The Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced today that it will add protected bike lanes on the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge as part of a winter trial involving signs and traffic barrels.

The number of lanes on each side will be reduced from two to one in order to slow down the driver-although the end lanes will remain two on each side to allow turning lanes. MassDOT said that the new markers and barrels will be in place by 5 AM on Monday.

If the pilot is successful, MassDOT will work with Boston and Cambridge to create more permanent solutions that will make the roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.

When we can't make the bike lanes properly remove snow from the road for cars, all these investments in bike lanes are the same. Ha ha! How will they remove snow from the American Legion Hwy bike path? I can see that these streets have become half lanes for cars and bicycles.

Somehow, the snowy winter cities in the EU seem to be able to cope. How do you plow a narrow driveway? You buy a truck that fits the above-mentioned lanes.

The average winter in Boston is not so much snow. On the day after the storm, the road is on the sidewalk 99.9% of the time.

The snow disaster in 2013 (?) is an outlier.

It's 2015. I always remember that because it was during/after the Super Bowl game against Seattle, people lost their minds to the fact that Boylston Street was plowed for a parade and the rest of Boston was knocked down.

I just remember shoveling the roof at the suburban food manufacturer where I worked because I didn’t want to die while on the phone.

I got married in October 2014, and the weather on the wedding day was so mild, so pure, and so perfect-in the autumn of New England, I swear that no matter how bad the winter is, I will not complain or groan.

Again, sorry, everyone.

Tip O'Neill has passed away and his funeral will be held in the church in North Cambridge, where he will be baptized, married, etc. Heads of state and former presidents plan to participate.

There is a problem: this is a record-breaking snowy winter, and we have just experienced a heavy snowfall. There are snowdrifts everywhere.

OSS told Cambridge DPW that all this must be done. No piles, nothing left.

Cambridge closed Mass Ave from Porter to Arlington overnight and cleared every piece of snow.

People began to wonder why they couldn't do more snow removal, sidewalk cleaning, etc. in normal times, as they did for that event.

There is no need to maintain minimum attendance records in the workplace to retain commuters who receive cost-effective medications.

good idea. We really want to drive 4x4 crane trucks.

Signed, stuck in my FWD car a few years ago. I'm sorry for being late, boss.

... During the rush hour of the snowstorm, it is cycling.

I know from years of experience.

But I do have a soft feeling, and I can walk in Boston from the first snow to the shovel.

If you suggest that they should not reduce lanes or do anything to help cyclists and pedestrians, I strongly disagree.

But I do agree that these protected lanes will get worse for everyone in the months with ice and snow. These lanes are not always plowed. When they were plowed, the snow did not turn into ice and became compacted until a day or two later. When it is plowed into a huge snowdrift, it is common to be trapped in one of the lanes, which will last for several months.

Last year, I drove hard on a protected driveway outside Harvard Square. It was plowed, but there was a strip of snow on the bollard part. When the sun is shining, the snow melts and flows to the side of the road. Then it turns into terrible black ice, untreated, much more dangerous than riding on the road.

I was also struggling downhill in Somerville under similar circumstances-a bike path that was not ice-treated even if it was plowed.

Like many cyclists, I will ride on the road when the "protected" lane is blocked. But when the road is narrow, the driver will not be kind to cyclists who do not use the protected lane. (Most drivers don’t know that lanes are impassable.) When choosing between a protected lane and a main road, it’s not always clear that the protected lane will be blocked.

So yes, they not only need to consider summer riders when planning these lanes. Winter in Boston is getting shorter and shorter, but it will continue for several months.

1) In 2015, MassDOT plowed snow into the bike lane and stayed there for the winter. Throughout March, the bike lane on the north side was a few feet thick of frozen mud, and there was not so much sunlight to melt it.

2) The advantage of this *very temporary* design is that it can be easily removed and replaced in the event of a heavy snowstorm. During the construction of Longfellow in 2015, MassDOT or its contractors will close the bridge during the worst storm, clear the snow, and then reopen the next day. In this case, they are likely to pull out all temporary markers, shovel all the snow, and then put the markers back in the case of heavy snow. I'm not sure if they will, but we must keep their feet from catching fire.

3) If the bike lane is impassable, then the rest of the bridge will not be at least a four-lane track, so you don’t have to share the lane with the 60-mile-per-hour Massholes. But let us hope we don't get to that point!

2015 is an outlier for all accounts, so I will give this area a pass. But every winter, they will use some protected lanes as snow storage. Last year, there was a huge pile at the corner of Comm Ave westbound and the BU Bridge to Cambridge. It lasted for several weeks. Cyclists who turn to the BU bridge or continue to A/B must get off and lift the bike, or make a rough merge on the snow.

They eventually deleted this, but it took several weeks. There are many similar cases throughout the region.

I am not opposed to the Harvard Bridge plan. I like the country’s idea of ​​removing bollards in winter to plow the ground. (It's impossible in a truly protected lane.) As a cyclist, I support anything that makes the road safer, provided that the actual DPW operation is realistic.

What really annoys me is that bicycle advocates reject complaints about these regulations from year-round cyclists in the winter. (See other comments on this thread.) Some advocates consider recreational riders in clear weather more than those who rely on bicycles for daily transportation.

These lanes often have problems when it is snowing and below freezing. If the cities in the area don't actually use bobcat plows, please don't talk about them. If it is untreated and often covered by black ice, please do not pretend that the plowed driveway can be used.

The real problem is the inconsistent design of the bicycle infrastructure. The road is consistent, and there is a reason.

When your bike lane is like 1/1000 of the bike infrastructure, you can't buy bike lane trucks. Therefore, good infrastructure will die.

I hope the situation will change under the leadership of the new mayor.

Again, the problem is not insufficient farming. It is the snow berm in the flex post buffer. After any major storm, after the general driveway is clean and dry, they will become WEEKS permanent black ice generators.

Although Cambridge has invested a lot of money and energy to clean up bike lanes, this has always been a big problem for Cambridge.

The road has a canopy, and the snow is plowed to the edge for a reason. There should be no driveway downhill from the snowdrift. Setting up bike lanes downhill in a non-cultivable buffer zone is a bad design.

They can make it work with existing underground utilities (you know, the correct spacing, etc.), maybe someone can design a flexible column base on top of the ditch. It's like straddling a drain pipe so that water can enter. Then when re-laying, tilt from the curb and vault to the flexible column line. And make the flexible column system easy to disassemble to clean the drain pipe.

The million-dollar idea now has to figure out how to make it and put it into practical use.

Hey! Because of "rebuilding better", federal funding is coming soon...

... I have no say in which part of the road I use. I always choose the safest section and the safest speed. If the driver objects, I will slow down, because being harassed means worse conditions require a slower speed.

In the decades I have been riding my bike in this way, I have never been hit or shot. Never fell on a bike path. I only fell twice in my life. One walked under the BU bridge on the wet board. One is on the black ice in the JP street. In both cases, I slipped and fell while turning without injury, and only mild pain the next day. Nothing will entice me to use unsafe bicycle lanes.

Yes, the lane next to the car parked on Mass Ave will be ignored and I will walk the entire lane.

… Especially those that are close to parked cars or things that contain gravel or other debris are nothing more than reminding the driver to use the road and misleading the driver in this regard, because some drivers really believe that cyclists are limited to These lanes. I only use them to pass stopped traffic, and then only pass at a speed that allows a quick stop with an open door or pedestrian going out. Although they do give the illusion of shrinking other lanes, they are almost a waste of paint. They are at best the pioneers of protected lanes.

I absolutely agree with the misleading part, and there are many people yelling at me because I use the lane or even turn left. I once had a car with a few middle-aged white men parked next to me on Mass Ave near Mapparium, where there were four lanes and a bike lane, and told me in detail how to ask me to be on the bike lane instead of just using it Another lane and leave and pay attention to their business.

However, a lane is better than nothing, especially if you are riding a bicycle with children, or if you are old, disabled, or have other reasons that make you ride very slowly. For kids who can’t ride at 12-15 mph, I don’t choose many routes, because when there is no bike lane, people will honk and shout that you can’t ride there, especially at 8- When traveling at 10 mph. There are several communities (Braintree and Waltham stand out), I have had quite big shoulders on roads with or without children, and when they don’t even need to do anything, many people honked their horns and shouted to get off anyway. Pass me safely. Although people will not remotely comply with the laws on bicycle lanes (municipal employees, postal workers and utility workers are some of the worst), and no municipality will enforce these laws remotely, they will not yell at people to stop cycling "If there are painted lanes, their "roads".

The speed is slow when there are passengers or cargo on the rear shelf. Or in heavy traffic. Unless the traffic stops, I still cannot ride on the unprotected lanes next to the parked cars. Like I said, I am often scolded. Murder threats and deliberate sweeps. I know they see me this way. They did not see me beside the parked car. In the decades of commuting throughout the Boston area, he has never been hit, never visited, never hooked. In the past few decades, I have seen many changes in driver behavior and cyclists’ perceptions. There is no correct way to ride a bicycle on city streets. Everyone does what suits them best. I am very happy that these types of lanes exist, it is better than nothing, and they are indeed useful for some people. They just don't suit me. Travel safely!

But this annoyed me how they switched each half between the fully protected and inadequately protected elastic columns, and "we drew a stripe".

This is one of the many routes that my middle school students can safely walk alone, except for some places where UPS trucks and carpools stopped on the bike lane and would not move when we rang the bell to them. Yesterday, when I cycled home from Somerville, I counted. There were 9 occupied vehicles on the Mass Ave bike lane in Cambridge, 10 in Boston, and 2 unmanned/unmanned vehicles in Boston. Moving vehicles seem to use it as a parking space. The city can make a fortune by enforcing bicycle lane laws.

Another thing that makes me angry is Columbus Avenue. They are protected by car lanes, but the bike lanes plus stripes are wide enough that cars can (and do) drive into the bike lane for "just one minute" or sometimes stop, especially in winter. They can post some posts and solve this problem easily, but they don't.

Literally, just dump the snow from Charles here. This is easy to solve.

...And the wild and docile life of using it.

is there any other reason?

A lot of garbage has accumulated in the snow, and we don't want to push them into the river or the ocean. See here for more information.

https://twitter.com/BostonPWD/status/1201849568394170373

Is it perfect and cleared immediately? No, but it is much better than the situation where unprotected lanes have basically turned into parking spaces in the past few years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I lived in Bridgewater for a few years, they had a better machine to clean the sidewalk. Unlike the baby plow, it can actually go through a snowdrift.

It's basically a snow blower the size of a Bob cat.

Honestly, it may be a game changer and be used more for sidewalks and clearing curbs to meet often overlooked accessibility needs.

It is hoped that the Wu government is truly committed to better snow removal, not just focusing on roads, and taking other infrastructure as an afterthought.

Please also note: People who ride bicycles also pay taxes. Drivers are not priority or special.

Plowing snow into the bicycle lane is a reasonable use of resources. In any case, most bicycles will not be used in winter.

How many people do not use bicycles in winter because the bicycle infrastructure is terrible in winter?

(In Finland or other Scandinavian countries, they just pile up snow, throw gravel on it, and then people ride bicycles. Love it.)

This is an apple: Apple compares the same infrastructure at different times of the year.

Even in winter without snow, there are fewer bicycles on the same road compared to spring, summer or autumn. Pointing to Europe has not changed this fact.

When the path is mostly ice-free, there is a small but very present daily commuting team at Pierre Lallement, Mass Ave and Paul Dudley throughout the winter.

A bigger problem than icing is that when the temperature is below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, the number of bicycle lanes used by motor vehicle operators as parking lots increases dramatically. They believe that bicycle lanes are only suitable for seasonality.

...All those who are committed to illegal parking on bicycle lanes.

If you claim that they do not need to be cleaned in winter because they do not take up space, then I think you have no problem with their existence.

Also need bus lanes, as soon as possible

Bus lanes should be given priority. They carry more people, more kinds of people.

Respond to this and made some comments below...

This is a lot of initial discussions about this: how do we do this, and how we do not improve transportation efficiency in the short term, and improve it in the long term.

Short-term: We need to ensure that there is enough queuing space at each end of the bridge so that the lights can handle enough vehicles so that the bus will not get stuck in the long traffic flow. Now sometimes there are traffic disasters (especially around the Fenway race, which has been over for a while) and because of downstream congestion, no matter how many lanes there are, traffic will flow backwards across the bridge. But this was done extremely quickly (the BCU petition was sent to the state government less than three weeks ago), and the only thing they could think of was road food/traffic calm. Traffic lights and even lane markings (this time of the year) take longer to purchase.

So this is a temporary condition this winter, and it is expected to make bicycle conditions better, or at least not to make buses worse. Traffic is down 10% from the last time it was many years ago, maybe 20% from before the epidemic, which is very helpful.

We hope that the following three steps will be planned this winter and implemented next spring:

1) Retime traffic lights. Now, the traffic light time is terrible, especially at the Cambridge end. There are three lights within about 400 feet. Two of them are operated by Cambridge and one is operated by DCR (the bridge is MassDOT, and there is Beacon Street light Boston BTD, so there are four agencies within half a mile; welcome to Boston). These three lights have different cycles (110 seconds for Mem Drive, 75 seconds for Amherst St, and 80 seconds for Big Crosswalk) and are the cause of most reversing outside the bridge: the car may run a red light at each red light, causing The queue and crosswalk from Amherst returned to the bridge.

In any case, there is a solution. Mem Drive's lighting is very inefficient. If you look at it, you will see that for about 20 seconds, basically nothing happened. No one turns right, no one goes straight, just a waste of time. It might be shortened to 85 or 90 seconds, which will closely match nearby lights (or at least, close enough to set them all to the same period and synchronize them, and optimize them for traffic flow). This also means that today, people who ride bicycles or walk along the river have to wait 85 seconds to cross Mass Ave.

2) In addition to the traffic light time, the major safety issue that needs to be addressed is the right-handed traffic movement of cars crossing bicycle lanes. Considering the number of bicycles and right-turn traffic, under the bridge at both ends, this will cause thousands of conflicts and potential collisions every day (not accidents, it is designed to have collisions). With signal retiming, it is possible to add exclusive phases to turning motions and through motions, so the car can drive more confidently without worrying about the bicycle* ahead, and the turning traffic will flow faster.

3) And... the bus. After resetting the time of the traffic light, you can use the right turn cycle to add a bus queue jump. Therefore, if the general traffic flow accumulates in the left lane, the bus can join the right turn, and then directly enter the queue jump box (at the Cambridge end, there is enough extra space above Memorial Avenue) and lead the car. There are no bus lanes and safe bicycle infrastructure on the bridge. The only way to even approach is to convert one of the existing lanes to a bus lane, but that either means that buses—about 30 buses per hour on the bridge—are close to the cyclist, or if the lane is In the center, all general traffic in the lane next to cyclists, the lane will not be protected. The only way to gain protection is to reduce traffic in the lane. But it doesn't matter, the volume allows.

So, tl;dr: Yes, bus, I hope next spring.

* Before you yell at me, yes, bicycles break the law and run red lights, yes, so are cars. Yes, they do. There may be a dozen along the Southwest Corridor tonight, unless I see something. Making bicycle infrastructure safer may make bicycles perform better, so you may see fewer people running through red lights. Especially if the turning vehicle has a green light in the lane.

Why should we consider repairing traffic lights now? They only got their current configuration three years ago, when they came in through the bike lane and bus lane of MIT. Didn’t anyone realize that lights with different bicycle lengths would be a disaster, especially when reducing the number of ordinary lanes?

it's great! Now what if we make the second lane only close to each end of the bridge bus?

Only make buses for the entire lane. Add more buses.

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