An informal project review on the work of The BU Bridge Safety Alliance is set as the topic for the upcoming Streetwise, a monthly speaker series organized by organizations such as Cambridge Bike Safety and the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee.
The 87 crashes reported between 2018 and 2022 on and around the bridge connecting Cambridgeport and Boston was a spur to the forming of the alliance in January 2023. The death of bicyclist John Corcoran on Sept. 23, 2024, after being hit by a driver in an SUV added urgency to the work.
“We had worked tirelessly to convince [the state] to implement all the changes we had been advocating for – changes that would have prevented such a crash from happening,” said Harvard scientist Ken Carlson, a co-founder of the alliance,. “John’s death was therefore doubly tragic, because these improvements were agreed to and coming. We do believe that John’s death accelerating the improvement timetable.”
The Streetwise event on Wednesday brings together Carlson and fellow organizers of the alliance including Northeastern civil engineering professor Peter Furth and LivableStreets proponent Steve Miller. Staff from the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation, Department of Transportation and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, as well as from the Cambridge Department of Transportation and Boston Transportation Department are invited as agencies responsible for the maintenance and oversight of the bridge and its surroundings.
State senator Willam Brownsberger is among public officials expected to attend.
“I appreciate the efforts of the alliance to define and advocate for continuing improvements. We will all continue to work together. There is much more to do,” Brownsberger said by email.
An impetus for the alliance’s formation was concern that bike lanes on the bridge installed in 2012 weren’t protected from traffic, but the mission grew to include reducing a Cambridge rotary to a single travel lane with improved signaling, and to get safety rails added to the area where Corcoran was hit. Adding flex posts across the bridge remains an unfulfilled request.
“Streetwise: Keeping People Safe on the BU Bridge Corridor: Positive Changes, Next Steps,” is at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Aeronaut Brewing, 14 Tyler St., near Union Square in Ward 2, Somerville.
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