Pro/con: Boylston Street bike lanes
First up, we have the Globe's Brian McGrory, who argues Boylston Street bike lanes are a major mistake, that even pedestrians love the sheer exuberance of a traffic-clogged thoroughfare full of life and the essence of Boston, and man, who doesn't love just driving down the boulevard looking up at all the tall buildings and it's where the Marathon bombings were and besides, there are bike lanes on parallel streets, leave Boylston Street alone!
Gone is the broad-shouldered appeal of a proud urban thoroughfare, replaced by something decidedly hunched.
In response, Commonwealth Beacon's James Aloisi says the only congestion he's seeing on McGrory's supposedly ravaged, post-apocalyptic street is all the scooter deliverers clogging up the sidewalk in front of Chick-fil-A - and they were there long before those City Hall bureaucrats ordered new lanes striped down the street.
I call on the naysayers to stop complaining and to rise to the occasion by supporting and improving the introduction of new things. We used to call Boston the "livable city." That’s only going to be true in this century if we accept and respond to the changes in how people are moving about, including the rise of cycling as a preferred mode of travel.
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Comments
Livable city?
I always thought Boston was "the walkable city," but that would work just as well in Aloisi's argument.
BRIAN MCGRORY
I am quite sure his aunt Mary would not agree.
Broad shoulders?
What is this, Chicago?
Saying that McGrory argues is surmising that he has an argument beyond "I'm an old white guy and you hurted my feelings waaah." Someone at the Globe really needs to take away the keys, although since Jacoby is still around, there's precedent. (At least McGrory's kid hasn't run away yet.)
McGrory is really full of it. The most regal commercial street in the city? That would be one block over on Newbury (which really should be pedestrianized).
Okay, Brian. First, they didn't change the sidewalks, so really, this is about the lanes. Second, the lanes aren't any wider than they were (11) although they probably could be narrower. And what, can people riding bikes not think? Is thinking only allowed for those walking or driving (but really only driving; walking hasn't changed). Are we only allowed to dream big dreams on Boylston Street.
Downtown is a traffic jam, and McGrory has tried nothing and is all out of ideas.
You know, Brian, if you ride a bike, it's the opposite.
Because of the, uh, bicycles, all honking their horns and causing traffic jams?
Jaywalking? In Boston? Good heavens! (But if there are short signal cycles, lengthen them. Which has nothing to do with bike lanes.)
We are all dumber for having read McGrory's screed.
You are biased Ari
You would make out with a bike lane if you it would let you.
You got me
Some of them are damn sexy.
(I'd make out with the ones on the Harvard Bridge but that would be a little too close to home, but, damnnnn.)
Smoots are made for smoochin'
Don't be ashamed :-)
Don't know what white has to
Don't know what white has to do with it, but otherwise, this is spot-on.
Of course bicycles aren't
Of course bicycles aren't honking. The honking is done by drivers reacting to the traffic conditions caused by a reconfigured roadway.
It's possible to have bicycles without this road configuration. Maybe even preferable for bicycling.
As far as the traffic light timing dis-favoring pedestrians, it could be because of the need for separate phases for the bike lanes. Or it could be pure wasteful stupidity, given that this is BTD we're talking about.
Come on, Ari
You are a much better person than bringing up the Jacoby thing.
As for the substance of anything, I'd say that the Square proper benefits from no one caring about the bus lane. I still need to look more at the Fairfield to Exeter block to see if this is a nothing burger or armageddon. I walk, so I have no skin in this fight.
Hunched Brian
I'm liking the way the new hunched Brian sprinkles these qualifiers in his latest bike-hate column:
He is clearly making some kind of incremental progress from his old bike-hate columns:
Keep plugging away Brian! We are rooting for you to eventually catch up to the 21st century!
The Big Squeeze
Lets add bike lanes, bus lanes, and maybe some dedicated high speed lanes for food delivery riders. 90 year old granny with her 3 speed Raleigh can use the low speed lane when she pedals down to get her groceries in January.
It was over 20 years ago that I started to believe
that Brian McGrory was an idiot.
As long as they enforce the
As long as they enforce the actual traffic laws on this street with the same force and zeal as they did with made up city ordinances on public alleys off it.
Boston Post?
The Globe seems to be trying to be Boston's version of the NY Post.
Just a few days ago they made a transphobic headline pulled right from the 4chan and Fox News, and now they have another "Why do we need bike lanes? Regular folks hate bicyclists, they drive pickup trucks and SUVs down Bolyston like patriotic Americans should."
Next up will be an article about a secret pedophile ring in the basement of a Dunkin Donuts in liberal Cambridge.
It’s the latter. A quid, pro
It’s the latter. A quid, pro quo with progressives and effort to de-Bostonize Boston. (Sure that may be responsive government, but is it responsible governing?) There is something afoot and the Boston Street Tsar was at the scene. I think McGrory is spot on as the Brits and hipsters say. (As is Flynn) I use bike lanes. There’s a lot of great biking in the Boston area. They save lives, but Boylston is a bit much, as is the Hammond Pond Parkway project. Four lanes to two lanes with un mountable curbs. How can emergency vehicles get through? No place to pull over in a breakdown and what about as a diversion or evacuation route? (When do they start work on the bridge?) Will people bike the HPP, or just couriers on gas and electric mopeds use it as a delivery route? On the happier side, I am over the moon for Gov. Walz!!! What a speech-giver. I’m a curmudgeon on the process, but I like the ticket!