Among all that’s going on in Mass. Ave. plan, staff acknowledge that pedestrians need a say
A pedestrian crosses Massachusetts Avenue at Porter Square on Sept. 11, 2022. (Photo: Marc Levy)
In envisioning how Massachusetts Avenue changes between now and 2040, the city’s Massachusetts Avenue Planning Study study is taking into account a less-heard-from group in Cambridge: pedestrians.
The study group is looking between Alewife Brook Parkway and Cambridge Common on a road that is the busiest in Cambridge, with 21,000 vehicles using it daily, 12,000 bus commuters and bicycle use that has risen 34 percent since 2018 – and one goal is “street design that minimizes the severity or reduces the number of crashes,” assistant transportation planner Andy Reker said at a Feb. 29 meeting.
He also wants to find better bus stop locations for the 77 with the MBTA, which is working on a bus network redesign that includes many Cambridge routes.
During a breakout session, though, a resident identified as Jessica expressed concern that pedestrians have been overlooked in past discussions about improvements. “There were a lot of really loud voices on the question of Mass. Ave., and maybe pedestrians are the quietest voice,” she said. “I just want to make sure that voice isn’t lost, because we all walk at some point.”
The lack was acknowledged by Drew Kane, senior city planner for Cambridge. “We hear a lot about the separated bike lanes, we hear a lot about the need for the provisions of parking and the provisions of separate loading areas, we hear a lot about transit, but we don’t hear a lot about pedestrians,” Kane said.
The focus is on land use and urban design, largely separate from a Massachusetts Avenue partial reconstruction project that is underway concerning bike lanes and other modes of transportation, though there will be some overlap, city councillors were told Jan. 22. Stacy Chen, principal at the design firm Interface Studio, described this project as “everything beyond the roadway” – including but not limited to sidewalks, housing and businesses and the sewers that run underneath.
Kane hopes to be able to improve sidewalks, particularly by adding more benches and trees, which will be essential as summers get warmer. Maintaining street trees is a difficult task, but the Department of Public Works has been working on finding hardier trees that can survive in a cramped urban environment. “This process really also does want to focus on the streetscape. While we can’t control the space between the two curbs, we can have influence on what it feels like otherwise, when you’re on the sidewalk,” Kane said.
The plan is hoped to also lead to more housing, since Massachusetts Avenue offers access to transit, employment and shopping, Kane said.
That may be difficult with current zoning, he said. Massachusetts Avenue was downzoned in the 1960s to restrict allowable building height around taller buildings that are grandfathered in.
More density leads to more traffic, Kane said, but a sweet spot can found. “There are always tradeoffs when it comes to planning,” Kane said.
Another planning area is stormwater management, as increased rainfall resulting from climate change means a higher chance of untreated sewage overflowing into the Charles River and Alewife Brook. A decadeslong improvement project has left 40 miles of system, or roughly 45 percent, in which sewage and stormwater can still mingle.
The city hopes landscaping changes will let more water seep directly into the ground as opposed to going into storm sewers, helping avoiding the need for the city to recommend people avoid contact with the Charles and Alewife Brook after heavy storms.
The city invites comments and feedback on Massachusetts Avenue using a map tool toward a “15-year vision plan that will guide future development and support a thriving local business community.” The project page is here, with a next community meeting expected 6 to 7:30 p.m. March 27.
More trees and benches please!
Also this please: https://www.bostonbrt.org/what-is-brt-new/
And/or free buses.
@q99 …. you forgot to ask for “free ponies for everyone!”
Also: a “15-year vision plan that will guide future development and support a thriving local business community.”
Yup, we all know how well Cambridge does with its “vision boards”.
Here is a letter written to a city councilor. It was sent to me, and my neighbors, by one of my neighbors. It was sent to her by the writer. I do not know the writer and do not live near her. It’s interesting.
Also interesting is the statement above ” with 21,000 vehicles using it daily, 12,000 bus commuters and bicycle use that has risen 34 percent since 2018 “. However, while it says that bicycle use has risen 34%, it does not say how many bicycles use Mass Ave. I’m on Mass Ave fairly often and a wild guess would be 75 cars for every bike, perhaps more.
Here is the letter. Slaw (and others), here’s another chance for you to keep pedaling misleading data. Go to it.
For twenty six years I had my ballet school, Fresh Pond Ballet, at 1798 Mass. Ave. near Porter Square, but Covid shut things down March of 2020. Parking on Mass. Ave. has always been an issue, but if Covid hadn’t shut me down, the bike lanes would have done it for sure.
I’m a long term resident of Cambridge, first Walden Street, then bought a small house on on Lake View Ave. where I’ve lived decades. I’ve just returned from voting at the Armenian Church, and what’s been done to Brattle Street is dangerous, ugly, and lacks common sense. Lake View is off Brattle, so sometimes I can’t avoid using it, but it’s horrible visually and practically, those ugly white pillars and clumsy box gizmos, look like they’ll cause accidents and probably already have.
The number of bike riders I see? Next to zero, though a few now and then on my street, so it’s absurd to control cars by doing this, supposedly for bikes. It’s even more dangerous for older people who aren’t about to ride a bike or a skate board or roller skates, makes no sense from any angle.
I’d appreciate any help you can provide to accommodate cars reasonably and modify or repair what’s been done to the streets and keep the pro-bike folks from ripping the city to bits. Just a side note that I’ve been to Copenhagen where there are so many bikes, but the streets are extremely wide in that city and there’s ample room for cars and bikes, which is NOT the case in Cambridge.
Please let me know any questions and thanks so much for your help.
“I’m on Mass Ave fairly often and a wild guess would be 75 cars for every bike, perhaps more.” Is an incredible sentence to write immediately before: “Here is the letter. Slaw (and others), here’s another chance for you to keep pedaling misleading data. Go to it.”
You clearly lack any sense of irony. You are the one peddling misleading data, as is the person who wrote this letter.
For one thing there is still parking immediately in front of 1798 Mass Ave. The only bike lane there is a door zone bike lane. This is in addition to ample parking immediately in the back.
“what’s been done to Brattle Street is dangerous” this is misleading and lacks any data to back it up, the studies I have linked for you numerous times now by the Federal highway administration and the city both demonstrate this has improved safety.
“ugly, and lacks common sense.” This is highly subjective but I agree I don’t like plastic bollards and think the city should go further and install permanent treatments that look better as well.
“those ugly white pillars and clumsy box gizmos, look like they’ll cause accidents and probably already have.” is pure speculation and lacks any data to back it up.
“The number of bike riders I see? Next to zero”
Who cares? Are you watching for bikes the whole time? Doing travel counts? Then this is entirely irrelevant. Who cares how many bikes you personally happened to see. The actual travel counts have demonstrated massively increased rates of biking (particularly around Brattle st). The more bike lanes go in the more this goes up too.
“It’s even more dangerous for older people who aren’t about to ride a bike or a skate board or roller skates, makes no sense from any angle“ older people do ride bikes. People have pointed out to you several older people who have been killed on bikes in Cambridge and the surrounding area in recent years. They deserve safe infrastructure too.
The standard of evidence you demand in favor of bike lanes (ignoring numerous pieces of peer reviewed research for various nonsensical reasons) compared to the standard you accept for anti-bike lane rhetoric (literally just what some random person made up) is so vastly different. That you think this is some mic drop moment or some major gotcha is genuinely incredible. This is nonsense and supported by nothing.
No free ponies, Sam, but you can vote for free bikes with participatory voting! LOL.
And concerned43, what else amsterdam has is functional public transit. What we have now is bikes for the abled bodied few and cars for everyone else.
@concerned43: The working group folks might have access to more recent data, but 2016 traffic counts found that vehicle volumes on Mass Ave just north of Porter Square (by Russell St) were as follows: 21,941 for the whole day (24 hours), 1,346 in the AM peak hour, and 1,366 in the PM peak hour.
I’m not aware of whole-day counts for bikes here, but the city conducts regular biennial peak-hour bike counts. The most recent data from 2022 show that in Porter Square, there were 479 bikes in the AM peak hour and 540 bikes in the PM peak hour.
This puts the bike:car ratio at over 1:3. The fact that your 1:75 estimate is so wildly off really illustrates the well-known point that “car rights activists” like yourself consistently underestimate the number of cyclists, similar to how business owners tend to overestimate the proportion of their customers that drive there. The generous explanation is that bikes are so much more space-efficient than cars and therefore less likely for you to notice, but plain old bias is probably the main reason.
As for the letter, it is mostly full of the same old debunked arguments that get brought up against any bike (and bus!) lane project in the area, but I did want to respond to one part specifically:
Isn’t it funny how the historical point of reference people choose is the one that conveniently suits their own biases? Widespread car use is barely 100 years old, while Brattle Street’s been around for 300-400 years. Why are flexposts considered a modern eyesore, yet the parked cars taking up public street space are not? And I don’t see these people complaining about modern traffic lights because presumably, they understand they are necessary for road safety — yet they somehow seem incapable of extending that understanding to safety for cyclists.
@concerned43, the Bluebikes data can be a great way to document the number of people biking. The system documented over 232,000 rides in February 2024 alone, ~50% growth year-over-year. How do you square those electronically recorded numbers with the ‘next to zero’ claim?
I personally nearly always use my own bike rather than a bike share, as do many others. So the true number of daily rides is much higher. And of course these are _winter_ numbers, Summer are much higher.
bluebikes.com/system-data has all the data if you want to check it out
@q99 do you ever bring up people with disabilities except as a cudgel against bike lanes? I have a disability although not one that impacts my movement. I like bike lanes. Maybe people who bike have disabilities and “the majority of disabled cyclists (69% of our survey group) find cycling easier than walking and many use their cycle as a mobility aid” https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/jun/20/how-to-build-inclusive-culture-disabled-cyclists
Disabled people who bike benefit the most from safe bike infrastructure as many bikes that cater to their needs are less suited to riding in the street and because bike lanes allow them to travel at their own pace more easily. Additionally good bike infrastructure is utilized by people with wheel chairs and assisted mobility devices all the time. I see this regularly in the good bike lanes in Cambridge and Somerville. We should keep building out the bike network because it’s better for disabled people too.
Regarding upper Mass Ave, I was one (of probably a few) folks who suggested the expansion of tree pits, which is No. 10 on the Participatory Budgeting items to vote on. My idea had specified upper Mass Ave in particular, which feels 10 degrees hotter on a hot day from all the concrete, and which is simply a very boring walk if you’re going from Alewife Brook Parkway down to Porter Square (often it’s cooler and simply more interesting to just cut onto the Linnear path and walk to porter from Davis Square). The item on the Participatory Budgeting list is accompanied by a graphic that looks like Cambridge’s beautiful red brick sidewalks could be partially dismantled for expanding the tree pits. My guess is that was just a designer making a more interesting graphic: I’m assuming that any disruption to red brick sidewalks is the lowest of all priorities. The sidewalks on upper Mass Ave could have one big concrete strip turned into dirt and there would STILL be more than adequate room to walk. And just imagine how interesting that walk: yes, more trees, but there are plenty of other plants that could go there and not disturb the tree roots growing. Just imagine the changes from winter to a spring of buds, birds and bees along that walk. And wow, instead of speedwalking to get it over with, pedestrians may linger, notice items in the businesses’ windows, walk into those businesses, because of all the coziness of greenery buffering the pedestrians from the speedway of Mass Ave up there. The drivers may actually notice all that greenery and think, hmm, that sure looks inviting.
Last October I visited the East Village of NYC after not having visited for a while (I once lived there). Wow, the explosion of street tree growth was amazing, and beautiful, and so monumental! Trees fitting here and there, and really tall and large ones! Whatever trees they’re growing or whatever they’re putting in the East Village tree pits, make it so in Cambridge.
Slaw, I’m not complaining about bike lanes. I’m complaining about cars and bikes being prioritized over functional mass transit.
I ride a bike to and from work in Cambridge far more often than not.
Also, Blue bikes are great, but its 24k rides in Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, Everett, REvere, Medford, Brookline, Arlington and Malden, not just cambridge.
And Slaw, I love you dude, but I think you know that when people say disabled, I mean unable or struggle with the mobility to ride a bike. (I’ll try correct my language going forward though to clarify)
Again, I love bikes, I ride a bike, I ride a family on my bike. But we need transportation that helps the most people.
@q99, for sure, and importantly the number was 232k not 24k — that does strike me as a really impressive number for winter / February.
Itamar pulled Cambridge-specific Bluebikes numbers last year and found that just under half of rides system-wide started or ended in Cambridge — https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/06/05/bluebikes-have-been-a-transformative-investment/
More importantly, my point here was just to say that this is a big number, and only part of the overall ridership. If somebody thinks there aren’t bikes out there, they aren’t really looking.
@chris – agreed,
@q99. We still have a long way to go before we can say bikes are meaningfully being prioritized over anything. Additionally good bike infrastructure is a transit booster as it widens the easy walk zone of stations and improves first/last mile connections. Bikes aren’t cars. We still open way more on cars every year. That’s the actual problem.
the number was 240k not 24k. Cambridge also has several of the busiest stations in the whole network. In fact the top 7 stations all are: MIT at Mass Ave / Amherst St, Central Square at Mass Ave / Essex St, Harvard Square at Mass Ave/ Dunster, MIT Pacific St at Purrington St, Charles Circle – Charles St at Cambridge St, Ames St at Main St, MIT Vassar St
I think I already addressed that as well but to explain again: those with assisted mobility devices. With bike lanes that are adequately safe, wide, continuous, and well placed, they can not only provide mobility to people on bikes but also to people in wheelchairs, assisted mobility devices, and maybe even microcars like they have in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ly7JjqEb0 I do see people with such devices making use of some of the better bike lanes in Cambridge and Somerville already.
Additionally, many disabled people benefit from bike lanes because they also bike and for them a bike is an assisted mobility device as I already pointed out.
*’spend way more on cars’ not ‘open.’
I appreciate your opinion Slaw, and as I said, I enjoy the bike lanes and look forward to fewer cars on the roads. I also think that those who cant ride bikes need options besides cars, which it sounds like we both want to reduce. Thus, we might want to invest in the T.
To get back on the topic of improving the pedestrian experience, which was the actual focus of the article (it’s sad how much energy has to be wasted combating the misinformation that bike/bus lane opponents post under every article about Mass Ave, even when not relevant) —
I left a few comments on the MAPS map, but to summarize them here: a huge missing piece in this corridor is the lack of public spaces conducive to gathering/relaxing outside, especially green ones. Going north along the corridor we’ve got:
1. That skinny triangular park by “little Mass Ave” – cars on all sides, zero nearby street activation, blocked by fencing all around, just 1 bench. Uninviting & only gets used by a few people from the abutting apartments to take smoke breaks or let their dogs use the bathroom.
2. Porter Square – just a few fragmented and barren concrete spaces scattered around. More on this later.
3. The areas where Alewife Linear Park intersects Mass Ave (Trolley Square etc.) – nice but could be bigger and have more amenities. The upcoming park redesign should improve this at least.
4. Clarendon Ave Park – good, but isolated – as @harmonicat wrote above, the walk to this area along Mass Ave sidewalks is not very pleasant.
5. The buffer between Alewife Brook Parkway and Columbus Ave – can’t imagine anyone wanting to spend time here given all the noisy and polluting car traffic at the adjacent intersection.
There is that small park by Linnaean St but it’s private. The courtyard at the new Saint James Place development seems to be more open but still unclear whether the public is actually welcome or not.
These spaces are far outnumbered/dwarfed in area by asphalt parking lots all along the corridor, the majority of which are underutilized. Some of the most obvious examples being the multiple Lesley University-owned parking lots near Porter Square (one of which is perpetually deserted), the 7-Eleven parking lot next to Day St, or the drive-through bank and parking lot across from Frank’s.
And of course, there’s the massive Porter Square shopping center parking lot that serves as the centerpiece of the entire corridor. Compare Porter to other squares in the area: Harvard Square has that plaza in front of Felipe’s as well as Winthrop Square (the park next to Grendel’s Den). Davis has Statue Park and Seven Hills Park (which hosts outdoor concerts and movie nights!), Inman has Vellucci Plaza, Central has Lafayette Square and Carl Barron Plaza. These attract so many people when the weather’s nice.
Meanwhile, in Porter, we’ve got: the area in front of the Target entrance, the weird concrete areas by the T station, and the stripey zones by the Healthworks entrance + the island with the bike repair stand (together could be a decent size plaza if the exit lane from the parking lot didn’t slice it in half). All are barely used/poorly activated. All surrounded by car traffic. If you get some ice cream or coffee nearby with friends, is there somewhere inviting to sit and enjoy it while chatting, rather than having to raise your voice to be heard over the cars? Currently, no! (It also just occurred to me that this may be why unlike other squares, I’ve never seen buskers here…) So much wasted potential, given Porter is a major transit hub.
In addition to improving the existing conditions at Porter Square, well-designed green open spaces could serve as seeds for new neighborhood “centers” along Mass Ave. For example, what if the 7-Eleven parking lot was a nice park instead? There’s already Pemberton Farms to anchor, a bunch of great small local businesses, and Davis Square nearby for T access. This could become something like a smaller version of Porter if planned well.
great ideas pico. the current layout does not encourage lingering by pedestrians, drivers or cyclists. more green and more benches, espeically by public transit stations and stops.
I agree about the T needing investment. I think car infrastructure spending is the better place to reallocate from though.
I like the idea to reclaim parking space for parks. Parking as a term originates from green space along roadways (parking) that cars started stoping in. Eventually the terms became entwined and parking came to mean space for cars instead of park space along roadways. We should take that space back.
Also, going off-topic again, just wanted to chime in on the other conversation happening in the comments — @q99, I also feel it’s not particularly productive to frame things as bikes being prioritized over transit. While Cambridge controls its streets and can therefore work towards encouraging bike ridership through installing better/safer bike lanes, the state-level MBTA is in charge of transit and the city only has limited influence on them (see: the decision to replace the overhead wires/trackless trolleys with battery electric buses). It’s not like Cambridge can do anything about the bus operator shortage that’s responsible for infrequent/unreliable service, the years of deferred track maintenance, or somehow get CRRC to build/deliver the new Red Line cars any faster.
I think the city is doing a decent job of facilitating better public transit where it is in their power to do so, i.e. road infrastructure: installing bus lanes and transit signal priority, improving bus stop placement/spacing, building floating/in-lane bus stops, and deploying quick-response measures to make shutdowns less painful by clearing room for the hordes of shuttle buses. They have also worked to collect community feedback on the recent Bus Network Redesign and to communicate that to the MBTA. And since you brought up participatory budgeting, I would also point out that one of the ideas up for voting is more bus shelters (though I’m confused by the absurdly high price tag for only 2 bus shelters – surely that’s a typo and they meant 20…?)
Now, could the city do more? Sure! For example, I’d love to see them expand their discounted transit pass program, or even do fare-free buses as you said (following the example Boston’s set with their successful pilot programs in recent years). But it’s not possible for Cambridge alone to compensate for all the failings of the MBTA. And while I agree that it’s not a feasible option for everyone, bikes can serve as a useful transportation alternative during major transit shutdowns (see how BlueBikes ridership broke records/doubled when Boston offered free rides during the Orange Line shutdown a while back).
Definitely, as a regular pedestrian on Mass ave, I would love to see severe reduction in car traffic. I would reduce car traffic to 15mph and one lane each way to enable wider pedestrian sidewalks.
@concerned43 The claim that cars outnumber bikes 75 to 1 is fiction. City data shows that bikes actually outnumber cars on several key routes during peak hours.
Thanks to the Cambridge bike lanes, bike usage has surged, alleviating traffic congestion. Simply put, more cyclists mean fewer cars on the road, reducing overall traffic.
Check this out:
Bicycle use soars following installation of separated bike lanes, according to new study (in Cambridge)
https://momentummag.com/bicycle-use-soars-following-installation-of-separated-bike-lanes-according-to-cambridge-study/
@ Frank D
Well, I was wrong.
Today, on Brattle Street at Appleton Street, from 8:30 AM to 9:AM , the ratio was 90:1. It is a nice day outside, so plenty of bike riders should have been out.
Care to join me some morning on Mass Ave by Porter Square? There, the ratio will be 50:1.
You’re right. There’s also probably far more cars than homes along Brattle, so I think a data driven deduction would be to remove the bike lane, and bulldoze your neighborhood to install a highway to prioritize the majority of people who use that part of the city!
@ Slaw
There is a lot of data about accidents caused by the cement blocks that demarcate the Brattle St. Bike lanes.
No one cares about numbers you invented from thin air, especially after your guesses are shown to be an order of magnitude off.
I biked in Cambridge several times today, there were tons of people riding. You should go outside and stop tilting at windmills from behind the computer screen.
I thought the whole purpose of bike lanes was safety. How is it safe for anyone when all forms of vehicles now use the bike lanes. We have motor scooters as in motorized scooters, skate boards, single wheel vehicles, people on roller skates, people using wheel chairs and any other mode of travel.
But, strangely no one talks about bike helmets. I believe this shows something else going on. Everything comes down to money, and there is a lot of money to be made renting bikes. Helmets? People don’t need stinking helmets.
Maybe we need to vote on this matter since the residents were never asked to begin with.
People rarely use brattle for bikes because if they are coming from Watertown they would logically stay on Mt Auburn Street, which intersects brattle at either end, making brattle less efficient. If people are coming to/from Belmont they’d take garden street, and if Arlington they’d take mass ave. Thus, almost the only bikers on brattle are from brattle or the immediate neighborhood. I use brattle to bike occasionally because I live nearby, but I typically take garden inbound, and only really take brattle outbound because I dislike the bike lanes that run against traffic and the cars and cyclists all seem very confused and blow the lights and don’t see the cyclists. I cycle, and say remove the ugly bike lanes from beautiful brattle, which was always very quiet for biking and driving anyway for the reasons stated above.
“There is a lot of data about accidents caused by the cement blocks that demarcate the Brattle St. Bike lanes.”
Present it then. You can’t.
“How is it safe for anyone when all forms of vehicles now use the bike lanes. We have motor scooters as in motorized scooters, skate boards, single wheel vehicles, people on roller skates, people using wheel chairs and any other mode of travel.”
Motor scooters don’t belong in bike lanes because they have categorically higher speed and acceleration than all those other groups but they already aren’t supposed to be.
All of those different groups ride in them because they are safe. It is great that bike lanes are good enough for all those different kinds of people to ride in them. Some people don’t think they should be called bike lanes at all for this reason but I think that seems semantic to me. People who are propelling themselves or those using assistance to go at the same speeds, can coexist without issue. People are incredibly good at avoiding each other at low speeds. If you don’t think there is enough space for all these groups advocate for wider bike lanes.
“But, strangely no one talks about bike helmets. I believe this shows something else going on. Everything comes down to money, and there is a lot of money to be made renting bikes. Helmets? People don’t need stinking helmets.”
Mandating helmets is proven to reduce bike safety. That is because it makes cycling appear inherently dangerous and discourages many from riding. There is inherent safety in numbers with bicycling as more bikes around makes you more visible and makes drivers more used to driving around bicyclists.
See this study finding: “In jurisdictions where cycling is safe, a helmet law is likely to have a large unintended negative health impact. In jurisdiction where cycling is relatively unsafe, helmets will do little to make it safer and a helmet law, under relatively extreme assumptions may make a small positive contribution to net societal health.” https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2012_de-Jong_Health-Impacts-of-Mandatory-Bicycle-Helmet-Laws.pdf
Cambridge is well on its way to becoming a place where cycling is safe. places like that don’t mandate and often don’t wear helmets:https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/06/02/why-helmets-arent-the-answer-to-bike-safety-in-one-chart
“Maybe we need to vote on this matter since the residents were never asked to begin with.” When did we vote on tearing out the trolley tracks, historic bike and walking paths, and even entire neighborhoods to expand automobile infrastructure? Why should taking back a tiny bit of that space be held to such a different standard. Regardless Cambridge residents have voted consistently to support candidates backing bike lanes.
@concerned43 You’re fabricating figures. City data reveals that on busy routes like Beacon St, bikes actually outnumber cars during peak hours. Just picture a dozen cyclists at a traffic light, a common sight in Inman Square. Imagine the congestion if those were cars instead.
@myplanb The Cambridge bike lanes have reduced accidents by 50%. That is a fact. A US DOT study shows this.
https://highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/FHWA-HRT-23-078.pdf
You are just making up nonsense.