This is great news. Boston could be an ideal place for cycling as a viable form of transportation (it’s flat, it’s compact, etc.), but it’s limited because of lack of infrastructure, aggressive driving, etc.
I personally had given up on the prospects for cycling as a significant transport mode in the U.S. Then, I lived in Germany for awhile and was inspired- they actually ride bikes to go places!
Imagine train/T stations with good, enclosed bike lockers. Imagine bike paths and lanes that were sane enough to use (and that took you to useful places, like T stations). Imagine men in 3 piece suits smoking their pipes as they bike to work (Germans still smoke a ton; as my 4 year old put it at the time, ‘This isn’t Europe. This is smoking world.’).
So I am glad to see a new cycling proponent in government. Cycling addresses health, congestion, and air pollution issues all at once.
Get out there and ride, the mayor is on your side.
…bikes can be banned from adjacent roads and be forced to use them. Now, we are lousy with bike paths, the bicyclists are on the roads, as they will loudly tell you is their right, and the bike paths are full of baby carriages and seniors who think they are just really wide sidewalks.
<
p>
The only people they are careful to BAN from bike paths are people in wheelchairs. Like the Segways, they are considered ‘motorized vehicles’, and are banned. The other day, I drove by a bike bridge – and smack in the middle is a pole to narrow the access, to keep those pesky wheelchairs away, so the skateboarders, walkers, rollerbladers and occasional random bike will have sole use. What a racket.
Peter,
<
p>
1. You will get my bike off the road about the same time you get the guns away from NRA members. What gives cars the divine right to have exclusive access to roads?
<
p>
2. We are currently debating improving a rail trail through Concord. Wheelchair users are central to the debate on whether the path should be paved or stone dust. I’m not sure where you are coming from. Those poles are to keep cars off the paths. If they block wheelchairs, that’s bad design. Do you have documentation about wheelchairs being legally excluded from paths??
<
p>
3. Making cycling viable does not require dedicated paths. In fact, as you noted, dedicated paths tend to suck for cycling (the minuteman, depending on time of day and time of year, is an exception). The main impediments to safe cycling are road shoulder design, good end-point resources (bike lockers and/or showers), and road users deciding to cooperate.
<
p>
4. I know many people get irritated by cyclists doing stupid, reckless, illegal things. I’ve seen plenty of this too. Frankly, I’d support licensing for cyclists. However, I would note that a reckless cyclist is primarily a threat to themselves, while an even slightly careless motorist is a mortal threat to everyone in their vicinity.
I’m having a hard time verifying your claims:
<
p>
Minuteman:
<
p>
http://minutemanbike…
<
p>
Uses Bicycling, walking, jogging, in-line skating, cross-country skiing. No motorized vehicles allowed, except for powered wheelchairs.
<
p>
Cape Cod:
http://www.mass.gov/…
<
p>
I can’t find a word here about wheelchairs.
<
p>
I called Nickerson State Park at the number listed on the above link, and got a ‘I’m not sure,’ which turned into a ‘yeah, they can’ after the person I called consulted someone else.
<
p>
If trail design precludes wheelchairs (due to those poles), the trail design needs to be fixed.
From the MGL –
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>
The Rail Trail bridge I saw with the barrier post was in either Chatham or Harwich.
<
p>
I think it is GREAT that Minuteman explicitly allows motorized wheelchairs – but was it developed from a railroad right of way?
<
p>
It is BEYOND dumb – but police departments say if they allow motorized wheelchairs, they can’t prohibit motorized bikes.
Got it.
<
p>
The Minuteman is a rail trail (http://minutemanbike…).
This is another of Menino’s passing fancies that will amount to nothing.
<
p>
I loved the graphic on the front of the Globe this morning suggesting the creation of public showers that would be available to bikers to clean up after they get to work.
<
p>
LOL.
<
p>
I’ve found one big impediment to cycling as transport is that you tend to show up at your destination a little sweaty.
<
p>
I take a shower at work every day.
<
p>
Maybe we don’t want/need public showers, but the availability of showers is in my mind a key enabler of commuting by bike.
<
p>
What’s so funny?
Is that such things will never be built. Sorry, but this city is still struggling with the idea of public restrooms. Those self cleaning things that the city put up? How many are there? How long did that take to accomplish?
I think a better solution is some sort of incentive to get employers to offer shower facilities- even the bully pulpit message of ‘HEY, EVERYONE REALLY SHOULD OFFER SHOWERS’ would be of some benefit. I realize I’m an outlier, but when I used to interview for jobs, my 2nd/3rd pay/benefits-related question was about showers.
It’s a system that users can pay a monthly flat rate, something really cheap, I think 5 euros and bicycles are stationed around the city for use. It’s called bici (site is in spanish).
Germans still smoke a ton
<
p>
That was true 20 years ago, but we have noticed a considerable reduction in smoking in the last few years. A running joke here in Germany is that in many ways Germany is about 10 years behind the US in social policy (governmental and other wise (but when they get started doing something, they go hog wild. You might be amazed at what they have done with handicapped access here in just the last few years–elevators everywhere for the S- and U-Bahn stations.
<
p>
Regarding your main point
<
p>
Then, I lived in Germany for awhile and was inspired- they actually ride bikes to go places!
<
p>
Yes, that’s quite true. We ride bikes to do our daily grocery shopping. It’s my understanding that German regulations require that each bike be outfitted not only with a headlamp (and generator) and little bell (bike riders share walking paths with pedestrians, and the bell is supposed to alert pedestrians to oncoming bike traffic), but also with a shopping basket. We’ve made extensive use of our shopping baskets. All of the shops in the center of our little Dorf have bike stands that one can lock the bike to. AND for goods that are too large to be carried on a bike, they provide excellent delivery service.
<
p>
Moreover, the train station in the center of our little Dorf has extensive bike stands. They are primarily used by commuters hopping on the train. And, they seem to be always full during the work week. Even in the middle of winter.
<
p>
For a variety of reasons, I don’t expect to see the Boston area being a bike town anytime soon. No infrastructure. No bike lanes (actually, here, some of the sidewalks–which were actually are quite wide–have been adapted for bike traffic, and elsewhere some of the roadways have been marked of as bike lanes). No bike stands, to which you can lock your bike to go shopping. No nothing. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
<
p>
Regarding JohnK’s picture from Barcelona, the Deutsche Bahn (the German federal railway system) has been renting bicycles at its major (and more than a few minor) railway stations for years. Not a bad idea to provide such service for tourists.
I worked outside Frankfurt last summer. Smoking may be declining, but it’s still way more than the US. One of my US colleagues, who smokes, was in heaven.
<
p>
Making Boston a bikable city would require:
<
p>
Good bike racks/lockers: Moderate $, some space requirements. Not that hard.
<
p>
Showers: I’m not sure this should be a public measure, but some incentive for private companies to make showers available would be welcome. Not hard, some constraints.
Access to public transport: Racks on buses, some accommodation for bikes on T, commuter rail (like what Germany does on the S and U bahns). Moderately hard.
<
p>
Culture: Motorists need to accept cyclists as legitimate road users, and cyclists need to follow traffic laws. Very, very hard, but an area where leadership from the top is most effective.
<
p>
I don’t see bike lanes as a huge factor. Sure, there are places where they would be very helpful. When I commuted into Cambridge, I used the Minuteman Path, and it was much nicer and faster than going via road. But roads are fine when motorists play nice.
but recall that I am comparing my current observations (Bavaria and Berlin) with what I observed 20 years ago here. Germany hasn’t outlawed smoking in “public accommodations”–yet. The last time I was in New York City–a few years ago–I found the smoking there more annoying that ever in Germany.
<
p>
Regarding bicycling and bicyclists, I don’t see any of what you describe happening in the near future in the US. Regarding Motorists need to accept cyclists as legitimate road users, and cyclists need to follow traffic laws yes, that’s true, but in my experience in the states, the cyclists rarely follow traffic laws, and (a) they become quite indignant when one chastises them for not doing so, and (b) they tend to want to dominate the road by inconsiderately riding in the middle of a lane. That is absurd.
<
p>
When I was cycling through WashDC, I always stayed at the edge of the road, and I always stopped at red stop lights. Do you believe that many cyclists in the US do that now? Not that I have witnessed. And that gives cyclists a bad reputation.
<
p>
Actually, my spouse and I were discussing this very issue (stopping at stop lights) and he recounted a story from a few years ago. He was stopped (in a car) at a stoplight in the US. He noticed that a cyclist had stopped next to him. He rolled down the car window and conversed with the cyclist, initially expresssing surprise that the cyclist had stopped. The cyclist responded with a thick British accent, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? To many Americans, no.
<
p>
Bike lanes on public highways are indeed an integral factor when you can’t ride on sidewalks. If there wasn’t a bike lane on the Vehrkerstrasse here, I wouldn’t be able to get around on my–bike. They demarcate portions of the roadways where bikes should be permitted to be ridden, and where motorists should give cyclists the right of way.