If the driver is facing North at a red light, trying to turn right to go East, the East-West crossing will likely tell pedestrians to go. A pedestrian on the Southeast corner of the intersection will attempt to go West, crossing in front of the driver attempting a Right Turn On Red. The driver is looking for Eastbound traffic coming from their left, and doesn’t notice the pedestrian crossing in front of them. I have been hit by drivers multiple times in this exact manner.

Cambridge Street has a lot of those signs

It’s not really that unpredictable though, is it? It’s already pretty common practice, enforcing stops would actually be seen as the change in policy.

It sucks for drivers who are patient and willing to wait for the light to change to green. Often I don't feel comfortable turning right on red (typically due to not having a full view of oncoming traffic), so I'll wait. I get honked at by cars behind me for doing this. It's nerve-wracking to have horns blaring at you when waiting for the light to change.

You have a reasonable hypothesis - unpredictable behavior is the key factor driving safety and bikes should always follow laws designed around cars.

The next step is to look at data.

Data shows that cyclists need to yield at busy intersections, but if it is safe to cross at a point in time, they should - red light or not. Less fatalities that way.

Green lights are still very dangerous and depending on the traffic at an intersection, red lights can be safer than green lights. Crossing an empty intersection at red or away from an intersection is safer for bikes and pedestrians than crossing a busy green light.

Unfortunately, when you are at a red light, you just don't know how busy the next green light will be.

Drivers can't follow the same logic because cars are the reason roads are dangerous. If you are in a car at a red light, there is at least one weapon at that red light (your car).

No problem, I was just trying for brevity, but are you really disputing that cars fail to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks? Have you been outside?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457598000268?via%3Dihub

springfieldmo.gov/4921/Crosswalk-Compliance-Studies

Don’t just say “studies” without citing them.

There are a large number of drivers who would never blatantly run a red light, but who routinely fail to yield to pedestrians. Drivers legally have to stop for pedestrians at all crosswalks, but how often does that happen? Studies show less than half the time.

Banning right on red turns "failing to yield" into "running a red light". That's why it makes people safer.

Maybe if every right turn on red involved pedestrians crossing then perhaps the congestion would be the same regardless of what enforcemment mechanism used, but that premise is pretty clearly false. More broadly, there are numerous street designs within and immediately adjacent to cambridge that require drivers to use careful judgement, often while being in motion, so why would we deprive drivers the ability to use that discretion here?

What was the reduction and where are those statistics?

Bikers don’t stop at red or stay in their bikes lanes and they’ve got earbuds in both ears. Pedestrians jaywalk. Plenty of examples of things not working in practice but right turn on red atleast allows smooth flow of traffic.

Until Cambridge hires a functioning police department, what's the point? If we compare driver behavior against Cambridge's Professional Sleeping Department's published citation data, it's already legal to go straight on red, do a 360 on red, drive drunk on red, drive in any direction you want on one-way streets, use the sidewalk as a driving surface, park in bike lanes, drive in separated bike lanes, etc etc. If these things were illegal, then we would see some citation data to back it up.

Without a police department, nothing is illegal. In fact, the police have even been driving in the wrong direction on Garden St's new one-way section when they think nobody's watching.

As long as there isn't an obstructed view, turning right on red is perfectly safe as long as you follow the law. But, again, until Cambridge hires a police department, why would anyone bother following the law?

The published data does not back up this claim. The accident rate is actually nearly zero. Honestly, that surprises me as well given how many drivers simply run reds even after the first couple of cars in cross traffic have already cleared the intersection.

Cyclists have full authority to be in an auto lane on a street.
Bike lanes are suggested but not mandatory for bikes.

Edit:

Mass General Laws Chapter 85, Section 11B.
Link:
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter85/Section11B

The only other one I can think of right now is Matignon rd -> Alewife Brook Parkway.

I strongly disagree with the idea that whether it is legal or not actually matters. All it changes is whether people do it or not. I doubt most drivers in the states where it is legal actually know about it.

That said, this is conjecture that I don't have direct evidence for. I searched and can't find evidence for or against. So in the interest of not arguing in circles, I'm going to leave it at that and stop replying here.

It's irrelevant because it isn't legal here. If you're doing it and nobody else knows, then it can't possibly be safer than following the law is.

You're correct that my perception that an Idaho Stop is safer is irrelevant. However, the linked study showing that it is safer is definitely relevant. I don't understand what you're missing here. The Wikipedia article is right there in my original comment, and the study is cited with a link in that article.

It seems like we're talking past each other. Drivers don't expect anyone to jump a light because that's illegal. Your perception of the safety of doing so is irrelevant. You don't see every car in every situation, so the expectation of drivers is important to your safety too. In general, drivers rely on the predictability of what's around them because of the inertia of a vehicle. Decisions have to be made in advance to keep everyone alive, and having the expectation that people are following the rules of the road is an important part of making those predictions. If you ever drove, I think this would be pretty intuitive to you.

I think it's safe because of that study cited in the Wikipedia article I linked. Do you have any counter-evidence?

> People don't expect anyone to jump the light.

I think you missed the key point. You wouldn't jump a stop sign when people are moving, so you don't jump the light in front of people who are moving. If you do, you're not doing an Idaho Stop. You're just being an idiot. The whole point is you only jump the light when there's nobody coming, and therefore nobody to surprise.

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That’s not how it’s practiced though. Cars roll right up into the crosswalk and get in everyone’s way.

I’m all about sustainability and the desire to make neighborhoods more livable, but the idea that cars aren’t still needed in a place like Cambridge requires a pretty extreme ignorance of what many people’s daily lives are like. Setting aside contractors and the need for trucks to get in and out to make deliveries, it’s also just the case that many of the people who work in the Cambridge area don’t live there or anywhere near it, because we can’t afford to. There’s lots of demand for manual labor of various kinds in the city, but nobody seems to consider that if those laborers want to be able to afford a family and a house, that requires moving 25+ miles away, and a schedule that totally rules out relying on the commuter rail. I grew up in Somerville and I work as an arborist out of Malden-most of our clients are in Cambridge. If I ever want to buy a house in the MA area, I’ll be forced to do what basically everyone else at my company has done past a certain age: move to NH or RI and commute every day. I’m fairly confident the same can be said for quite a few people who work in Cambridge. That’s obviously a broader problem and not one that can be solved at the municipal level, but at any rate I suppose that’s why I suspect this will remain an ongoing problem for the rest of our lives, or at least so long as Cambridge is a desirable and thereby unaffordable area and cars don’t fly.

Ok, but are we expecting all of the out of towners who drive through, plus locals who don’t keep track of local happenings, to know about the law change?

Seems like if anything it would make it more dangerous.

Its fucking awful. This city and Boston are so hostile pedestrians its not even funny.