It's happening… everywhere!!!
Our new bike lane on Centre Street. Thanks to JP Bikes for working with the Union to support it and BIG THANKS to Mayor Menino and Vineet Gupta of Boston Transportation for making it happen!
Last week, Roxbury got its first bike lane on part of Martin Luther King Blvd. The Union worked with neighborhood advocates on Fort Hill to ask for this one—and the city readily agreed that a bike connection between Malcolm X park and the Roxbury YMCA made a lot of sense. It’s also part of a nice cut through from JP to Northern Dorchester or Southie for those that are commuting that direction.
This week the first of a bunch of bikeways in Jamaica Plain are appearing. The bike lanes on Centre and South Streets were the result of a BRA process and the desire the city has to make Jamaica Plain into a centerpiece for the complete streets policy it is developing. The Union worked with local bike group JP Bikes for months to defend this plan from a vocal minority in the neighborhood that is against bike lanes.
Also in JP, the Union asked that the city consider bike lanes on South Huntington as part of mitigations they were looking at for the intersection of S. Huntington and Huntington in the wake of the Eric Hunt tragedy in April. Again—the city’s bike coordinator Nicole Freedman and the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) were ready to oblige. Today you can see the outlines where those bike lanes will soon be painted. Our current administration is very much pro bike, and by all appearances ready to do what it takes to make biking safe enough for everyone.
Over in Dorchester, thanks to the advocacy of DotBike and the flexibility of the BTD on plans for Dorchester Avenue, Sharrows have been painted on Dot Ave from Lower Mills to Peabody Square (the location of Ashmont Station on the Red Line, where the Union, DotBike and St. Marks Area Main Streets successfully advocated for an MBTA bike cage). When the rest of Dorchester Ave is completed, a mix of bike lanes and sharrows will cover the entire length of the street! Also—the rest of Talbot Avenue’s new bike lanes were completed.
All of this is just in time for our end of summer celebration and volunteer appreciation potluck and BBQ in Lower Roxbury. We’ll be at the Frederick Douglass Peace Garden near 990 Tremont St. (also near Slade’s Restaurant and Ruggles Station on the Orange Line) from 3pm to 7pm on Saturday, September 25. Bring something to grill or a side dish, or just show up for the free hot dogs! We’ll be congratulating our volunteers for fixing over 600 bikes across the city in areas that don’t have bike shops and celebrating all our new bikeways!!!
Saw you guys at the Rosi Farmers Market! Great job guys! I saw your hard work today on Centre Street. I didn’t think it would fit, but it certainly did!
A South St. to Roslindale connector is in much need as well. If we can make a S. Huntington-Centre-South-Washington bike connector, a large gap will certainly be filled. We’re on the right track though! Keep it up!
It’s happening everywhere alright. Stupid bicycling. I’m a full time pedestrian. I use cross walks. I wait for walk lights. I try to be aware as I move around the city. Multiple times each week, I have near misses with idiot bicyclists who ride when and where they want. They ride through red lights and on sidewalks, treating pedestrians as obstacles. They ride on bike paths going the wrong way. They ride while using cell phones and texting. They ride while simultaneously walking their leashed dogs. They ride at night without lights.
Some of these fool wear helmets and have flashing lights all over the place, so they obviously care about THEIR safety. Really nice that more bike paths are being created and that you have this great website. Would be nicer if you could get bad bicyclists to change or get off the streets, but all the reasoning in the world won’t help in that regards, because in their minds, it’s all about THEM. They have no sense of “other”, or community, and frankly, don’t really seem to bike for the joy of it. A bike gets them from “A” to “B”, and to hell with any law or person who gets in their way.