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holycow958 t1_jbe98qn wrote

Reply to comment by noob_tube03 in Cambridge bike lane lawsuit dismissed by ik1nky

How do you think Brattle is good but Garden is bad? The Garden lanes are transformative

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noob_tube03 t1_jbfsg3r wrote

The lack of cross road signage makes the bike lanes really dangerous. If you know garden, you know to look at both lanes and in which direction, but if you're not from here you're out of luck. Also doing a split bike lane is a huge waste of infrastructure. Not only does it require twice the plowing and twice the bollards, but it also makes it harder for busses to navigate the road and it makes the road just awful to try to navigate in the winter.

As other threads have mentioned, the garden street bike lane mostly services students too, so why they decided to put one of the bike lanes in a spot to encourage students to ride the wrong way is confusing.

I love the brattle bike lanes because it's much less confusing and much easier to use. The only real downside to brattle imo is you need to pull over into a parking spot to try to cross the street. But that's an issue with any bike lane. I'm curious why people think brattle is bad and garden is good?

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holycow958 t1_jbi2bci wrote

As someone that commutes daily on Garden and the little bit of Brattle into Harvard Sq., but only rarely goes down the rest of Brattle (the newly done stuff, etc.)...

If there is missing signage, contact Stephen Meuse at the city, he/they are super receptive to small changes like that.

However, I've never had an issue with people on Garden. On the contrary, I regularly have issues of people not looking both ways entering Brattle in dangerous ways. And the bo-directional lanes lead to drivers not understanding and driving and parking in the bike lanes. Just this weekend (rare case for me in this section) saw someone driving down the new section of Brattle bi-directional lane. So from what I have seen, the Brattle style is way more confusing to drivers.

During the public meetings, someone (I think a student) brought up the desire of students from the Radcliff quad to not cross the road to use the inbound lanes. I thought that was a really interesting point and the city looked at it. But bi-direction at Huron would have created chaos and change between 2 lanes and bi-directional is a terrible experience. So I support what they settled on with split lanes the whole way. I do see students going the wrong way frequently enough, but they have always yielded to me, so I don't think it is that bad of a problem.

I think snow clearance of separated bike lanes vs. bi-directional might be a big issue for some cities, but I found Garden to be perfectly fine so far (with the limited winter that it has been). Cambridge does have the right tools and a real plan for separated bike lane plowing, so for us I don't think there's a real difference between the two options.

FWIW, I love the Brattle lanes too, but Garden used to be terrible and I avoided it unless it was late at night and there would be no traffic. Now I use it daily because it is the most direct route for me. I see parents with kids all the time on it. I think that's pretty great and transformative for a quick-build project. And, as mentioned above, I have more problems on the short stretch of Brattle I do regularly than the much longer Garden.

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noob_tube03 t1_jbj4u6r wrote

Yeah I've seen the cars on Brattle as well. Certainly a design issue; during the rest of the year there needs to be a bollard there to keep cars out, but they also could have done some curb work to make it too small for a car to enter.

I'm surprised the bidirectional was considered bad at Huron but acceptable at Concord. I haven't really figured out the right way to head into the square yet

I know at the first snow I saw the garden lanes got blocked by the plow, but I'm sure it was fixed later. It's more just about needing to clear twice as many lanes. i am always surprised to hear the mix of "I commute" and "it's great to see kids on this". But maybe I'm a grouchy old man who doesnt like ducking wrong way bikers or tots heh

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holycow958 t1_jbj7jk6 wrote

Young athletic dudes like myself alone don't get better infrastructure. The more kids and parents and older people and etc. riding, the more biking just becomes the best way to get around. So yeah, it's great to see everyone out riding, especially in the winter. And I commute on a bluebike, so even though I go relatively fast with them, it's not like I'm racing for my commute.

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noob_tube03 t1_jbftj07 wrote

Great example of half assed planning on garden: where garden and Shepard meet there's a cross walk. When it was a 2 way street it didn't matter what side the cross walk was on, but now that it's a one way cars trying to turn onto garden are turning directly into the cross walk, meaning bikes/pedestrians crossing will stop traffic on 2 streets instead of just one. Why didn't the city move the crosswalk? It would be a huge improvement for everyone using the roads, and it would even line up the Shepard bike lane with the crossing. Doesn't take a massive study to see this, and even though we paid for one it was missed. Crazy

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itamarst t1_jbhksqr wrote

If moving the crosswalk would involve additional construction (e.g. for ramps for people with disabilities) that's out of scope for these projects, since they typically aren't doing construction.

There is one of those streets that will be reconstructed soon, I forget which, though.

In general, if it doesn't involve construction the city will adjust things even after project installation if people make a good enough argument, so email tpt@cambridgema.gov with any suggestions (that's the Traffic, Parking, & Transportation department email). They do read all their email.

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noob_tube03 t1_jbhnloq wrote

So removing all the parking, changing a street from 2 way to 1 way, and installing bollards is considered in scope, but not killing cyclists from cross traffic or looking at cyclist/pedestrian impact isn't in scope? You know that sounds weird right?

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itamarst t1_jbj2f84 wrote

The city is not doing construction: no curb changes, no pouring concrete. Only paint or flexposts. If moving a sidewalk requires construction they won't do it as part of the project.

Within those constraints, they are trying to make the street safer for cyclists and pedestrians. I think the project is very nice. Many others do. You may disagree, or think there are ways to improve; if so the solution is to share suggestions with the city, not complain on reddit.

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noob_tube03 t1_jbj4ge6 wrote

iirc the design that had garnered the most public support wasnt the one the was deployed, so I'm not going to hold my breath reaching out to the city. Nor should I need to for the items I mentioned. Like I said, it feels half assed. I didn't realize they were constrained from making physical changes with the project however, so that certainly explains it

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holycow958 t1_jbi2vsz wrote

This project being a quick-build, the city didn't do any curb modifications. The curb-cuts are where the crosswalk markings are and not on the other side, so they can't just change the markings. But I'd still recommend emailing the city/Stephen Meuse/DPW about that so that they could try to do that small construction project separately.

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