A plan to reshape Cambridge transportation over the next decade that includes more than 30 action items doesn’t quite resolve the conflict between people who need cars and parking and policies that acknowledge the problems cars bring – but officials are working on it, including by finding more flexible uses for existing parking.
A 2022 study looked at March 25 by city councillors has action items that would push residents gently away from driving and parking and others making it easier to, in part because surveys showed different groups calling for better biking protections, the elimination of bike lanes, the expansion of bus services or more parking spaces.
Identifying the challenge as “balancing everyone’s needs,” the summary says the ultimate goal is “to create a city where there is less need for driving and parking” and that removing spaces leads to better transportation options – the goal of bus and bike lane installations causing furors citywide since 2017.
“We are hoping to make this transition as painless as possible. To do this, we want to make it easier for people to find the parking spaces that are still available,” staff say.
Councillors noted the problem. “People have different feelings about parking,” vice mayor Marc McGovern said. “I don’t know how many studies, task forces, conversations, meetings, we could have that would ever resolve that – people want and need different things. And however many studies we do and however much money we spend on them, we’re going to end up in the same spot.”
“Our city is old, and our layout is not conducive to doing all the things that everybody wants,” McGovern said.
Looking at “underused” spaces
Marked as high priority is developing zoning that lets drivers take advantage of “underused” parking spaces where a loss of metered on-street spaces is expected. Between Harvard and Porter squares, for instance, where businesses have fought bike lanes that could remove meters, drivers might eye a barely used Lesley University lot or another between the Changsho restaurant and a Cambridge Trust branch.
It’s an item councillor Paul Toner said he was “most interested in,” and hoping there will be owners “willing to talk to businesses about renting those spots.”
Councillor Sumbul Siddiqui also asked about a timeline for proposals using the same zoning as an example, saying she wanted to “put a plus one on using existing parking better.’”
“Staff have already started to think about what is required for for these changes,” said Iram Farooq, assistant city manager for community development. After feedback from councillors, the first items could be ready in “a few months” and implementing a first change could happen within nine months.
Area of interest
Among the 32 actions, one is complete: the end of parking minimum requirements that the council voted 8-1 in 2022, which would in theory reduce the number of parking spaces being built while allowing for more efficient use of already-existing spaces.
The remaining are broken up into five areas:
Using existing parking better, including the accessory parking concept and another key item of creating more short-term parking, ranging from a half-hour to two hours;
Creating parking, which has no key items identified and instead says that “making better use of existing parking could accomplish similar goals as building” – and at costs lower than the $100,000 to $150,00 per space of a garage or underground lots;
Providing better information to residents about getting around town and finding available parking;
Increasing equity, with a key item of connecting people with lower-cost rental bikes and MBTA rides; and
Improving the experience of getting around Cambridge, with a key item being giving buses priority on roads. “People want MBTA buses to be more reliable and not get stuck in traffic,” staff noted.
Several proposals deal with direct education for residents, whether that would be showing students where bus stops are, giving Cantabrigians biking lessons or educating visitors to Cambridge on alternative transportation methods. Proposals range from simple (creating large maps of bus stops in Cambridge) to vague (“Revise city programs and policies to support strengthening social ties”).
“We staff have tried very hard to find the balance between our goals around climate and emissions, as well as congestion and our emphasis on sustainable modes of transportation, and making sure that the members of our community who have actual need to be in cars as their mobility choice can be accommodated,” Farooq said. “And that the policies that we are thinking about are not overly rebalancing in one direction or the other in terms of the parking changes, that they are trying to account for the changes that we are making in the city.”
Policies to reduce car use
The council has a record of backing proposals designed to reduce traffic and the overall footprint of cars. In 2016, the council unanimously adopted Vision Zero, a plan to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by protecting bike lanes and implementing lower speed limits, among other changes. Staff cited it in its summary with nearly a dozen other initiatives, policies and plans from years past.
“For the foreseeable future, cars will be part of the mix in our transportation system,” the study said. “But cars use the most space, fuel and energy to transport the fewest people, and they cause the most serious crashes“ – and studies show that the presence of parking causes people to drive.
With so many people and businesses speaking of their need for cars and parking, councillor Joan Picket said, staff should come back with “data that shows whether the policy is actually having the impact that is desired, which is to reduce the number of cars traveling through Cambridge or in Cambridge.”
More data wanted
The council voted unanimously for Pickett’s suggestion to refer the study to the Transportation Committee for discussion, when staff said they aimed to provide missing information, including the number of resident spaces (though it’s known there are at least 17,500 parking spaces in large multi-family buildings), resident permit spaces and loading zones. The city is working on a “digital tool to manage all curb uses, in addition to parking,” that will help pin down figures, according to the summary.
It’s known that the city has 35,600 parking spaces registered for employees, 16,400 commercial spaces, 9,100 university spaces, 8,000 registered customer or visitor spaces, 3,100 parking meters, 150 disability spaces and 15 electric vehicle chargers at stations available to the public, for a total 27 electric-car ports. There are 130 car-share spaces reported by the company Zipcar, a number down since ride-hail apps such as Lyft and Uber became popular – though people say “having convenient car-sharing vehicles available helps them live in Cambridge without owning a private car.”
The study, conducted from 2021-2022, explored the experiences of more than 2,830 people with parking and transportation in Cambridge through surveys, tabling, interviews and other methods. Focus groups were conducted in six languages, and an effort was made to contact those whose voices are not usually heard when citywide decisions such as this are made, per the executive summary of the parking study: “City staff concentrated time and resources on reaching people who have barriers to participating in planning processes, and whose needs and opinions may not have been heard in past discussions about parking policy.”
The “more robust community engagement process” was appreciated, Mayor E. Denise Simmons said.
A stronger
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There are some simpler solutions like making buses free which would reduce loading time and thus traffic. The city or traffic department also appears uninterested in enforcing cars in the bus lane on north mass ave, or cars in the bike lanes anywhere. They could also make (and enforce) designated ride share and delivery zones which also clog traffic routes and endanger pedestrians, driver and cyclists.
Lastly, maybe city employees could give up their free parking and pay for it, resident permit fees could be hiked and limited, and we could also not let cops park their private vehicles all day without paying the meter or having resident stickers which I see constantly around my neighborhood. In addition, we could buy smaller and electric school buses.
“There are some simpler solutions like making buses free which would reduce loading time and thus traffic.”
This is in the T’s hands not the city. The city is trying for the 1 to be free.
“The city or traffic department also appears uninterested in enforcing cars in the bus lane on north mass ave, or cars in the bike lanes anywhere”
More enforcement is in this plan.
“They could also make (and enforce) designated ride share and delivery zones which also clog traffic routes and endanger pedestrians, driver and cyclists.” this isn’t in the plan exactly but more 30 min parking is pretty close.
“Lastly, maybe city employees could give up their free parking and pay for it”
This isn’t in the plan but should be. The city shoudlnt provide free parking asa perk.
“resident permit fees could be hiked and limited” This unfortunately also isn’t in the plan. They acknowledge the disparity in prices between street and off street pricing but propose lowering off street rates instead of raising the costs of on street parking. Backwards.
“we could also not let cops park their private vehicles all day without paying the meter or having resident stickers which I see constantly around my neighborhood.”
As long as the cops are the enforcement mechanism attempting to get them to stop doing anything is a fools errand. They have no reason to ever hold themselves accountable.
dang slaw, are we in agreement? about transit no less? love you brother!
Cities like ours suffer from excessive parking, which encourages convenience driving.
Making parking less accessible could deter this, prompting more people to walk or use public transit.
This would ease traffic and benefit those who must drive.
The #1 bus improvements can’t be the only focus in trying to improve transit in this city. There are huge swaths of the city served by other bus lines that suffer the same problems as the #1 and run much, much less frequently. We also have neighborhoods that are basically transit deserts, such as where I live in Cambridgeport. Finally, the constant disruptions to the red line and the entire subway system impact more than just the 3 neighborhoods and 4ish stops on the red line that are within our city limits. Overall confidence in the T has plummeted since its pandemic-era crises began. Ridership is down and total car count is up. Folks in Boston/Cambridge and beyond have responded to the long wait times, breakdowns, and constant service disruptions by buying cars. It’ll be a good 10 years before those new cars start to break down and these residents begin to reevaluate their transportation habits. The T needs both a total system overhaul and an effective marketing campaign that can convince folks to leave their cars at home and choose other modes. Without both these things, efforts to remove cars from the roads will fail. People will just stop coming to Cambridge and will find other ways to spend their money. The city needs to communicate with T leadership how crucial system improvements are to our climate goals and move forward in a coordinated manner.
Cambridge is literally currently constructing bus lanes on River street, and separating bus and bike lanes into dedicated lanes for both on Belmont street. The planning around first and second street, as well as Broadway main and third both seem likely to produce more bus lanes. There are also existing bus lanes for the 77, which seem possibly likely to be expanded/improved out of the Mass Ave planning study.
The city is not just focusing on the 1. Cambridge is honestly doing a lot to improve bus reliability across the city.
@cambridgeportmillennial
Worries that businesses will suffer due to reduced car accessibility are misplaced. Less than 20% of customers in Cambridge travel by car.
Bike lanes have proven beneficial, as seen in New York where retail sales increased in areas with new bike lanes, attracting more pedestrians and cyclists.
@slaw Bus lanes are helpful, but they don’t fix problems with too-long headways and bus breakdowns, which are both affected by the staffing storage. It will take some time for the current hiring push to bear fruit. Absolutely dismal weekend headways on buses seen as commuter routes, such as the 64 and most of the buses going to Belmont, really restrict movement within Cambridge outside of rush hour.
@cambridgeportmillennial No they don’t solve those issues. But headways can be shortened if busses complete routes faster because they are no longer stuck in traffic though.
Are T buses regularly breaking down? I ride a lot of buses and I’ve never ever had that happen to one I’m on.
Also recent hiring reports are promising in terms of staffing, and this spring schedule which increases frequencies on just about everything is a good sign it is already starting to bear fruit.
Orange line needs new trains for better frequencies. Red line needs slow zones fixed for better frequencies.
I completely agree about the lack of non-peak bus service being a major issue. The BNRD does improve that for a lot of routes in Cambridge including the 64 which will go from 50 min frequencies off peak to max 30 min frequencies all day. That’s still not amazing but still miles better.