Have they considered how much car drivers would benefit from being able to use this cut-through to 2? Cambridge Streets for ALL dammit!

They’re planning on turning it into a private parking lot for ClarkFable

Which really makes the screeching from car people about bikers paying to fix the roads comical. Sure, I’ll contribute the fractions of a penny of road wear and tear that I cause.

The city has had explicit policy since the early naughts to reduce car usage.

You can absolutely speak to the speed in Cambridge: the citywide speed limit is 25, but most roads are 20 MPH.

The whole point of my actions is to be safer. If there’s no bike lane, I need to take the main lane to be safe from being doored by drivers getting out of parked cars, which is a far greater risk than moving traffic behind me.

I’m also legally entitled to the entire lane.

Drivers speeding is a near-constant. So again: it doesn’t matter if I take the lane and am going 20 MPH myself, nobody driving should be conflicting with me b/c they shouldn’t be going faster than me.

Said another way: being directly in front of a car is the safest place I can be if there’s no bike lane. I’m at my most visible directly in front of a driver. If I’m to the side? Less visible, and in the door zone for parked cars.

It’s not a game of chicken when we’re all going the same direction.

You’re misunderstanding my point, which is that I can obey every law to a T, and I will endure drivers flagrantly breaking laws in ways that society has decided are completely acceptable.

So if we’ve all decided road laws are optional as a society, why am I being held to a higher standard as a cyclist, even though my behavior is far less risky than a driver?

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Anyone know if they’re planning to turn that abandoned bus charging lot into park space? It’s near that tiny lot, where the new condos are going up.

Heck, I've biked it on the weekends for pleasure and even I kept having to nearly come to a complete stop behind someone walking in order to wait for a clear spot to pass them. Just make it a bit wider so cyclists can go zoom without having to dodge pedestrians! As a pedestrian I always try to make room for cyclists, but sometimes there just isn't any way. :(

I can't really debate you on the speed limits on particular roads on which you've experienced this, not knowing really anything other than what you claim. I just think what you're doing is wildly not-smart and your misdirection into this little vignette makes clear that safety is not what you've really optimized on when cycling. You're having a game of chicken with a two ton object, which seems unwise. I can see how this is causing you conflicts on the road and how you would get upset, but I fear you're just being quite immature about the whole thing.

Can they improve the light cycle across Mass Ave at the end of this in the process, as well? The bike light cycle works well.

Are you aware that there’s no such thing as “blocking the road with your bicycle”? It’s been mentioned elsewhere in the comments, but if there’s no bike lane, cyclists are legally entitled to the entire main travel lane.

So your point here is invalid. Also, if I’m going 20 MPH, there shouldn’t be any conflicts, since I’m going the speed limit.

So I can’t be “blocking a car lane” since I’m traveling at the legal speed limit.

If a car is going faster than me, they’re breaking the law, which is the very thing you’re railing against, and doing so in a fashion that’s far more dangerous & deadlier than if I break the law on my bike.

I went biking through at like 6pm once and for half of it I may as well have been walking. It is still very pleasant and much preferred to being on the street, but I could see someone using it for commuting at rush hour getting impatient after a while.

If you're blocking a car lane with your bicycle on a road, you're making a huge mistake. That's not safe or smart, and I'm not surprised you run into conflicts with drivers if you cycle around with that competitive attitude about space on the road. This conflict you're having with heavy moving objects makes very little sense.

Very true. At least one thing can be said for prioritizing this: it's likely politically easy. I imagine it's also pretty cheap. Since it's not disrupting car traffic there's no opposition from angry drivers, and there's no need to pay signalers all the time.

I can only imagine what an undertaking a proper Assembly connection would be. That whole area is a transit island full of missed opportunities. The parking to non-parking ratio is absolutely bonkers, the T station is poorly integrated and annoying to use, and the area is shockingly difficult and uncomfortable to navigate on foot.

The difference is when I break the law while cycling, I’m increasing my safety. If it isn’t making me safer, I’m not doing it.

Until we fix the normalization of scofflaw driving (it’s not enforced many times b/c the enforcers consider those behaviors normal & act the same way, even when they’re working a shift doing enforcement).

I’ve had folks scream at me for obeying the law while cycling, punish pass me b/c I’m going to the speed limit (20 MPH) and am in front of them, and lots more antisocial, dangerous, & sometimes illegal behavior.

Pointing at scofflaw cyclists is a distraction & takes away from the need to solve the much more pressing and more dangerous illegal & antisocial behavior most drivers exhibit.

I have in the past and even put it in the “neighborhood ideas” budget thing Cambridge offers. I’m no longer a Cambridge resident though so have far less of a stake/say these days, but it’s a great call out!

You can write to council@cambridgema.gov and citymanager@cambridgema.gov to suggest it.

I think this is a totally accurate take. And, couldn't agree more. I guess I'm coming from the place of opportunity-cost thinking. The value -add of going wider here (and even doing this project at all given the current conditions are sufficient - they need a lot of work. But I feel 100% safe riding with my kids currently) isn't nearly as important as creating new infrastructure (like safely connecting Assembly to Alewife along the mess of paths along 16 or accelerating/more aggressively improving any of the street projects currently going etc).

Let's cross the "need to make an off street path bigger bc use is so high that people don't use it" when we get there and use those funds now for all the areas we know people are being killed and many more people aren't riding at all bc of the actual safety reality.

It's in pretty rough shape. Not due to damage from the weight of bicycles, but due to natural decay, lack of maintenance, and/or inadequate durability when originally built. https://goo.gl/maps/bq7XHhJvfkJWPHvw7

How often are streets repaved in this area?

The policy is that there are no “beg buttons” for pedestrian crossings, except at mid-block crossings, to ensure pedestrians always get an opportunity to cross during each light cycle.

This very thing happened to me this past weekend on Cedar St walking up to Highland Ave.

Because thanks to how cars are constructed, you can’t see if nobody is coming in all directions, all the time.

I’ve nearly been right-hooked plenty of times while crossing a street on foot by a driver who didn’t even bother looking to the right while waiting to turn.

That happened just this past weekend while I was walking up Cedar St to Highland Ave with my pregnant wife. Had they been a little harder on the gas pedal we’d be injured or dead right now.

I see folks blow the crossing at Cedar & the Community Path daily, and they can very clearly see folks on the Path coming up to the crossing.

Common sense quite simply doesn’t exist when driving for a host of reasons, so the smartest thing is to heavily regulate the most dangerous behaviors, even if it seems foolish sometimes.

Please. There's no mob on the internet arguing that drivers are right to break traffic laws, or that tax cheats are right to lie on their returns, or that landlords are right to do construction without permits, etc., etc. There are many self-interested behaviors in society that are prevalent, but nobody is standing up claiming to be righteous in breaking the law for selfish purpose... Except one guy who lives in Florida and won't STFU.

Vehicle weight

>Vehicle weight is a measurement of wheeled motor vehicles; either an actual measured weight of the vehicle under defined conditions or a gross weight rating for its weight carrying capacity.

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> It also sounds like the path hasn't been repaved since it was built 35 years ago. If that's true, that really speaks to the efficiency of spending on bike and pedestrian infrastructure

Road wear is proportional to roughly the forth power of axel weight. So compared to a car, bicycles basically don't cause any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_weight#cite_ref-13