on side streets. In the last month, I can’t say I’ve ever seen more than two cars waiting at any unlighted intersection with Mass Ave, and that only rarely. Now, I am going Northbound in the morning, so it’s possible I am missing evening backups on the Northbound side. After all, most of my attention is directed toward staying alive! Still, I would like to know, what street am I missing?
I think pretty much everyone wants safer streets. The disagreement is in how to get there and the discussion has sadly morphed into one about parking impacts. When the common narrative, however false it is, pits safety against parking, parking will lose.
In real life, narrative aside, the City’s bike lanes and general bike infrastructure are horribly dangerous for cyclists and similar street users. They are blocked by cars and trucks, cluttered with hazards like ice, snow, deep water and leaves and lined by inflexible bollards which, when broken, add still more hazards to the street. Which, when the lanes are (frequently) blocked, force users to thread the barriers and enter the motor vehicle lane, sometimes in the face of oncoming traffic.
On top of that, they’re poorly designed, limit visibility, confuse everyone on the street and have more different types of signals and signage and placement of those devices than anyone should reasonably expect to be able to deal with. The last thing anyone should have to do when approaching a busy intersection is try to figure out where the traffic signals are and what they mean. Assuming, of course, that you’re the rare cyclist or similar user who actually pays attention to traffic laws.
And even if we do want them, in theory, in actuality these lanes are measurably too narrow in many places to handle the traffic the City has counted. Plus, they channel cyclists of all speeds into a narrow, dangerous, poorly designed gutter that we also share with electric motorized bicycles, motorized skateboards, electric mopeds, onewheels and all manner of other unregistered and uninsured vehicles operating at the whim of whoever happens to be at the helm of those vehicles.
The result is pure, unadulterated, scary and dangerous chaos. I’d like to see a few of our City leaders or their loved ones trying to paddle their way through the flooded lanes yesterday or trying to skate past the icy lanes this morning. It’s no fun at all!
But because we have chosen not to create a way of collecting useful data about collisions that don’t involve motor vehicles, folks will often be able to, disingenuously, point to studies that say this infrastructure makes the streets safer. I know of multiple bike/infrastructure, bike/bike and bike/pedestrian collisions since the City has doubled down on this infrastructure but there is no way for people involved in these collisions to specifically report them. Call a cop when you’re hit by a cyclist, as I have, and they’ll pull out the same form they use for stray dogs. That is no way to create a data-driven street-safety program.
Screw the impacts on parking, the impacts these lanes and similar infrastructure have on bike and general street safety is terrible.
Fill the potholes and enforce the traffic laws for everyone. That’s where we’ll see our street safety improve. Our over-budget and underperforming bike infrastructure work is a distraction from real safety efforts and makes our streets (and sidewalks) more dangerous for everyone.
@Craig Kelley
Your statement is false. Protected bike lanes, such as those in Cambridge, have been shown to significantly increase safety. Research by both the city and a federal study showed that the bike lanes are reducing accidents by up to 50%. A reduction in accidents indicates enhanced safety.
Thank you Craig Kelly – I agree with you, by encouraging so many novice riders and cyclists to navigate incredibly busy city streets (and especially intersections) many are being endangered. As a pedestrian observing this unfolding in Cambridge I’ve seen so many dangerous situations. Without proper enforcement and rules of the road for ALL, it’s likely that accidents are waiting to happen. If the councillors responsible for the CSO don’t speak out soon and demand enforcement of the rules of the road for ALL, they will be responsible for the consequences. E-Bikes and motorized devices are absolutely raising the risk and have not been properly addressed in this free-for-all rush to redesign. And, yes, true data is not available as many incidents go unreported or are misclassified, anyone can skew this data to their agenda.
@tccambridge Sorry but what you said is demonstrably false.
Here are facts:
All accidents that require a trip to the ER are reported to and logged by the city.
Cars are the main cause of road injuries and fatalities. Data often shows that cars are responsible for >90% percentage of pedestrian injuries and deaths.
Protecting people from cars is a key aspect of improving road safety.
Bike lanes can enhance safety. Studies have shown that the bike lanes have reduced accidents and injuries by 50%.
There is no evidence that bike lanes decrease pedestrian safety. That is false. In fact, they can indirectly benefit pedestrians by organizing traffic and reducing vehicle speeds.
It’s important to base arguments on factual data and studies rather than personal opinions or unverified claims. Accurate data and statistics provide a more reliable foundation for discussions about road safety.
Thanks for quoting tons of anti-bike lane sentiments without really representing any fact-/science-/safety-based opinions, thus demonstrating your continued bias on this topic.
@ChrisRoof. I could not agree more. Cambridge Day keeps giving media time to people who spout anti-bike sentiments that are devoid of evidence and run counter to known facts. What happened to the goal of getting at the truth?