Where is the bike lane on Belmont Street and Trapelo Road?
It looks like final striping was done recently and what was painted does not deserve to be called a bike lane.
All along we were told buffered bike lanes were required by federal guidelines (because of the 90% federal funding). What is there now looks like the buffer only buffer only, no lane, as only about 1 foot of the space is outside of the door zone. There is no space for a buffered bike lane in most places because vehicle lanes are very wide, there are many areas where there are 2 lanes in one direction and space was wasted on very generous left side buffers (over 1 foot) around the center islands.
This design is not going to encourage anyone who is worried about car traffic to ride a bike.
Very disappointing.
Bicycle decals still to go down in the bike lane! The job is not over yet. That is the last step.
I agree that the lane is a little narrow in some places.
What a disaster. Is anyone going to cut the weeds already growing in the medians which are poorly makers and going to be very dangerous in the snow and dark.
But the worst is the bike lanes or rather the complete lack of bike lanes let alone protected lanes. Why would you ever allow this deliberate traffic confessing road to be built? What were you thinking? Now Watertown is trying to figure out ways to reduce the number of cars on the road? How about building great, safe bike lanes. The blame for the inevitable and preventable bike accidents is yours. Where was your advocacy? Bike decals
What is the latest on the bike lanes on Trapelo? The striping is down but there is only one stripe for the bike lane. The parking spots are marked for cars but there is no “second stripe” to indicate the bike lane – parking stripes are not the same as bike lanes. It is actually more dangerous now for the bike even though the traffic is slower and more controlled in many areas; there is a real squeeze throughout. The worst area of confusion though I have experienced is the stretch from Payson Park Church heading toward Moozy’s – the cars drive in the bike lane and parking areas and drive FAST! There are never any cars parked so it appears like an extra lane. I had my hopes up, but I’m avoiding Trapelo entirely now, it feels worse on a bike now – better walking but scary biking. And, where I might have popped up on the sidewalk for a safety escape, there are now large electric boxes poorly placed throughout the project. There is much good, but the bike lanes – lack of adequate space and definition – are a huge error.
HI Kate,
I agree it’s not great. But I ride that stretch all the time myself and I feel much safer than I used to.
I am a little disappointed by the bike decals that are going down. They don’t send much of a message — smaller than I expected.
I’ll be following up with the engineers on this.
What a disaster. Is anyone going to cut the weeds already growing in the medians which are poorly makers and going to be very dangerous in the snow and dark.
But the worst is the bike lanes or rather the complete lack of bike lanes let alone protected lanes. Why would you ever allow this deliberate traffic confessing road to be built? What were you thinking? Now Watertown is trying to figure out ways to reduce the number of cars on the road? How about building great, safe bike lanes. The blame for the inevitable and preventable bike accidents is yours. Where was your advocacy?
Bike decals? That’s the best you can come up with? A little narrow in places? I know who I’m not voting for.
Evidence is that painted bike lanes that sandwich cyclists between parked cars and fast-moving traffic don’t encourage cycling much. Meanwhile, a protected bike lane typically increases bike traffic by 75% in its first year. We can do better, and paint can change relatively cheaply. But we have to be willing to sacrifice some right of way used by automobiles. Time to reclaim our streets! http://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics/category/facilities-statistics
Folks, I come from the same place as all of you on this issue.
I would have much preferred to see protected bike lanes on Trapelo.
The challenge on Trapelo is the huge number of curb cuts. It is very different from Concord Avenue or Western Avenue. The engineering concensus when it was discussed during the design phase was that it is not workable.
From a cyclist perspective, I cannot say that is the wrong conclusion. Being on a protected bike lane sandwiched between parked cars and the sidewalk, one is less visible. Where there are a lot of turning movements, I really think a striped bike lane is safer.
Boston has done a great job working the protected bike lane into the designs for the new Comm Ave project west of the BU bridge. But even there, you have longer stretches of straight curb.
The only segment of Trapelo that really lends itself to the protected design would be in front of Oakley.
Right or wrong in our conclusion, we really did give the idea of protected bike lanes a run in this design process.
My comment was not about a protected bike lane. I am questioning why the bike lane that was built is so poor that it essentially does not deserve that name. I rode the corridor, it feels like there is less space for bikes now, people drive much closer to bikes because they feel entitled to “their” lane, and speeds are up by a lot.
I also disagree with your logic about building protected bike lanes since it would prevent building them in almost all of Boston and would allow them to be built mostly on quiet, wide streets, which need the lanes the least.
Ultimately this is a political choice. Some space will have to be shared between people who drive and people who bike, in the areas where space is hard to come by because those are the areas where people on bikes need the most protection. I for my part would like it if people could reach my business in Cushing Square by bike without fearing for their life and without having to take large detours through side streets.
As a personal note: I had 3 (!) close calls this morning while biking to Boston and back, all in areas with no or poor bike infrastructure. I would like to be able to tell you that this was an unusual day but that is unfortunately not the case.
I would like to live in a place where a simple thing like riding my bike does not feel like combat.
Possibly they are going faster on Common, but truly, I really believe that cars are going much slower on Trapelo/Belmont than they were before construction started. We can probably do some measurements on that. We’ll see whether accident rates go down — it was always the most dangerous part of town.
It’s not perfect but it is what is. Speaking as someone who commutes by bike all year round, I personally feel vastly safer on it than I did before.
Every road is a compromise between competing users. It’s not exactly what anyone wants, but by any fair evaluation, it is much better now for pedestrians and cyclists than it was before construction started some years ago.
I actually prefer it as a driver too — the traffic is much calmer than before construction started.