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Moakley Park gets a spot where kids can learn to ride a bike

By adamg on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 5:16pm
Bike town at Moakley Park

Photo via the mayor's office.

The city today formally opened a "bike town" at Moakley Park in South Boston aimed at giving kids a way to safely learn how to ride a bike in an urban setting.

Looking like a giant version of those road mats you can get for little kids (UHub affiliate link), Boston's first bike town will let kids get more comfortable riding a bike, even in a big city:

Bike towns are small-sized street networks, often with scaled-down traffic features, designed to teach children how to safely navigate urban street systems and increase their overall confidence in bike riding.

This is just the first bike town planned for Boston. Using a grant from Children's Hospital, the city also plans to put down a similar area for young bike riders at Ross Playground in Hyde Park, with a third park to be named later.

Neighborhoods: 
South Boston
Free tagging: 
Bicycling
Moakley Park


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Comments

By BostonDog on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 5:51pm.

Where's the Uber and delivery trucks parked in the lanes? How are the kids ever going to learn how to avoid the driver on a phone who drifts from side to side before suddenly swerving to the curb? Without any traffic lights, how can the kids learn how to deal with the car that makes a sharp right turn without using their signal?

/S

(Seriously, nice effort.)

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By Otto Carr on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 7:22pm.

Who gets to play traffic cop?
Parents?

And I hope those kids with Power Wheels toy cars get to play here, too. They can add the missing element.

Practice makes slightly better.

Practice taking turns at 4-way stops is good practice.

By Frelmont on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 7:36pm.

Not to mention masked men on motor scooters standing in the bike lane, speeding along in the bike lane, filtering around cars on the left and right, going the wrong direction, popping on and off sidewalks. I loathe the fact that the immoral companies like Uber and their ilk incentivize bad, uncivil behavior, but the delivery truck and non-commercial drop off issue isn’t so simple as there is simply no alternative to a give and take.

At least the EEE risk level is still low for that area, unlike the critical areas in the state. See Oxford.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-arbovirus-update

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/21/metro/oxford-board-health-recomme...

Sequela may be a fate worse than death.

By Angry Dan on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 6:10pm.

This is how it starts.

Next thing you know, they're cycling to school, cycling to the park, cycling to their friends' homes. Hell, they could ride to the Esplanade and get hooked on sailing!

I remember, as a little kid, along with a bunch of friends, riding to a city park that was two towns away from us. I would love to see that kind of adventure get normalized again.

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By Friartuck on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 6:27pm.

Quad skating

By cybah on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 6:38pm.

I had carpeting like this in a bedroom as a child.

I never thought to ride my bike in my bedroom tho.

Edit: I just went to find a picture of the old carpet I had.. and uh.. this design for this 'park' is a copy of a rug design I found.

https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Carpet-Playmat-Extra-Large/dp/B07D3FC1Q6

I also think Adam meant to link to this above, but instead it is to a Taylor Swift video.

By anon on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 6:44pm.

Adam is a swifty?

By adamg on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 8:58pm.

No, not a Swiftie, but I do like some of her songs.

In any case, that was not really a pure Swift song. It was a bit of "Trouble" in which her singing "ohhhh" is replaced with screaming goats. Came up in a chat with a friend about who might be the special guest star at the DNC tonight and, oy, obviously when I went to then find a "city mat" on Amazon and copy that link, I didn't hit control-C hard enough or something, so I wound up pasting the YouTube video of Swift and screaming goats into my story instead. Fixed.

By bgl on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 7:00pm.

Well played, though.

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 7:11pm.

One of whom was born with a dark sense of humor (wonder where he got that?).

I came into the play area one day and he had a car on it's side and a truck on its side at odd angles to the road.

A TV truck was already set up ... and the ambulance was still some distance away at the far corner.

He was about 5 years old.

By anon on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 6:43pm.

What about the majority of adults who cant ride a bike. I see practice stop signed. very helpful!

By Frelmont on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 7:28pm.

That’s cute. When biking with a child old enough to bike on a roadway do you bike in back so you can keep an eye on them and give verbal commands, and so you can catch up and stop them, or to you bike in front and hope they keep in line? I did both. Also, today there was a lot of horns and jerky, aggressive driving.