There's so much good stuff going on here! A lot of this is permanent, high quality infrastructure but I like that they cut costs where possible without sacrificing safety.
This one might look safe. Most of the others in the city have no protection from cars speeding around the endless bends that make up every road. And I rarely see anyone using these bike lanes, which can’t really be used in the winter and parts of the spring and fall anyway. At this point they just take up space for cars and increase traffic, which, despite the city’s faux concern for climate change, increase CO2 emissions. They could just be on the more residential streets, but the city insists on putting them everywhere to make a “bike-able” city because the MBTA can’t get its act together. Not to mention they all decrease space for snow removal and truck deliveries. No disrespect to how you see it, but a lot of us in MA can’t find much good stuff going on in Boston today, and not just including the whole bike lane fiasco dangerously creeping into all the other cities in the state
@Animalstyle69 And on top of that I’ve been seeing videos of ambulances entirely unable to get by on these streets because there’s absolutely nowhere for cars to move over. These stupid, almost completely unused bike lanes are literally taking people’s lives.
I love how the signal heads are placed low at either side of the road, rather than on poles high above the roadway. This also keeps drivers' focus at eye level, where vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists tend to be.
not the nicest looking, but yep - it does it's job. For a more permanent version the buffer should be build like a very narrow sidewalk, so people exiting their cars don't stumble over random barriers and also get the usual sidewalk height there.
The good thing about getting this stage of design in, is that it claims the necessary space on the road and sets the proper widths with lower cost. Looks like in the future, they could easily add a car buffer area like you mentioned with minimal rework of the permanent stuff they put in!
Love the bike lane, but my favorite part are the raised pedestrian crossings. They're such a helpful piece of infrastructure and they're very underrated.
Thanks for the tour of the bike lane. The name of the street - "Tremont" - is pronounced "trem" + ont." The first syllable does not sound like "tree." Rather, it sounds like the first syllable of "tremble" or "tremolo."
That little stretch of traditional bike lane is because the city really wanted to include a left turn only lane there but there was not quite enough width to include protected bike lanes in both directions and the left turn lane unless they also removed a few parking spaces there, but they didn't want to do that. I'm hoping they will revisit that decision in the future.
From Jascha Franklin-Hodge “Thanks for the note. I agree that these kinds of traditional bike lanes are not ideal for the reasons you mention. In general, we go out of our way to avoid building them. Without talking with the engineers, I would guess that there is a dimensional issue here that would push the travel lane, turn lane, or bike lane below our safe minimums. It's unlikely we would have designed this just to preserve three parking spaces. All that said, at this point our focus is on getting the project completed per plans. Once it's in the ground and we see how it's working, we will have the opportunity to make adjustments where possible/helpful.”
@@BeneathWalls That... could be a good reason? Don't see why they couldn't take six inches out of the sidewalk to make it work though. Tremont and Dartmouth is a middling-size intersection, but it does have a large wine shop there, so my instinct is that it was harder to get rid of the parking. Maybe they want to keep unloading trucks in the bike lane? If you look at Google street view for the intersection, that's exactly what they're doing.
Very nice. I go out of my way a bit to use this but I really wish they would have done this to Columbus Ave instead since it is better aligned with the southwest corridor.
Columbus Ave is about 10 feet narrower in most places. The main purpose of the Tremont St redesign was to reduce the vehicles lanes from four to two. With the extra space, they put in bike lanes, but that was not the main goal. Reducing the number of vehicle lanes eliminates the double threat and increases pedestrian visibility when crossing the street.
Every time I drive in Boston, I see way more cars and pedestrians than bicycles even around expected hot spots like BU. I’m not adverse to this but I want to see how successful the city will be at snow removal in the travel and these isolated bicycle lanes this winter. Also, I suspect a good many snow plows are going to be damaged by these concrete barriers especially those that have no vertical reflectors or markers?
Great discussion of this awesome infrastructure. Difficult to overstate how much this build has improved getting around this part of the city, especially coming from south of Tremont
Not great, but OK. I think cities are making pedestrian improvements without thinking of other modes as evidenced by the bend-ins around the pedestrian bump-outs. A proper design would have a bike lane bend-OUT and a pedestrian refuge giving pedestrians and motorist clearer view of each other. It would be better if they'd take a broader view to improving safety when they rebuild a street so they don't have to shoe-horn in cycling later.
I approve of making inexpensive, non-permanent changes. There's a big chicken & egg argument about whether we don't need bike lanes in Boston because nobody cycles or whether nobody cycles because we don't have enough bike lanes. This arrangement should be good enough, let's see what the actual usage is. If it turns out to differ wildly by season, maybe Boston should just have seasonal bike lanes that are easily reversed like parts of the one shown here. They could just haul away the barriers at the end of the season like it's the Rte 3 carpool lane.
I would caution against temporary/seasonal bike lanes - even if fewer people cycle in the winter, there are still people who do because that is their only option. Removing a bike lane just to shove more cars down a street means someone who regularly bikes there no longer has a safe route. This will create a positive feedback loop where people don’t feel encouraged to bike year round because the route network has suddenly disappeared and you’ll just get more cars on the road, which is the least efficient way to move around a city
bike lanes you show are not wide enough. gettin doored from the left side is worse than the right. passengers are not trained to look before, not opening into traffic.
I believe the bike lanes are 6’ wide with a 3’ buffer to the parked cars, which is pretty good in my opinion as far as typical standards go. I understand the concern though. For better or worse, most people in this country drive alone so hopefully passenger doors open less frequently than driver side doors
i ride mass ave( several vids). have ridden a trike in boston n cambridge for 30+ years. lucky n slow. bicycles do not belong on sidewalks, trikes are too big. have commuted weymouth to harvard sq n back (i was the blue puppet show in the square).retired now,75 n ride for exercise rode mass ave just as they finished th south side.from hos to jfk. it's ok, should give us half the street. i use it anyway, fewer obstacles n i'm not used to watchin left for doors. the only acidents i had were gettin doored in the bike lanes of the 90's i'm pleased they're tryin.
Very nice looking neighbourhood. The left side seems more residential. We have similar lanes in Montreal. I wonder what it looks like on garbage collection day. Do residents place their trash on the sidewalk or next to the cars? Or is the pickup done differently?
depends on which part of the city. back bay, downtown, fort point use alleyways but south End, north End, and southie we still mostly use barrels. Even then it isn't always consistent.
I’ve heard it both ways. But in the end, american engineers largely still dont know how to design for bikes, and aside from bicycle specific signals and fully separated lanes, they try to either classify bikes as vehicles or pedestrians, which they are neither. So cyclists are left to figure out how to stay alive themselves. In this specific instance, there was no dedicated bike signal and I didn’t want to get right hooked by a car when the light turned green, so I used the ped phase for my own safety, seeing as there were no people crossing I would conflict with.
some parts of boston have signs that say “cyclists follow pedestrian traffic” and then “cyclists follow vehicle traffic” (i forget the exact wording) so it can get confusing
Bikes are vehicles in Massachusetts except when there is a bike signal. Bikes are required to stop on red. The law is clear but the communication of said law is not. The number of close calls in Boston with bikes is unreal. -a Mass-hole driver
54 seconds in and you ride right through a red light. WTF?? You completely lost me there - even if the content is fantastic you lost my respect as a fellow cyclist.
@@everydayengineering Hmmm. I've been riding for around 60 years now and I didn't know that that was legal. Anywhere. If you had gotten off of your bike and walked across, then yeah. Look, we all cut corners when we ride, but that was a busy intersection with lights and you were not a pedestrian and you were RECORDING A VIDEO. Not the best time to reinforce the stereotype that cyclists run red lights (and ignore stop signs). Makes us all look bad. Seriously, when I saw you do that I just cringed. (I ride around 100 miles/week, so yes, I'm an avid cyclist)
@@dperreno Congrats on riding 60 years! That's impressive. The point I'd like to make (and for all others to see as well) is that the environment we're biking in, designed by American traffic engineers who have little to no expertise in creating fully separated/protected networks like those in the Netherlands and elsewhere, tries to classify bikes as either vehicles or pedestrians. This is due to laziness and an unwillingness to see bicycles as what they are - a totally separate form of transportation requiring intentional design. At this intersection, I was in a bike lane going to another bike lane, but there was no bike signal. There was no protected intersection. The law likely tells me that I should follow the green light for cars, but then I severely increase my risk of getting right hooked. Likewise, I could have gotten off the bike and walked it across the crosswalk to "become" a pedestrian, but that's not reflective of the actual experience of cycling and is simply something American traffic engineers would want a cyclist to do simply to follow the rules with no regard to how inconvenient it is. We don't ask drivers to get out and push their cars across intersections. So yes, it's likely I probably broke a rule by doing this, but the important thing is, I didn't endanger anyone. The distinction is that when cyclists break traffic laws (designed for motor vehicles), they are doing it to stay alive. When drivers break traffic laws, they are doing it to save 10 seconds, and they are the ones controlling 3-ton machines that regularly kill people.
@@everydayengineering Boston drivers are far from courteous. Nobody will let you change lanes in vehicles riding a bike sounds like a death wish. Most people I know are afraid to drive in Boston because of how aggressive people are.
These bike lanes are shit! They are dangerous. The city took away a line of roadway on each side to make these awful ‘safe’ bike lanes. This not only increased the congestion of traffic especially during rush hour, but increases congestion on the bike path because there isn’t much room to pass slower cyclist. Also, idiots stepping into the bike lane without looking and scooter using the lane for parking while they make food deliveries…infuriating!
The usual bs. Educate yourself about how much less bike lanes cost per mile in building and in maintenance costs vs car lanes, and how many more people they move per sq foot. Cars are terribly space inefficient.
@@yagi3925how many people will be using these bike lanes in November, December, January, February, March. All while not paying gas tax, tolls, licensing fees, etc that pay for 50% of Massachusetts roads.
Cars do significantly more damage to roadways because of the sheer weight, speeds and mass on the type of material used than a bicycle or walking. Also, you want to tax kids? Like 7-10 year old kids? What are you gonna do? Take their lunch money? In case you wanna argue that, kids use the lanes too. Finally, your property tax and income tax (if your state has it) goes to funding roadways. You'd be saving money if the roads were built for pedestrians because much less material and maintenance is needed which means more of your taxes would go to things like food distribution centers, medical care, housing, first responders, libraries and education, public transportation... Instead what you basically said you'd rather your money go to having to fund your ridiculously large "pod" that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and have to constantly fix and expand roadways and parking lots and therefore spend more money than what you could be saving.
This sucks for many reasons. 1. Tremont was one of the only 4 lane roads going in this direction in the South End. These narrowing bike lanes are causing frequent multi block traffic jams on Tremont in the late afternoon, and the fire station that you passed around the 5 minute mark cannot get their engines out to respond to emergencies. Both times I was stuck in my car in this situation, the fire engines had to go the wrong way(in the left lane) for multiple blocks to get to their emergency. Incredibly bad planning. All because they insisted on inflexible hard scape to form the lane where no one can change lanes to get out of the way. 2. There is no good provision for delivery trucks now that the 4 lane structure has been disrupted. They sometimes stop all traffic to make their deliveries. 3. This hard scape approach to bike lanes makes the space incredibly inflexible for bikers. The lane you were riding in has enough space for one bike at a time comfortably, and maybe one other to pass very carefully in that same space. The hard granite curbs lining this space can cause flats and falls because they are so angular and unyielding. If these lanes were actually to become popular(which they are not yet) they would not be a feasible option for commuting because the volume of bikes they can allow is so minimal. 4. There is no provision for snow removal yet. I rode on a similar path last winter on Comm Ave near BU and because it had snowed within the last 5 days, there were multiple snow piles in the middle of the bike lanes, usually in the worst places, where there was a narrow spot or a small slope. I almost fell twice, and I am very experienced. In summary, these gestures to show bike friendliness are hollow and ineffective, designed by people who apparently do not bike at all, and who have not planned for the bike lanes to actually become useful and popular.
You’re just making things up. The lanes were cleared of snow (for the one pathetic snow fall we had last winter) within hours of it stopping. They were some of the best maintained lanes this past winter. The safety improvements for pedestrians is astonishing. I don’t have any specific crash data, but I’m not aware of any serious injuries on Tremont St in the past year.
1. That's perfectly fine for fire engines to use the opposing lane when there's heavy traffic in one direction. They do it all the time. 2. There have been multiple loading zones added along the street, but I have indeed noticed that sometimes delivery trucks do block a travel lane. The city may need to adjust the loading zones even more. 3. I bike on these lanes all the time, and I have other bikes pass me just fine. A little wider would be nice, but they generally work fine. 4. The city has small plows they use, and did in fact use last winter on these lanes. They were very clear of snow!
1. The problem is not the bike lane, but too many cars. This was a problem before the bike lane. 2. If you are worried about deliveries on Tremont delaying your journey between Mass Ave and Downtown, drive on Harrison, Shawmut, Columbus, or Washington. Or Take the Orange Line. 3. The space is tight! They should get rid of on-street parking to widen the bike lanes so that safety features meant to protect cyclists from drivers do not inadvertently become obstacles. 4. My brother in christ, get some better tires.
Nope! It's safer to treat reds as stops for cyclists, and you might've noticed(oh you definitely didn't) that the walk sign was on, many areas allow cyclists to go with pedestrians.
What you're referring to is called an "Idaho stop". Many states have laws that explicitly allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield and red lights as stop signs. You are correct in noting that Massachusetts does not have an Idaho stop law, so indeed he was breaking the law by failing to wait. That said, there's the "law" and then there's what's actually "safe". Road laws exist to improve safety for road users, but in practice requiring cyclists to follow the same stop laws as cars is more dangerous for everyone. Various studies have been conducted in jurisdictions where Idaho stop laws have been introduced. In all cases, comparing collision data from before and after the law was added showed a net decrease in cyclist fatalities. Don't just take my word on this. The NHTSA, the leading authority on traffic safety in the US, agrees with the findings and recommends other states adopt similar laws.
@@LimitedWardAlso... literally everyone goes on walk especially the scramble intersections. It would be on-brand but still comically dumb to not allow it.
Do cyclists not pay taxes? Roads cost a lot more than what car-oriented taxes fund (if we wanted to fund road construction and maintenance with car-related taxes alone, gas would have to go above 10 dollars a gallon). More cycling is also something to incentivize-it means less traffic, less congestion, less air pollution, safer streets, and less road wear and tear (it takes ~13,966,794 bicycles to cause the same amount of road damage as a single car).
The space dedicated to bike lanes is disproportionate to their use, especially in cities like Boston, where cycling is limited by weather conditions. I've heard the arguments of many sides to this issue -- the most plausible explanation for this long march to eliminate cars is the intentional pauperizarion of the population. Towards what end? -- I dont know.
@@everydayengineering So this is your response to a legitimate criticism of the "build it and they will come... to our glorious bike utopia"? My city has long had bike lanes and paths, and they're building more. They're nearly empty for half the year. Have you ever heard of _vehicular cycling_ ?
On many commuter corridors, people on bikes outnumber people in cars in the city of Boston. On many others, it’s still a huge percentage, like 25-40% of traffic.
Cars take up a disproportionate amount of space for the people they move. Nearly every vehicle I see has a solo occupant yet has seats for 5 or more and takes up the space of 4 to 5 bikes.
To me, with the "bike lanes" I use, this looks like a miracle 😢
It is
There's so much good stuff going on here! A lot of this is permanent, high quality infrastructure but I like that they cut costs where possible without sacrificing safety.
Just wait until you hear how much highways cost
This one might look safe. Most of the others in the city have no protection from cars speeding around the endless bends that make up every road. And I rarely see anyone using these bike lanes, which can’t really be used in the winter and parts of the spring and fall anyway. At this point they just take up space for cars and increase traffic, which, despite the city’s faux concern for climate change, increase CO2 emissions. They could just be on the more residential streets, but the city insists on putting them everywhere to make a “bike-able” city because the MBTA can’t get its act together. Not to mention they all decrease space for snow removal and truck deliveries. No disrespect to how you see it, but a lot of us in MA can’t find much good stuff going on in Boston today, and not just including the whole bike lane fiasco dangerously creeping into all the other cities in the state
@Animalstyle69 And on top of that I’ve been seeing videos of ambulances entirely unable to get by on these streets because there’s absolutely nowhere for cars to move over. These stupid, almost completely unused bike lanes are literally taking people’s lives.
isn't it astounding how cheap and easy it is to set up perfectly decent bike paths? Paint isn't infrastructure, but concrete barriers sure are!
This is a awesome! I’d love to see these more complete streets expanded, and the raised curbs are especially exciting.
I love how the signal heads are placed low at either side of the road, rather than on poles high above the roadway. This also keeps drivers' focus at eye level, where vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists tend to be.
Some areas are definitely better about it than others but yeah there are a TON of low mount signals in this town.
not the nicest looking, but yep - it does it's job. For a more permanent version the buffer should be build like a very narrow sidewalk, so people exiting their cars don't stumble over random barriers and also get the usual sidewalk height there.
The good thing about getting this stage of design in, is that it claims the necessary space on the road and sets the proper widths with lower cost. Looks like in the future, they could easily add a car buffer area like you mentioned with minimal rework of the permanent stuff they put in!
Love the bike lane, but my favorite part are the raised pedestrian crossings. They're such a helpful piece of infrastructure and they're very underrated.
Thanks for the tour of the bike lane. The name of the street - "Tremont" - is pronounced "trem" + ont." The first syllable does not sound like "tree." Rather, it sounds like the first syllable of "tremble" or "tremolo."
I always pronounced it tray-mont street lol
Such an improvement over what was there.
That little stretch of traditional bike lane is because the city really wanted to include a left turn only lane there but there was not quite enough width to include protected bike lanes in both directions and the left turn lane unless they also removed a few parking spaces there, but they didn't want to do that. I'm hoping they will revisit that decision in the future.
Still enslaved to the god of street parking I see.
From Jascha Franklin-Hodge
“Thanks for the note. I agree that these kinds of traditional bike lanes are not ideal for the reasons you mention. In general, we go out of our way to avoid building them. Without talking with the engineers, I would guess that there is a dimensional issue here that would push the travel lane, turn lane, or bike lane below our safe minimums. It's unlikely we would have designed this just to preserve three parking spaces. All that said, at this point our focus is on getting the project completed per plans. Once it's in the ground and we see how it's working, we will have the opportunity to make adjustments where possible/helpful.”
@@BeneathWalls That... could be a good reason? Don't see why they couldn't take six inches out of the sidewalk to make it work though. Tremont and Dartmouth is a middling-size intersection, but it does have a large wine shop there, so my instinct is that it was harder to get rid of the parking. Maybe they want to keep unloading trucks in the bike lane? If you look at Google street view for the intersection, that's exactly what they're doing.
Very nice. I go out of my way a bit to use this but I really wish they would have done this to Columbus Ave instead since it is better aligned with the southwest corridor.
Columbus Ave is about 10 feet narrower in most places. The main purpose of the Tremont St redesign was to reduce the vehicles lanes from four to two. With the extra space, they put in bike lanes, but that was not the main goal. Reducing the number of vehicle lanes eliminates the double threat and increases pedestrian visibility when crossing the street.
Every time I drive in Boston, I see way more cars and pedestrians than bicycles even around expected hot spots like BU. I’m not adverse to this but I want to see how successful the city will be at snow removal in the travel and these isolated bicycle lanes this winter. Also, I suspect a good many snow plows are going to be damaged by these concrete barriers especially those that have no vertical reflectors or markers?
Great discussion of this awesome infrastructure. Difficult to overstate how much this build has improved getting around this part of the city, especially coming from south of Tremont
Not great, but OK. I think cities are making pedestrian improvements without thinking of other modes as evidenced by the bend-ins around the pedestrian bump-outs. A proper design would have a bike lane bend-OUT and a pedestrian refuge giving pedestrians and motorist clearer view of each other. It would be better if they'd take a broader view to improving safety when they rebuild a street so they don't have to shoe-horn in cycling later.
I approve of making inexpensive, non-permanent changes. There's a big chicken & egg argument about whether we don't need bike lanes in Boston because nobody cycles or whether nobody cycles because we don't have enough bike lanes. This arrangement should be good enough, let's see what the actual usage is. If it turns out to differ wildly by season, maybe Boston should just have seasonal bike lanes that are easily reversed like parts of the one shown here. They could just haul away the barriers at the end of the season like it's the Rte 3 carpool lane.
I would caution against temporary/seasonal bike lanes - even if fewer people cycle in the winter, there are still people who do because that is their only option. Removing a bike lane just to shove more cars down a street means someone who regularly bikes there no longer has a safe route. This will create a positive feedback loop where people don’t feel encouraged to bike year round because the route network has suddenly disappeared and you’ll just get more cars on the road, which is the least efficient way to move around a city
4:18 Don't usually see the countdown lights flash with the hand. At least, not in my area.
bike lanes you show are not wide enough. gettin doored from the left side is worse than the right. passengers are not trained to look before, not opening into traffic.
I believe the bike lanes are 6’ wide with a 3’ buffer to the parked cars, which is pretty good in my opinion as far as typical standards go. I understand the concern though. For better or worse, most people in this country drive alone so hopefully passenger doors open less frequently than driver side doors
i ride mass ave( several vids). have ridden a trike in boston n cambridge for 30+ years. lucky n slow. bicycles do not belong on sidewalks, trikes are too big. have commuted weymouth to harvard sq n back (i was the blue puppet show in the square).retired now,75 n ride for exercise rode mass ave just as they finished th south side.from hos to jfk. it's ok, should give us half the street. i use it anyway, fewer obstacles n i'm not used to watchin left for doors. the only acidents i had were gettin doored in the bike lanes of the 90's
i'm pleased they're tryin.
bro is not from boston he said treemont street
Did i ever say or claim i was from boston?
@@everydayengineering just poking fun lol, i appreciate your comprehensive breakdown of how well this lane is integrated into existing traffic.
Most of these jerks on bikes don't obey the traffic laws. Hypocrites.
Most of these jerks in cars don’t obey the traffic laws. Hypocrites. (And they kill 43,000+ americans per year)
Very nice looking neighbourhood. The left side seems more residential. We have similar lanes in Montreal. I wonder what it looks like on garbage collection day. Do residents place their trash on the sidewalk or next to the cars? Or is the pickup done differently?
alleys in the back, it's old
depends on which part of the city. back bay, downtown, fort point use alleyways but south End, north End, and southie we still mostly use barrels.
Even then it isn't always consistent.
Great video
At 0:50 the lights are red but it has a walk signal and you biked across. Does walk mean ok to walk/bike?
I’ve heard it both ways. But in the end, american engineers largely still dont know how to design for bikes, and aside from bicycle specific signals and fully separated lanes, they try to either classify bikes as vehicles or pedestrians, which they are neither. So cyclists are left to figure out how to stay alive themselves. In this specific instance, there was no dedicated bike signal and I didn’t want to get right hooked by a car when the light turned green, so I used the ped phase for my own safety, seeing as there were no people crossing I would conflict with.
some parts of boston have signs that say “cyclists follow pedestrian traffic” and then “cyclists follow vehicle traffic” (i forget the exact wording) so it can get confusing
Bikes are vehicles in Massachusetts except when there is a bike signal. Bikes are required to stop on red. The law is clear but the communication of said law is not. The number of close calls in Boston with bikes is unreal. -a Mass-hole driver
Most/all bicyclists think they can do whatever they want and they are kings of the road
bikes most certainly are vehicles and subject to the same laws .
54 seconds in and you ride right through a red light. WTF?? You completely lost me there - even if the content is fantastic you lost my respect as a fellow cyclist.
alright seeya!
(as i explained in other comments, i chose to go on the pedestrian signal instead of getting right hooked on the vehicular green)
@@everydayengineering Hmmm. I've been riding for around 60 years now and I didn't know that that was legal. Anywhere. If you had gotten off of your bike and walked across, then yeah. Look, we all cut corners when we ride, but that was a busy intersection with lights and you were not a pedestrian and you were RECORDING A VIDEO. Not the best time to reinforce the stereotype that cyclists run red lights (and ignore stop signs). Makes us all look bad. Seriously, when I saw you do that I just cringed. (I ride around 100 miles/week, so yes, I'm an avid cyclist)
@@dperreno Congrats on riding 60 years! That's impressive. The point I'd like to make (and for all others to see as well) is that the environment we're biking in, designed by American traffic engineers who have little to no expertise in creating fully separated/protected networks like those in the Netherlands and elsewhere, tries to classify bikes as either vehicles or pedestrians. This is due to laziness and an unwillingness to see bicycles as what they are - a totally separate form of transportation requiring intentional design. At this intersection, I was in a bike lane going to another bike lane, but there was no bike signal. There was no protected intersection. The law likely tells me that I should follow the green light for cars, but then I severely increase my risk of getting right hooked. Likewise, I could have gotten off the bike and walked it across the crosswalk to "become" a pedestrian, but that's not reflective of the actual experience of cycling and is simply something American traffic engineers would want a cyclist to do simply to follow the rules with no regard to how inconvenient it is. We don't ask drivers to get out and push their cars across intersections. So yes, it's likely I probably broke a rule by doing this, but the important thing is, I didn't endanger anyone. The distinction is that when cyclists break traffic laws (designed for motor vehicles), they are doing it to stay alive. When drivers break traffic laws, they are doing it to save 10 seconds, and they are the ones controlling 3-ton machines that regularly kill people.
So you just blew through a red light at a major intersection! WTF!
@@hubertvale5132 AAAAHHHHH WWWWWTTTTTFFFFFFF
This is great!
Way better than anything we got going in Dallas.
You crossed the street with a red light? Don't bikes have to follow the same rules as cars?
i've already answered this multiple times in prior comments.
I'm so jealous of places with bike lanes. We don't even have shoulders most of the time.
same hear
Just a waste of space that will be unused most or all of the year and increase congestion.
@@deadlata9767 Objectively false. But whatever.
This is actually the die on a peddle bike lane!
what
@@everydayengineering Boston drivers are far from courteous. Nobody will let you change lanes in vehicles riding a bike sounds like a death wish. Most people I know are afraid to drive in Boston because of how aggressive people are.
These bike lanes are shit! They are dangerous. The city took away a line of roadway on each side to make these awful ‘safe’ bike lanes. This not only increased the congestion of traffic especially during rush hour, but increases congestion on the bike path because there isn’t much room to pass slower cyclist. Also, idiots stepping into the bike lane without looking and scooter using the lane for parking while they make food deliveries…infuriating!
@@robertlambert1447 bro’s getting emotional on a video about a bike lane. deep breaths sport! it will all be ok!
@@everydayengineeringI’m not your ‘bro’.
Now make cyclists register for insurance and tax them for the roads as well
Tell me you have no clue how roads are funded and what your taxes go to, but with an anime profile pic
The usual bs. Educate yourself about how much less bike lanes cost per mile in building and in maintenance costs vs car lanes, and how many more people they move per sq foot. Cars are terribly space inefficient.
Imagine unironically believing that everyone's taxes don't already go towards roads, regardless of whether they use those roads
@@yagi3925how many people will be using these bike lanes in November, December, January, February, March. All while not paying gas tax, tolls, licensing fees, etc that pay for 50% of Massachusetts roads.
Cars do significantly more damage to roadways because of the sheer weight, speeds and mass on the type of material used than a bicycle or walking. Also, you want to tax kids? Like 7-10 year old kids? What are you gonna do? Take their lunch money? In case you wanna argue that, kids use the lanes too. Finally, your property tax and income tax (if your state has it) goes to funding roadways. You'd be saving money if the roads were built for pedestrians because much less material and maintenance is needed which means more of your taxes would go to things like food distribution centers, medical care, housing, first responders, libraries and education, public transportation... Instead what you basically said you'd rather your money go to having to fund your ridiculously large "pod" that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and have to constantly fix and expand roadways and parking lots and therefore spend more money than what you could be saving.
This sucks for many reasons.
1. Tremont was one of the only 4 lane roads going in this direction in the South End. These narrowing bike lanes are causing frequent multi block traffic jams on Tremont in the late afternoon, and the fire station that you passed around the 5 minute mark cannot get their engines out to respond to emergencies. Both times I was stuck in my car in this situation, the fire engines had to go the wrong way(in the left lane) for multiple blocks to get to their emergency. Incredibly bad planning. All because they insisted on inflexible hard scape to form the lane where no one can change lanes to get out of the way.
2. There is no good provision for delivery trucks now that the 4 lane structure has been disrupted. They sometimes stop all traffic to make their deliveries.
3. This hard scape approach to bike lanes makes the space incredibly inflexible for bikers. The lane you were riding in has enough space for one bike at a time comfortably, and maybe one other to pass very carefully in that same space. The hard granite curbs lining this space can cause flats and falls because they are so angular and unyielding. If these lanes were actually to become popular(which they are not yet) they would not be a feasible option for commuting because the volume of bikes they can allow is so minimal.
4. There is no provision for snow removal yet. I rode on a similar path last winter on Comm Ave near BU and because it had snowed within the last 5 days, there were multiple snow piles in the middle of the bike lanes, usually in the worst places, where there was a narrow spot or a small slope. I almost fell twice, and I am very experienced.
In summary, these gestures to show bike friendliness are hollow and ineffective, designed by people who apparently do not bike at all, and who have not planned for the bike lanes to actually become useful and popular.
But the bike lanes are useful and popular. Bike trips on Comm Ave exploded after the new lanes went in.
You’re just making things up. The lanes were cleared of snow (for the one pathetic snow fall we had last winter) within hours of it stopping. They were some of the best maintained lanes this past winter. The safety improvements for pedestrians is astonishing. I don’t have any specific crash data, but I’m not aware of any serious injuries on Tremont St in the past year.
1. That's perfectly fine for fire engines to use the opposing lane when there's heavy traffic in one direction. They do it all the time.
2. There have been multiple loading zones added along the street, but I have indeed noticed that sometimes delivery trucks do block a travel lane. The city may need to adjust the loading zones even more.
3. I bike on these lanes all the time, and I have other bikes pass me just fine. A little wider would be nice, but they generally work fine.
4. The city has small plows they use, and did in fact use last winter on these lanes. They were very clear of snow!
1. The problem is not the bike lane, but too many cars. This was a problem before the bike lane.
2. If you are worried about deliveries on Tremont delaying your journey between Mass Ave and Downtown, drive on Harrison, Shawmut, Columbus, or Washington. Or Take the Orange Line.
3. The space is tight! They should get rid of on-street parking to widen the bike lanes so that safety features meant to protect cyclists from drivers do not inadvertently become obstacles.
4. My brother in christ, get some better tires.
You just ran a red light. Bicycles are vehicles that must obey traffic signals!
Nope! It's safer to treat reds as stops for cyclists, and you might've noticed(oh you definitely didn't) that the walk sign was on, many areas allow cyclists to go with pedestrians.
The walk signal was lit.
What you're referring to is called an "Idaho stop". Many states have laws that explicitly allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield and red lights as stop signs. You are correct in noting that Massachusetts does not have an Idaho stop law, so indeed he was breaking the law by failing to wait.
That said, there's the "law" and then there's what's actually "safe". Road laws exist to improve safety for road users, but in practice requiring cyclists to follow the same stop laws as cars is more dangerous for everyone. Various studies have been conducted in jurisdictions where Idaho stop laws have been introduced. In all cases, comparing collision data from before and after the law was added showed a net decrease in cyclist fatalities.
Don't just take my word on this. The NHTSA, the leading authority on traffic safety in the US, agrees with the findings and recommends other states adopt similar laws.
@@LimitedWardAlso... literally everyone goes on walk especially the scramble intersections. It would be on-brand but still comically dumb to not allow it.
Or just ride a bike and stop crying.
So....fees from bicycle licenses paid for this? No? Of Course not. The rest of us did.
Hmm... must have had too many fumes. All of us pay for the vehicle roads too. That's how taxes work 😂😂
Most people who ride bicycles also own cars, bud
Taxes on drivers don't even cover the cost of car infrastructure. So how could they possibly pay for bike lanes?
Do cyclists not pay taxes? Roads cost a lot more than what car-oriented taxes fund (if we wanted to fund road construction and maintenance with car-related taxes alone, gas would have to go above 10 dollars a gallon). More cycling is also something to incentivize-it means less traffic, less congestion, less air pollution, safer streets, and less road wear and tear (it takes ~13,966,794 bicycles to cause the same amount of road damage as a single car).
It’s a road owned by the City of Boston, property taxes paid for this, not road user fees.
The space dedicated to bike lanes is disproportionate to their use, especially in cities like Boston, where cycling is limited by weather conditions. I've heard the arguments of many sides to this issue -- the most plausible explanation for this long march to eliminate cars is the intentional pauperizarion of the population. Towards what end? -- I dont know.
what are you talking about are you okay
@@everydayengineering So this is your response to a legitimate criticism of the "build it and they will come... to our glorious bike utopia"? My city has long had bike lanes and paths, and they're building more. They're nearly empty for half the year. Have you ever heard of _vehicular cycling_ ?
@@peteroleary9447 Cars are rubber-tired vehicles. Bicycles are rubber-tired vehicles. You can use both year-round
On many commuter corridors, people on bikes outnumber people in cars in the city of Boston. On many others, it’s still a huge percentage, like 25-40% of traffic.
Cars take up a disproportionate amount of space for the people they move. Nearly every vehicle I see has a solo occupant yet has seats for 5 or more and takes up the space of 4 to 5 bikes.
Kudos to Mayor Wu for expanding the bike lanes, helping people stay safer and healthier, and reducing carbon emissions!