Bike lane installations on Broadway in Cambridge will go ahead on schedule despite a pair of proposals heard Monday to suspend or delay the work until concerns around parking were addressed.
City councillors voted on four policy orders total: the two that were defeated and two alternatives meant to find parking spaces without delaying bike lanes that were approved. The debate came after four hours of public comment in which more then 200 people expressed opinions about the lanes.
Although nearly all of the public speakers Monday wanted bike lanes as quickly as possible, the councillors proposing to suspend or delay the lanes said the council had received a petition with 1,000 names of people worried about parking, as well as several hundred emails. “A significant number of people in Cambridge, especially in the Broadway area, have real concerns about the quality of life for them in terms of being able to park their cars and have access for visitors and medical care,” said councillor Paul Toner, author of one of the orders. (Bike advocates later noted they had submitted a petition with 1,600 names.)
The author of the other rejected order, Cathie Zusy, noted that it wasn’t just the Broadway lane proposal taking away parking spaces. Her order noted the loss in recent years of 94 spots on Cambridge Street, more than 30 nearby on Massachusetts Avenue and 90 on Hampshire Street. “It’s going to get worse as all The Port construction is done and as we have more developments that don’t have any parking requirements,” she said, referring to a coming five-year infrastructure project and 2022 zoning that ended parking-space minimums of any kind in Cambridge. “There really is an issue to solve here.”
Her order, as a result, addressed more than just the expected loss of 60 percent of spaces along Broadway as bike lanes come in to create a safer travel route for commuters, students and others atop part of a roadway now used for parking. While 129 spaces will be lost, her order called for the city to find at least 200, “allowing for a delay in rolling out the Broadway bike lanes until these needs are satisfied.”
That order was defeated in a 4-5 vote. Toner’s order called for suspension of Broadway bike lane work in favor of identifying “appropriate streets to create north-south connections” that could make Broadway lanes unnecessary, given that there are roughly parallel east-west bike lanes already installed on other streets. It failed 3-6.
In each case, the councillors said, work rolling out a network of bike lanes – mandated in a 2019 law called the Cycling Safety Ordinance – would continue in the rest of Cambridge. “The intention of this policy order,” Zusy said, “was not to stop or delay the rollout of the bike lanes.”
The Broadway plan is in three parts. A Section A of separated bike lanes is to be created in June and July on six blocks between Columbia and Portland, bordering on Kendall Square and including the Fletcher Maynard Academy elementary school. The Section B and C lanes on Broadway from Quincy Street to Columbia Street, closer to Harvard Square and including the Cambridge Main Library and Cambridge Rindge and Latin high school, are planned for next year.
Delay to a 2019 law
Deadlines to install bike lanes on Main Street, Cambridge Street and Broadway were already changed once to Nov. 30, 2026, from May 1, 2026, to allow time for city staff to write a law passed in December that was supposed to make the endless battles over bike lanes unnecessary: Parking and Transportation Demand Management zoning that lets businesses share their off-street parking or convert it to commercial use.
A study found that zoning could add as many as 3,400 off-street parking spaces along some 45 “flexible parking corridors” citywide, more than making up for a loss of 800 or 900 spaces to bike lanes. Zusy’s order says the zoning has so far created “few if any parking places.” Transportation commissioner Brooke McKenna told councillors Monday that the five-member body that will consider applications for lots of 20 or more spaces hasn’t been created, and that an invitation to residents to be a part of that panel was extended into next week. The policy order that led to that zoning was introduced by Toner.
“We heard a couple of times tonight that this policy order was not about a delay,” vice mayor Marc McGovern said, but he quoted Zusy’s order as “allowing for a delay in rolling out Broadway bike lanes until these needs are satisfied.”
“So what if they’re not satisfied? What if it takes 10 years to satisfy? It literally calls for a delay until these conditions are met,” McGovern said.
Turnover brings fewer cars
Data suggests there’s no delay necessary, said councillor Burhan Azeem, who led the order that ended parking minimums. “We’ve added bike lanes before and done studies about the impact. We can just look at one,” he said, pointing to a 2018 review of lanes added on Cambridge Street.
While 90 parking spots were taken away, use of the remaining spots went down by 1 percent – because 20 percent of Cantabrigians turn over every year with graduations and other life changes, Azeem said.
As a result of the turnover, car ownership in a neighborhood changes to adapt: “If you live in a spot where it’s not easy to find a parking spot in front of your house, the person who rents that apartment or buys a house there is more likely to be someone who does not drive,” Azeem said. “We’ve seen a change as we’ve added bike lanes, like an increase in 4 percent or 5 percent of people who bike to work. That is thousands of cars that are not on our road.”
“There’s no easy way to make an extra 150 parking spots. If we could do that, we would have done that with all the other bike lane installations,” Azeem said. “Sometimes there are just tradeoffs and you should just be honest about them.”
Wanted: Creative solutions
Zusy said the goal of her order was to “challenge the city to come up with creative solutions to a real problem,” and she enumerated some during the meeting – places to leave cars during the week if they’re used only on weekends; more spaces dedicated to vehicles belonging to Zipcar, the hourly rental system; a Broadway-resident-only parking permit.
The two orders by councillor Sumbul Siddiqui had others: looking at turning 25 metered spaces into residential permit parking overnight; and studying lower-cost nonresident parking permits for caregivers, such as in-home eldercare or child care services, to take advantage of the “substantial” number of residential permit spaces found to be unoccupied between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
They were approved by the nine councillors unanimously.
On Toner’s order, the votes in favor were his own and those of mayor E. Denise Simmons and councillor Ayesha M. Wilson. Zusy joined those votes for her own order.
This post was updated to include a reference to a bike advocates’ petition with 1,600 names.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
Cambridge Bike Safety submitted a petition to the Council with 1600+ signatures in favor of the Broadway bike lanes. Why Toner chose not to mention I cannot say, it was certainly in his inbox…
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-the-broadway-separated-bike-lane-project/
(The reported number there includes duplicate signatures, annoyingly. 1600 is the approximate deduplicated number.)
The best way to increase the effective number of parking spaces on Broadway would be to increase the cost of metered spots to $20 per hour. Then spots would turn over frequently, making them available for people who really need parking close to a service. Today, some people park at meters all day because the cost is low, making them unavailable for others.
As Councilor Azeem mentioned, Broadway isn’t uncharted territory. Cambridge St went through the same firestorm in 2017. The neighborhood business association and business owners warned shops would fold in months, neighbors worried ambulances would be blocked, and that seniors would not be able to get prescriptions or services. Yet none of it happened.
Instead, crash rates of all types declined after protected lanes went in, for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians alike. Speeding was reduced on the road as well.
There are no retail vacancies on the road, despite losing roughly half the curb parking.
Parking utilization was virtually unchanged as Councilor Azeem pointed out, even in this dense corridor adjacent to Harvard and Inman Squares.
No replacement lots were ever required: ZERO new spaces were added, let alone 200. People make decisions that make sense for them — and they will choose to walk, bike, or take transit if you make it safe and easy.
City planning experts agree: easy parking harms cities. It encourages driving, which increases traffic, lengthens commutes, raises pollution, and boosts greenhouse gas emissions.
Cambridge is growing. Without alternatives to driving, traffic and parking problems will only worsen.
Bike lanes have increased cycling and reduced traffic. Every person on a bike is one less car on the road.
Drivers should recognize that cyclists help them. Would they rather those bikes be cars, clogging roads and taking up parking?
Bike lanes help drivers too.
Zusy says 30 parking spots were removed on mid-Mass Ave, but I count 84:
Trowbridge-Ellery: 12 before -> 0 now
Ellery-Dana: 23 -> 0
Dana-Hancock: 24 -> 8
Hancock-Clinton: 29 -> 8
Clinton-Pleasant: 19 -> 7
—
Total: 107 -> 23
It could be worth it if it increases safety. But the current situation is a mess. Some of the storefronts are vacant, but the remaining ones have a lot of loading activity. Cars park all over the place, often blocking the bike lane or bus stops in the process. Or sometimes just parking in the general lane. Buildings posted angry signs telling people not to park in their driveways.
The Bay Street intersection is particularly dangerous, as cars get blocked making the turn off Mass Ave while a car is waiting to come out of Bay, leading to a jam that is tough for bikes to negotiate. I foresee some bad crashes here.
“Cars park all over, often blocking bike lanes or bus stops.”
Sounds like the problem is driver behavior.
Azeem pointed out that after Cambridge St lost 90 parking spots for protected lanes, adjacent parking usage dropped by 1%. When you build better infrastructure, fewer people rely on cars.
If people are ignoring rules and parking wherever they want, that’s on them. This looks more like anger at bike and bus lanes than anything else—petulant behavior, not a real parking shortage.
Blaming bad parking on lost spots is just making excuses for bad behavior.
No mention of Wilson saying that bike safety “is not a matter of life and death” and that she “despises” when cyclists talk about bike lanes, and her efforts to delay and/or outright halt the roll out of the ‘cycling safety ordinance’ in the context of their own safety?
Her comments were truly reprehensible and it is irresponsible not to cover them.
You can see them in the recording of the meeting at: https://cambridgema.granicus.com/player/clip/1042?view_id=1&redirect=true
Her speech starts at 5:21:20 the relevant section is 5:23:38
Additionally “(Bike advocates later noted they had submitted a petition with 1,600 names.)” is inaccurate. Bike advocates didn’t note this later. It was shared with the council before the meeting, Toner simply lied by omission (something a reporter should be calling him on).
Illegal parking might be on the driver, but the negative safety impacts are on the cyclists and bus riders.
Several businesses in the non-vacant storefronts on mid-Mass Ave are generating a lot of motor vehicle loading activity. This hasn’t changed since the bike lanes went in, despite what Councilor Azeem said happened near Cambridge Street. The current road design does not accommodate this.
The city should make more loading zones. The alternative is to do nothing, leaving a situation that’s dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.
Do you use mid-Mass Ave? Do you like the current situation?
And the Bay Street fiasco is unrelated to illegal parking. Drivers patiently waiting their turn to squeeze around the corner get in each other’s way, as well as blocking the bike lane. Do you refuse to admit that the city could improve on the road design there? Or once a protected bike lane goes in, do you think there’s no such thing as a dangerous situation for bikes?
Calling Cambridge, The Peoples Republic is no longer valid. The people making the decisions seem the have gone over to the Dark Side, as in Republican.
Studies show that bike lanes have reduced accidents, increasing safety. Data and facts matter—opinions do not change them.
Research also shows bike lanes have not harmed local businesses in Cambridge.
In short, claims that bike lanes cause harm or danger are not supported by evidence. In fact, the opposite is true.
@myplanb I don’t think it’s fair to say that democracy is gone simply because a policy you don’t like got passed.