Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced Wednesday that a new protected bike lane would be built into a stretch of Commonwealth Avenue that’s been prone to crashes. The initial reaction: bikers are happy, but some businesses say they’re worried about the impact on sales.
The seven blocks of Commonwealth Ave. between the B.U. Bridge and Packard’s Corner have seen more accidents involving bikes than any other part of town.
“It’s very nerve wracking,” said biker Justin Feng, who was on his way to work. “There’s just a lot of cars and it’s kinda scary.”
There are bike lanes along Commonwealth Ave., but they’re right next to the busy lanes of car traffic. Mayor Walsh says he biked around town to see for himself how scary it can be.
“Bicyclists have the same rights to be able to ride on the streets and roads as anybody else does,” said Walsh. “But it’s very dangerous.”
That’s why along those seven blocks, the city’s spending $6 million dollars to put in protected bike lanes, also known as cycle tracks.
Bikers will ride in a six and a half foot wide lane next to the sidewalk. On their other side will be a three-foot buffer, and then the parking lane. This separates bikers from the travel lanes, where the cars drive.
“Where they’ve installed cycle tracks in NYC, they’ve actually reduced all types of crashes,” said Pete Stidman, who is with the Boston Cyclists Union. “Not just the car and bike crashes, but the pedestrians getting hit and the car on car crashes. Because what it does is organize traffic, and people can predict better what’s going to be happening.”
At intersections where cars can turn right, through the bike lanes, small islands will force them to slow down and take a 90-degree turn, in an effort to reduce the most common kind of collision between cars and bikes.
Boston University student Yosmina Tuwheel says she’s happy to hear about the change: “This is actually my first city bike and this is my first day riding, so I’ve been very nervous the whole time, so a protective barrier would be awesome and make me feel way safer.”
The plan does mean a loss of one car lane and 75 parking spots in an area where parking is already tough. Walsh tried to calm the concerns of some businesses along Comm. Ave.
Said Walsh: “I think if you look at some of the studies around the country of where bike lanes went in, business actually increased.”
Dimitris Gantzoudis isn’t buying it. He’s the manager of the Pan Roma Pizzeria: “I don’t know who say that but doesn’t make any sense. If you can not park, how you going to come eat?”
Ben Stiller, the manager at the store Audio Concepts Boston, echoes that sentiment. “Obviously we’re concerned about the student safety and everyone else, and I do believe that the bike lanes do need some improvement. I just hope the cost of that is not too detrimental to the parking spaces around here,” Stiller said.
There’s at least one store along that stretch of Commonwealth where, even with the reduced parking, they’re a little more accepting of the change. And that’s Landry’s Bikes. Here is what Travis Dawson has to say:
“As many fewer spaces as there’s going to be, that’s going to put some strain on it. But I think the idea is you get more people moving slower with easier access to storefronts because the pedestrian aspect of it’s a lot easier.”
And that, he hopes, means more people walking, and biking, into the store.
Construction on the new bike lanes is expected to begin next year, and the city hopes to finish them by the fall of 2017.
