The Cambridge City Council will vote Monday on whether to delay separated bike lanes by an additional 18 months, despite major public outcry. Critical network connections including Cambridge Street, Broadway and Main Street would not be required to be completed until more than 3.5 years from now, in November 2027.
Some minimize the costs of this delay, saying cyclists can take other routes, while others say that crashes are uncommon and the few that happen aren’t serious. We took a look at some of the crashes on just one mile of Cambridge Street over the past three years and could not disagree more. We found 65 crashes of vulnerable road users that have occurred since 2021, drawing from Cambridge Police and state Department of Transportation crash data.
We found many reports of pedestrians who were hit and injured seriously while simply crossing the street. In one instance, a vehicle hit a pedestrian and dragged him 60 feet, until firefighters ran over to lift the vehicle and save the pedestrian. Another car hit a visually impaired resident. One driver hit and injured a dog and its owner while they were crossing a crosswalk.
We also found numerous reports of cyclists who were doored. Many others were traveling straight when drivers failed to yield, and hit them while crossing or turning on or off of Cambridge Street. One cyclist we interviewed was crushed between a bus and an SUV, another person on a scooter was knocked unconscious, suffering serious migraines and other side effects. A car turned without signaling and drove into a pregnant woman who was cycling. Another car hit a cyclist and broke their back, elbow and wrist, and is still in chronic pain more than a year after the crash.
These are just a few of the 65 people we were able to speak with or read about.
There is a serious human cost to these delays. Many of these injuries are serious and even life-altering, and other crashes have had a more tragic ending.
If we wait another three years, we will surely see more crashes and serious injuries, if not worse. These are not rare events, and they could happen to you or somebody you love while walking or biking.
Ilana Strauss and Ned Narni, volunteers with the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group
A stronger
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The best time for protected bike lanes was in the 1970s when the oil crisis and the dangers of car traffic made it perfectly clear that it’s not a sustainable mode of transportation for cities. It didn’t happen them for whatever reason.
The second best time is now.
I’m done waiting.
Cambridge Streets All For Cars and their elected representative Joan Pickett do not care about any of these stories, nor the people who will suffer life altering injuries because of this delay. The reason is that they do not think their lives are as important the interests they are trying to protect.
Chris: You and your surrogates are such a hype artist:
1) You keep repeating a statistic of 65 accidents conflated into two years when in fact the only way one can come up with that number is to add everything up all the way back to 2015 or so. Cambridge Police and TPT numbers since 2021 do not come to even equal 1/3 of your number.
2) Take a look at your map and note that the vast majority of all cycling accidents occur at intersections, where no bike infrastructure is in place, and too few cyclists observe the rules of the road.
3) In fact the number of accidents at intersections has NOT declined with CSO bike lanes, they are a high or higher than where the lanes have not yet been installed.
4) So you have a friend at the Globe who will quote you in articles — that is anything but an outcry. Unless you are speaking of your robo-outcries produced by your mailing bots. How many of your outcriers and bots actually live in Cambridge? So many of them are just commuting through Cambridge from elsewhere.
5) During the brief extension to find mitigation for the damage to businesses proposed in Policy Order #50 there are indeed existing bike lanes easily used for Cambridge, Main and Broadway. Look at the map, Hampshire lanes are complete and connect easily with the existing portion on Cambridge Street. Hampshire also is only a block over from Main, and close to Broadway.
6) Your goal is all bikes and no cars, apparently it is also no business. Pass Policy Order #50 to save our businesses.
7) And STOP saying that bike lanes are good for pedestrians. That is absolutely not true. The outcry from pedestrians is bike lanes make them feel less safe not more. Pedestrians want to walk to do their shopping– Pedestrians want the City Council to Pass PO #50.
8)Unless and until bicycles are regulated and cyclists start observing the rules of the road, we all will be less safe.
AND the last thing: Pass Policy Order #50 to support businesses, help workers who must drive to work, support pedestrians and the mobility impaired, and to make the bike lanes better!
Ok, bring it on — I know your sock puppets will soon be on me — I am waiting.
Which reminds me, your article above is utter cold-slaw, is that your pseudonym?
Vickey Bestor — I sign my name.
@vickey Bestor
Another Cambridge streets for all con job.
1) You are simply lying here. This data is publicly available and does not support your claims. Here is the data in a sortable list. https://data.cambridgema.gov/Public-Safety/Police-Department-Crash-Data-Updated/gb5w-yva3
Even if that were the case, and again it simply isn’t, that number of injuries and deaths (people have also been killed on bikes on Cambridge street) is still not acceptable. You clearly have a number of your neighbors you are fine being sacrificed to the god of parking.
2) There can be bike infrastructure in intersections. A great example is Inman square. You and your organization opposed that project too. Have you changed your mind to support protected intersections now?
Protected intersections: https://www.mass.gov/doc/chapter-4-intersection-design-0/download I would be happy to have your support in pushing for more bike lane projects to include this. But for some reason I don’t think that’s what you are trying to do here.
3) Again this is objectively false. Not only has there been a relative decline in cycling related crashes since the installation of protected bike lanes in Cambridge, there has been a total reduction. That means it isn’t even the case that the number of cyclists have increased and the number of crashes has increased but not in proportion (which can happen sometimes and still results in the average ride being safer) but in Cambridge there have been more people riding and fewer crashes. This is so obviously and objectively safer you are simply lying about it.
Again you never provide data to support your claims because if you look at it it is clear you are lying. Here is relevant data: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Transportation/Bike/bikereports/20231023bicyclingincambridgedatareport_final.pdf
Also here: https://highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/FHWA-HRT-23-025.pdf
4) the idea that you have repeated numerous times that everyone who disagrees with you is a bot shows how much you dehumanize cyclists frankly. The people who disagree with you are real people who just want to get home safe, but it sure is easier to oppose that if you pretend they don’t actually exist.
A lot of the people driving through and parking in Cambridge aren’t from Cambridge either, why do you only apply this argument to bikes and not to your preferred mode of travel that if anything actually caters more to people from outside the city?
5) This demonstrates you don’t understand how networks work. These aren’t parallel streets. They connect to eachother, yes, and that is good because networks require connections. They point in different directions though and lead to different destinations. These aren’t redundant routes and good networks also have redundancies.
The existing bike lanes on Cambridge street are door zone bike lanes (a design that has killed several bicyclists in the Boston area) and not safe for riders of all ages and abilities.
Why also do people never make these arguments about cars. If Hampshire is a valid alternative to all of these other streets why doesn’t that apply to drivers? It certainly is physically easier to detour in a car. Why is it assumed that cars should be allowed everywhere but bikes need to prove they have absolutely no other alternative before a route can even be considered?
6) no Cambridge bike project has completely removed space for cars. You have personally sued the city to remove all space for bikes. You are an enormous hypocrite.
Cambridge has studied this and found no impact on businesses from bike lanes: https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/02/10/city-commissioned-study-shows-bike-lanes-have-no-impact-on-business/ (you will probably lie about this but the results are very clear and undermine your alarmist claims)
7) Unlike those at Cambridge streets for cars I actually walk around the city too. Bike lanes provide more buffer between walking space and cars, they narrow the amount of roadway you need to cross, they slow drivers down, and that is just the bike lanes themselves. These projects have also add bump outs, new crosswalks, widened sidewalks etc. You are not only fighting against bike lane projects you are also fighting against direct improvements to pedestrian infrastructure. Your organization speaks for (the most selfish of) drivers it does not speak for pedestrians.
You are so hyper focused on opposing bikes that you have lost all sense of what pedestrians actually need and want. You only attempt to instrumentalize us for your defense of car centric designs.
8) until car speeds are brought down and there is safe infrastructure for all road users we will all be less safe. Bicyclists are more law abiding than car drivers (and that is even true about laws that actively make cyclists less safe, like the failure to implement the Idaho stop): https://www.bicycling.com/news/a46443761/science-proves-motorists-break-traffic-laws-a-lot-more-often-than-cyclists/
For some reason you ever seem to apply this argument to drivers, that they must follow the law before they are given any infrastructure. Considering that law breaking drivers actually can kill people, it would be a lot more reasonable of an argument to make. But you don’t.
This isn’t about the law it’s about opposing bike infrastructure.
This policy order is clearly being pushed by people who oppose bike infrastructure and would prefer to have them delayed as long as possible to ramp up the tension around them rather than have them go in and everyone realize your dooms day predictions were BS.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bike-lanes-good-for-business-studies-better-streets-2024-3
“The most effective way to deal with opposition from local businesses is to just get the bike lanes built. Before-and-after surveys tend to show that in the long run, everyone winds up satisfied. “It’s a political question, and oftentimes it’s a very divided community when it comes to these types of projects,” Poirier says. “But once a street is changed, generally speaking, after six months or a year, nobody remembers what it used to look like. It’s the new normal.” All the data in the world may prove that bike lanes are good for business. But nothing beats experiencing them.”
I did not write this article. Ilana Strauss and Ned Narni did, and they signed their names too. Again your dedication to pretending that everyone who disagrees with you is a bot or all just the same person is completely unhinged and ridiculous.
May I suggest that the opinion writer and the commentor should, at the very least, not be calling each other out by name.
Let’s try hard to be respectful (both sides) and remember we are all trying to make this little patch of earth work better for all of us.
@Vickey Bestor, much of what you’re stating is simply untrue.
Data from Cambridge and elsewhere demonstrates that bike lanes increase cycling rates and significantly reduce accidents, often by 50% or more.
The 65 accidents since 2021 are easily verifiable through Cambridge PD records.
Bike lanes contribute to safer streets for all, including pedestrians. It’s straightforward: cars pose risks to pedestrians and cyclists. Bike lanes effectively narrow streets, reducing the exposure of pedestrians to cars and minimizing “right hook” accidents.
Implementing bike lanes and other road diets also decreases car speeds. Remember, even a 10mph reduction can be the difference between life and death for a pedestrian.
Let’s stick to facts and stop spreading misinformation.
@Vickey Bestor Nothing is more concerning than individuals who prioritize their convenience over the safety and lives of others. Correction: Those who try to achieve this by spreading falsehoods are even worse.
@vickey Bestor’s comments can be summed up as: “I want to drive when and where I want. Stay out of my way!”
Are you aware that many people ride bikes because they can’t afford cars? How about a little compassion for the low wage earners, students, etc, who don’t have a car. Don’t they deserve some protection?
Everything you said about bike lanes not being safe is nonsense that has been debunked over and over again. It should be self-evident that is safer to separate people from large, heavy, fast moving machines.
Today I drove to work. I saw a pedestrian almost hit by a car turning right from mass ave to Walden as she crossed with the walk sign and had to leap out of the way. My friend carol saw a cyclist hit on their way to work. I saw dozens of families riding and walking to school with cross streets with multiple crossing guards leaping out with stop signs trying to keep cars out of the way.I propose if Cambridge,main and broadway need to be delayed the we close them to passenger vehicles until 2027since certain folks don’t want to share.