The traffic patterns on Garden Street in Cambridge will change again, bringing back two-way car travel for its length while keeping two-way bike lanes – which will mean eliminating more parking. The change, estimated to cost up to $167,000 with interim changes and to be done by the summer of 2026, was approved Monday by the City Council in a 5-4 vote.
Garden Street, a major thoroughfare stretching from Harvard Square to Neighborhood 9’s Danehy Park, got separated bike lanes in late October 2022 that limited car traffic to eastbound-only for five blocks between Bond Street and Huron Avenue. That moved some traffic onto side streets, leading to years of calls for correctives and even for the initial change to be undone.
A Dec. 9 order from councillor Paul Toner called for that restoration, but in the lead-up to the vote, the city’s Department of Transportation presented four options last month with Toner’s being No. 4 alongside an option to keep the road as it is and two variations.
In two meetings drawing hours of public comment, the fight was between keeping the current configuration and Toner’s option No. 4, which brings back two-way car traffic by taking bike lanes on opposite sides of the road and putting them side-by-side; and by eliminating parking on the stretch down past Chauncey Street, near the Harvard University police station.
“I feel that by going back to two ways for traffic and maintaining a safe, separated two-way, contra-flow bike lane, we can provide a lot of what I’ve heard people ask me to try to achieve – reduce the cut-through traffic on some of the side streets,” Toner said.
Keeping the current configuration was the safest for all modes of transportation, transportation head Brooke McKenna said, affirming testimony from residents who said Garden had become a safe way for kids to bike to high school and Danehy Park – though McKenna said westbound traffic beyond Huron Avenue near the park never got as low as her department hoped.
What to expect
Beyond the loss of parking, McKenna warned, going back to two-way car traffic meant “you will have more vehicles coming.”
After a small decrease in volumes on Linnaean Street, McKenna said, by the Graham & Parks elementary school soon “you will see a reversal of that as people are able to come down from Massachusetts Avenue and take the right onto Garden Street again.”
The area of most concern is where Huron Avenue meets Sherman and Garden streets, McKenna said, but her department will change phasing and timing at signals to address it.
The votes in favor of the change to option No. 4 were from Toner, Patty Nolan, Ayesha Wilson, Cathie Zusy and mayor E. Denise Simmons. Those opposed and wishing to keep Garden Street with its current stretch of one-way traffic were Burhan Azeem, Sumbul Siddiqui, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and vice mayor Marc McGovern.
“I’m going to listen to our experts. I’m going to listen to the people who have been studying this. They continue to say that option one is safer for everybody. Someone’s going to be sacrificing something at the end of the day. I’m always going to fall on the side of safety,” McGovern said.
Conflict fatigue
The themes of public process, parking and loading zone needs, and congestion and speeding have been debated for Garden Street for the two-plus years since the change, but the most common theme Monday after the issue of safety was the fatigue felt by public officials and staff – and even residents – over the conflict.
The hopes of working with Harvard and using its land to squeeze some parking back into the area were shut down by city manager Yi-An Huang. “This is the best that we can do,” he said.
Calming measures have worked to some degree and “traffic patterns have settled, but they are in different places now … Concord is a lot more busy. Garden is probably less busy. Linnaean is less busy. Making this change back will move all of that traffic again,” Huang said, “and that will make some people very relieved and appreciate the change and it will make other people very upset.” He would be reluctant to see another two-way stretch be made into a one-way because of the amount of disruption, he said.
“Bike lanes are, I have found, one of the most divisive and difficult conversations that happen in any community,” Huang said. “My first introduction to debates over bike lanes was a bit of a shock – to feel like this was the issue that was going to be so deeply emotional.”
There was yet some belief that better outreach and communication by the city would somehow avoid the bitterness that has followed bike and bus lane installations and traffic and parking changes citywide.
Wilson, noting “the divisiveness that has been created amongst the community,” asked staff to think about “the best way to have these kinds of conversations, because I don’t think we’ve got there yet. But I don’t think there’s anyone who has actually gotten there yet.”
A stronger
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Those 5 councillors ignored the advice of professional staff and many, many voters at their and our peril — poor decision, terrible precedent.
Experts reviewed Garden St. and found the current design to be the safest with the least congestion. So what does the Cambridge City Council do? They vote to revert to a less safe design that will increase traffic, reduce parking, and endanger children. Well done, council.
Remember when Patty Nolan ran for council promising safer streets? Does Patty?
The five council members who voted to change away from the current design have gone against the Cambridge traffic department, against the people testifying, and instead have decided to throw away $137k on this nonsensical change. Elections matter and things would be much better if these council members are not reelected the next time, as they have shown to be incapable of making out city safer or even keeping it at the same level.
And more dangerous.
The five councilors have done a great disservice. Spending money on projects that make streets less safe and increase traffic is illogical.
To Paul Toner, Patty Nolan, Ayesha Wilson, Cathie Zusy, and Denise Simmons:
Public service is about prioritizing the greater good, not pandering to a vocal minority for electoral gain.
Leadership should be guided by expertise, facts, and evidence—not personal beliefs or political appeasement.
We need data-driven solutions, not short-term political calculations. Why did you run for office if your goal is merely reelection?
While it’s true that the Council did not follow staff’s recommendation, let’s not rewrite history. Hundreds of residents wrote to Council describing what they see every day–the staff’s process and analysis were flawed, and the “safety improvements” on Garden were merely cars being directed to 5 or 10 smaller streets which became much less safe.
Let’s not rewrite history. There was strong support for keeping Garden Street as is—a petition gathered 531 signatures, and many more voiced their support by email. Toner claimed he received “500 emails” in favor of changing it.
Traffic experts have said the current design is safer and would reduce overall traffic. Given the split among residents, you’d expect the council to follow expert advice and choose the best design.
But they didn’t. This wasn’t about the greater good—it was about scoring political points with a base that supports them unconditionally, as long as they get their way. We’ve all seen a recent example of that.
The claim that the current design is “less safe” is just an opinion. Experts disagree.
@Peter, no one is rewriting the history here. People said there were petitions on both sides of the issue. Since the official numbers and petitions were never released by the council, we can say nothing about them. If we go by strictly what we have seen during the live in person and over zoom meetings last week and Monday, a LOT more people asked to keep the one way design. Also, the traffic department study has concluded that shifting cars from one street to another does not lower traffic or lowers the danger. The only thing that lowers the number of car trips and the accidents is (drum roll) safe bike lanes, public transportation, and walking.
It’s shameful that some prioritize driving convenience over children’s safety on their way to school or the park.
The city Traffic Commissioner confirmed the current design is safer and superior, and many residents supported keeping it. So why did five councilors ignore expert recommendations? It seems like political calculation—catering to a vocal minority to secure support from a committed voter base. We know that Toner needs to shore up support from his base.
Once again, politicians are putting their political ambitions ahead of the public good.
Profoundly disappointing. At a time when our tax base is about to crater due to the biotech implosion and the administration’s stance on meds and eds, we’re spending $200,000 on reversing successful safety improvements?
Expect a chilling effect on new projects due to our Councillors overruling the expertise of the Department of Transportation. I thought we respected expertise here in Cambridge, at least?
This sad incident makes it perfectly clear: this Council majority does not value making it easier for seniors to cross a busy street, or kids to bike to school. They also don’t seem to actually value parking – this clearly has been a placeholder for another interest. They value wealthy property owners on side streets who want to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
I don’t know of a nicer way to phrase this whole debacle than stupidity politics.
We spent months with extensive public outreach to come to a conclusion, our own city-hired professionals studied the changes and several alternatives and pointed to evidence that the changes we had were the least impactful to traffic, the safest, preserved the most parking, but we still undid that work…why? Because a few people had bad vibes from the changes?
Does this read as effective governance to anybody? Is this the best we can expect from our council? I hope not
This is a shame. I won’t echo the points already made except one. The councilmembers who voted to change this should be voted out of the council.
My question is $167,000?!?!?!? and by summer 2026? Have they seen the current state of this section of road? You could get a crew of Brazilians and have it done in 2 weeks for like $50,000 if you were serious about it.
These five councilors have consistently prioritized the interests of wealthy homeowners over the greater good.
It’s astonishing that they disregard expert advice and public wishes to appease a select group.
The Garden St study shows that their chosen option will be less safe and eliminate parking. We need officials who serve the public, not just a privileged few for political gain.
All five should be voted out, particularly Paul Toner, who appears to disregard public service and the law.
I live on Avon Hill and go onto or past Garden St. almost every day. In the past year plus I have seen ONE bicycle on Garden St. ONE. There is almost no traffic and very, very few pedestrians. Garden St. became a wasteland. If it were kept one way, you may as well turn it into a NYC HighLine. The “safety” concerns expressed in other letters are totally uninformed and seemed to be based on some political commitment to the Cambridge cyclist lobby. City Councillors!!! Come and see for yourself so that you may make an informed vote, one based on reality.
@lblout
You simply don’t understand.
It doesn’t matter if there are few bicycles on the street. The bicycle lobby will continue to tell you that you are wrong in your count of bicycles on Garden Street.
That’s the same thing that is said about the mess on Mount Auburn Street (and it is a real mess) by the Star Market. Hundreds of cars for every bicycle, and even though there is a bicycle lane, some of those very few bicyclists ride on the Mount Auburn Cemetery side of the road on the sidewalk, or on the South side of the street where there is no bicycle lane. The bicycle lobby makes up things and the City Council falls for it.
@lblout I guess the hundreds who wrote and testified about Garden St—and the kids using it—must have had a different street in mind. Same here. What you describe doesn’t match my experience.
@concerned43 You’re misunderstanding the situation. False claims like this are common, but they rarely hold up under scrutiny.
Take Hampshire Street as an example—people said the same thing: “There are many cars, few bikes.” Yet, when the data was analyzed, bike traffic turned out to be equal to or even greater than car traffic.
Cars simply take up more space. A dozen bikes can queue at a single traffic light, while a dozen cars occupy two full blocks. This creates the illusion of heavier car traffic.
Also, let’s not forget: cars cause traffic jams. Bikes help reduce congestion by taking people out of cars and off the roads.
Policy decisions should be based on facts and evidence—not impressions or feelings that are often misleading.
@Frank, you’re absolutely right. People made similar arguments about Mt. Auburn Street, claiming bus lanes weren’t needed because “everyone drives.”
That was proven false—city traffic data showed buses carried half of the people traveling on Mt. Auburn, despite being only 2% of vehicles.
We need real data, not assumptions like “nobody bikes.”
This kind of cognitive bias—trusting beliefs over facts—contributed to the short-sighted decision by the five councilors. Well, that and thier pandering to rich homeowners.
Thank you avgjoe and Peter Glick. I’ve lived on Arlington St for 31 years. It has been ridiculous to have the tiny section of Garden one way for those of us who live in the neighborhood. Access to Garden from Bond St forces those of us living in my area to go up Concord to Madison to access Garden to get to Linnean. The traffic on Concord is worse. I imagine the people living on Madison haven’t been too happy with all the increased traffic from Concord. Sometimes, if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t need to be “fixed”. Thanks to the councillors who voted to revert back to how it was originally.
If cyclists actually observed traffic laws as autos must—actually stopping at redlights, signaling turns, etc., there would be far fewer accidents. Responsibility for safety on the roads lies with each of us. Cyclists, pedestrians and drivers. That is the real issue in my opinion.
@Moxxie Shifting cars from one street to another does nothing to lower the congestion or greenhouse gas pollution (climate crisis is worsening, even if we deny it exists), and only a system of protected bike lanes allows us to lower congestion. As far as bike “obeying the rules of the road” – the worst accident a bike can cause is 100x less severe than an average car crash. Cars kill 45k per year in the U.S., I guess we should call for the car drivers to obey the rules of the road 1000x times.
@Moxxie It’s absurd to block something that benefits many just to appease a few nearby residents. If we made decisions that way, we’d never solve any of our city’s major problems.
Drivers are supposed to follow the rules, but many don’t. I see red-light running, speeding, and stop-sign violations daily.
Studies show drivers break the rules as often—or more often—than cyclists. And cars are the real danger: they kill tens of thousands every year. Bikes kill virtually no one. (And cars cause pollution and climate change, bikes don’t)
That’s why we need safer street designs—to protect people from cars, the biggest safety threat on our roads.
@MrNice
You said:”@Frank, you’re absolutely right. People made similar arguments about Mt. Auburn Street, claiming bus lanes weren’t needed because “everyone drives.”
That was proven false—city traffic data showed buses carried half of the people traveling on Mt. Auburn, despite being only 2% of vehicles.”
I guess those of us who live near Mt. Auburn… our eyes deceive us. I haven’t seen the city traffic data for Mt. Auburn (could you provide the link), but why don’t you go out and see for yourself. If that is what the data said, someone clearly doesn’t know what he/she is doing.
There are hundreds of cars for every bus.
And there are almost no bicyclists on Mt. Auburn.
All people have to do is open their eyes and see what the situation really is.