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City to install bike lanes on Columbus Avenue by Ming Pimhatai Tiemchaiyapum
MySouthEnd.com ContributorWednesday Aug 5, 2009 Installation expected to be finished by the end of the month
A group of South End cyclists joined Boston Bikes Director Nicole Freedman and the mayor’s office South End Liaison Tabitha Bennett on Tuesday night, August 4 at United South End Settlements (USES), 556 Columbus Avenue, to discuss the city’s bike lanes installation on that very street, slated to be completed by the end of the month.
"[A] standard bike lane is what we proposed for Columbus Avenue," said Freedman. "Standard means you have parked cars and then you put two lines, five feet apart with a bike symbol. And then there are travel lanes."
The project is a part of Mayor Thomas Menino’s plan that started in 2007 to make Boston more bike-friendly. Since then the City of Boston has been installing bike racks and making bike lanes to make the streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians in all area including the South End.
"A lot of South End commuters are already commuting by bike, so we are just trying to accommodate and make it safer," said Bennett, "and maybe encourage people who don’t bike or don’t feel safe enough to bike. Maybe those people would come out and feel safer, and be able to cycle in their commute instead of driving."
The City will install bike lanes on Columbus Avenue between Melnea Cass Boulevard to Dartmouth Street. The project will expand to Arlington Street in the future with a shared road-type facility instead of bike lanes because the available space from Dartmouth to Arlington is a little tighter than the rest. The project is a part of bike network that would connect to other bike routes around the city.
"The plan is having the bike lanes on Columbus Ave. and on Commonwealth Ave.," said Freedman. "When it’s complete, we would connect [the] Southwest Corridor, Emerald Necklace, the Esplanade, and the future South Bay Harbor Trail all together via bike lanes."
The installation will not impact the curbs, parking spaces or traffic on Columbus Avenue. It will create a separate 12-foot boundary spanning from the curb to the inner bike lane line on both sides, dedicating seven and a half feet for parking and four and a half feet for bike lanes.
However, some bike riders at the meeting were concerned about safety as Columbus Avenue narrows on its way from Massachusetts Avenue further into the South End. Some also were concerned that Sundays might be problematic for cyclists using the bike lanes because cars are allowed to park in the median and sometimes push into travel lanes forcing drivers to overlap into the bike lanes.
"You are going to have an extremely narrow lane but what will happen would be the same as what would happen without the bike lanes. This will be safer," said Freedman. "Cyclists will be in the bike lanes in most cases. Cars will be behind them and they won’t be able to pass."
Many cyclists said that is not likely the case because cars tend to insist on passing bicycles. Some suggested that adjusting the width of the lanes could help solving the problem.
"So why not allocate only seven feet to parked cars, providing a full five feet of width for bike lanes so that if parked cars on Sundays do push outside the edge at least the bicycles have more room to accommodate that?" asked Glen Berkowitz of East Concord Street.
Kevin Hepner, USES president and a Massachusetts Avenue resident, also thinks the seven feet and five feet division would be more beneficial.
"If there’s a line, people will be parking to the line not to the curb," he said. "So if you put the line at seven and a half, you are going to see the cars moving farther from the curb than they usually are. So if there’re any way to narrow it, we should."
However, Freeman said some experts argue that if the lanes are divided to seven feet for parking and five feet for bike lanes, three feet of the bike lanes would be in the "door zone," which would endanger cyclists.
Some cyclists suggested that the city should create "a real safe zone" between parked cars and bike lanes.
"’Door zone’ is my principle concern because it’s lethal," said Tom Worster of West Newton Street.
Some cyclists still feel that the proposed bike lanes on Columbus Avenue are not safe enough for bicycle riders and would not bike there.
"It’s a really good and meaningful project but I think it doesn’t make it safe putting stripes down on the streets," said Pierre Bonin of Dartmouth Street. "You have to do something like New York City. To make a safe bike lane, you have to take a lane away from the automobile. The way they do it here, I feel it’s dangerous and I think it’s better not to do it than to get bikers on these lanes that are dangerous."
Others disagreed and welcome the idea.
"For me putting the bike lanes [communicates] to both the cyclists and the drivers that it’s the way it should be," said Worster.
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