While I was out picking up some food early Saturday morning, I heard two people outside of the Shaw's at Packard's Corner in Allston discussing the speed limit on Comm. Ave. The discussion centered around whether 6 mph was too slow for traffic or not. This seemed like a crazy discussion so I turned to see where they were pointing...

Harry Mattison photographs a bevy of cars parked in those brand spanking new bike lanes the city just installed:

... Cars parked in the bike lane force the bikes to swerve in and out of traffic - a situation that could be more dangerous than having no bike lane at all. So hopefully drivers will learn - with help from some parking tickets, if needed - that bike lanes are for bikes, not cars. ...

Ed. Great White North note: In Montreal, some bike lanes actually have curbs to keep the cars out.

Boston Biker has the scoop on the new lanes between Kenmore Square and the BU Bridge.

The Globe reports:

Ten soccer game spectators were injured — four of them critically — in Dorchester today when they sought refuge under a gigantic tree that was struck by lightning during a flash storm

I like how the Globe follows that with:

The victims, all males, had burns consistent with lightning strikes, authorities said.

Because you know how people in Dorchester love to make up stories about getting hit by lightning.

Lightning also knocked out Green Line service between Harvard Avenue and Packard's Corner. In fact, it hit a trolley. Amazingly, nobody hurt.

Alyk grows weary of all the "but there aren't any trees!" carping about the Greenway; posts a photo of what the Comm. Ave. mall in the Back Bay (you know, tree-lined Comm. Ave.?) looked like in 1872, after it was built.

Menino tells Banker & Tradesmen that maybe a bit of sophistry is involved when BC says it'll house all its undergrads on campus, then turns around and buys a high-rise apartment building on Comm. Ave. that isn't on campus.

Via Michael Pahre, who notes that BC officials are careful to talk about "university-controlled" housing rather than "on campus."

Phill Jupitus is some British comedian and broadcaster who loves Boston, which is wonderful, but he writes:

The city also boasts some first-class shopping. The first place to go is probably Commonwealth Avenue but I also like Boylston Street.

Where is this first-class shopping on Comm. Ave.? In Kenmore Square? Along BU? He also says he likes the food in the Italian Quarter.

BehindDarkEyes watches a party trolley roll down Comm. Ave. in Allston.

Pickup imitates turtle on its back by the BU Bridge this morning.

Even after the disaster of the West End, city planners continued to drool over proposals to replace large swaths of the city with the sort of visual assault that is today's City Hall Plaza. Paul McMorrow discovers this in researching an article on why half of Boylston Street in the Back Bay is subject to stringent architectural review and half isn't. He recounts how one architect wanted to replace the Comm. Ave. mall with high rises:

... The consequences of not doing so were dire indeed. Without condo towers, Richmond warned, Comm. Ave. would become "A region of rooming houses and eventually a slum, with all the attendant evils of a bad slum. ...