The Broadway Safety Improvement Project, the most recent development in the city’s plan to connect all of Cambridge by bike lanes, has extended the debate between bike advocates and critics.
The city plans to install separated, quick-build bike lanes — which keep cars and bicycles apart with street-level flex posts — along Broadway from Quincy Street bordering Harvard Yard to Portland Street near Inman Square. Adding the lanes will mean a 60% reduction of parking spots along Broadway, as well as potential changes to pedestrian infrastructure.
Michael Rogrove, a Cambridge resident and volunteer with Cambridge Bike Safety, said he is hopeful about the separated lanes on Broadway. “A successful bike lane project is a successful safety infrastructure project for everyone, and we would see a successful project will see slower speeds, calmer streets,” Rogrove said.
But another cyclist raised the question of whether the Broadway project is largely redundant with nearby streets that already have bike lanes, such as Cambridge Street. “It is very easy for a cyclist to travel 1-2 blocks to one of the other lanes that travel in the same direction,” Cambridge resident David Bourque, who regularly bicycles in the city and has kids who bicycle to school, said via email. “I’ve been a longtime advocate for bike lanes and making streets safer,” he said. “I believe the cons [of the Broadway project] outweigh the pros.”
In fact, Bourque plans to move to a different neighborhood in Cambridge to have a parking spot. “Multiple things have gone into that decision to move, but one of them in particular was that I just, I can’t deal with the parking situation anymore,” he said. “I’m lucky to have the resources to be able to [move].”
Broadway is a part of the city’s larger Cycling Safety Ordinance (CSO), which City Council first passed in 2019, requiring Cambridge to build a 25-mile network of city-wide separated bike lanes in pursuit of eliminating all traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. The CSO designates Broadway as one of four particularly complex streets for bike lane installation, dubbed the “Special4.”
The city plans to execute the project in three parts. Construction on the eastern-most section, from Portland Street to Columbia Street, started in April. The other two sections, which pass the high school and multiple public parks, are in the final design stage. The two-mile long project is expected to be finished this year. The city will oversee the installation with the help of a working group of 13 local residents and volunteers, which has been meeting semi-regularly throughout the project design.
Andreas Wolfe, the street design project manager for the Department of Transportation, said that the bike lane installations have the “most impact and benefit when we’re able to make our most major and important streets safe,” including streets like Broadway.
Broadway is “a really important route”
On average, 350 to 450 people bike on Broadway daily, according to a 2025 report from the city that found the number of bikers in the city has gone up by 250 percent in the last 20 years. At the same time, fewer cyclists are likely to be involved in a crash, data Chris Cassa, a bicycle advocate with Cambridge Bike Safety, called “amazing.”
“It is important to at least acknowledge the success of this, and just be glad to see that when we’re making facilities safer, people are using them, and it’s making it easier for people to have those options that we hope they’ll have,” Cassa said.
Cassa said the Broadway project fills a gap needed to create a connected, bikeable city. “The ideal bike network should have north, south, east, west connections, and it should really focus on improving the safety of places where we know people already bike and are dangerous, and it should also get people where they need to go.”
Between 2022 and 2024, Broadway saw 24 collisions between cars and bikes, 10 of which led to injuries, and 14 crashes involving pedestrians. Speeding is also common. Over half of drivers consistently exceed the 25 mph speed limit, and 5% hit 37 mph or over while heading toward the high school, according to 2024 traffic data.
Rogrove joined Cambridge Bike Safety after advocating for the city to continue the installation of lanes on Cambridge St., where he had stopped riding because of “how dangerous it felt.” Now, Rogrove is most concerned with safety, especially in an area with a diverse group of riders.
“There have been some really bad crashes in the last couple years involving vulnerable road users, and it really highlights why it’s very important that the city follow through on its commitments here, and this is a really important route,” Rogrove added. “It sort of just goes right through the heart of the city. There’s three public schools, a bunch of daycares, the public library.”
“The streets should be for everyone,” Rogrove added.
Frustrations with the city
The area surrounding Broadway is a dense residential neighborhood — more so than Cambridge Street or many other previous projects. The proposed street plans would significantly reduce parking, leading to concerns from the many residents.
“[I am] concerned about the massive loss of parking,” said John Pitkin, a member of the Mid-Cambridge Parking Committee. He accused the city of not paying attention to the needs of drivers. “[N]obody in the city and, in fact, nobody in the press covers the interests of the 37,000 people in Cambridge who drive their cars. [Driving] is a part of our transportation system.”
Pitkin is a known opponent of bike lanes who previously sued the city to stop their installation.
Debby Shapiro, who lives on Broadway, called the loss of parking “a disaster in the making.”
“Currently, there are over 200 new housing units with no dedicated parking either planned or in development within a two-block area along Broadway,” Shapiro said via email. “Add to that the elimination of 60% of existing spots on Broadway for bike lanes and the competition for parking will become even more brutal. This is not a well-thought out plan.”
Cassa said Cambridge Bike Safety has proposed solutions to common complaints, such as turning metered parking into residential spots. Erich Trieschman, a resident in the Broadway area and member of the project working group, also said bike advocates in the working group are aware of parking concerns.
David Lyon, who lives on a street off Broadway, is also worried about his neighbors having to move. “[The city would] rather have people have to leave the city than require bicyclists to use another street if they’re uncomfortable on Broadway,” he said.
Diana Yousef, a Cambridge resident and now inactive member of the working group, and Lyon share concerns about accessibility. For some, including elderly and disabled individuals, biking is not possible.
“Many who will face hardship due to the ever-increasing reductions in parking availability do not disagree that we want streets to be safe for all, but the way the City has gone about this in such a heavy handed, non-inclusive, data-blind and non-transparent manner is quite a disappointment,” Yousef said in an email.
Credit: Tom Meek
Wolfe said that “In order to do these projects [removing parking] is a necessary part. It’s not necessarily that we’re just removing parking for parking’s sake, but we just have very limited space on the road.”
Taking feedback
Many residents feel that in prior projects, the city has struggled to find the balance between a speedy process and a well-informed one. The lanes on Cambridge St., some residents say, were put in too quickly. This time, an interactive map let residents comment anonymously (with over 300 suggestions to date) and the project working group was formed.
“It felt like an actually decent balance between a couple people who genuinely want to remove bike lanes from the whole city and bike advocates,” Trieschman said about the working group.
According to Lyon, however, the group is “strictly a Band-Aid.”
“It’s not a Broadway safety improvement project, it’s a bicycle lane entitlement project,” Lyon, a fellow member of the working group, said.
Yousef agreed, citing a lack of transparency between the city and its residents.
Wolfe said that “we all at the city still want to hear from people about those concerns, and suggestions or feedback.”
But Yousef wrote, “The premise of the committee is flawed, because it is trying to invite ‘buy in’ after the policy has already been decided on. That isn’t buy in — that’s trying to confer the look of ‘buy in’ after the key decisions have already been made.”
Trieschman said he wished the city was more willing to listen to the group’s non-bike related proposals, including implementing other kinds of traffic control. Overall, though, he is “overwhelmingly happy” with the city’s work on bike safety. He hopes bikers from “8 to 80” will feel comfortable using the lanes on Broadway.
Chloe Taft is reporting this summer for Cambridge Day as part of a partnership with the Georgetown University journalism program. Rebecca Goodman is a summer reporter for Cambridge Day.
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