Centre/South Street Transportation and Streetscape Action Plan
Citizens’ Advisory Group
Meeting, January 28, 2010
The process of redesigning Centre and South Streets in JP is becoming more interesting, and we need more and more bicyclists to show up! The next meeting date is not yet set, but should be in the end of February or beginning of March. I will post it on the JP Bikes Google group when I know. If you are interested in attending and/or helping with gathering support for bike lanes (maybe in the form of a petition and/or letters), please email me at lockene@mac.com.
At last night’s meeting the main questions were where and how (and if) bike lanes can exist between Forest Hills and Jackson Square, and which “nodes” along the Centre/ South corridor will get major redesigns.
The consultant group (MacMahon) and Vineet Gupta, chief planner for the BTD, are ready to put in bike lanes from Monument Square all the way to South Huntington, on both sides of the road. This is the stretch of Centre Street, fortunately long and central, where the road width is enough to accommodate the minimum standard of 10.5 feet for cars driving, 5 feet for bike lanes, and 7 feet for cars parked. There was some discussion of actually taking out one lane of parking so that we could have bike lanes as well as wider sidewalks. The question of taking out parking will be a big one for the ends of the corridor (the Monument to Forest Hills, and South Huntington to Jackson Square), where the road width is generally not enough for bike lanes given the current parking. The planners are going to show us proposals for these possibilities at the next meeting.
In general bicyclists who have come to the meetings have supported bike lanes. Last night there was one bicyclist voicing dissent.
The question of giving up car parking in order to have bike lanes in these two areas, and possibly to have bike lanes and wider sidewalks in JP Center, is going to become heated. Many merchants are very concerned that less parking will mean less business (though there are studies showing otherwise in some areas), and they are concerned for their livelihoods. Similarly, many consumers and residents will come out to the meetings when they feel that their convenient parking is threatened. Therefore we will need as many advocates of non-automobile transit as possible to show up at the meetings this winter and spring!
The designers also laid out several possible plans for the two “nodes” that we approved last time, Hyde Square (the rotary) and Monument Square. In both cases they laid out drawings that shrink the asphalt acreage considerably, giving far more public space and trees, and shorter pedestrian crossings. The BRA will soon post the designs for comment at http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/Planning/PlanningInits.asp (go to number 38).
The other two “nodes” they proposed were the Jackson Square Stop and Shop area up to Mozart Park, and JP Center. Several people suggested that instead of JP Center they should look at the vast asphalt space of Canary Square (by 7 – Eleven/South Huntington) and there was also discussion of South Street as a node to focus on for redesign. It sounds like they will show us plans for at least one of those areas, or possibly both, next time.
Expect to see article on this meeting in the JP Gazette and the Boston Bulletin, in their next editions.
Lauren Ockene
3:56 pm on January 29th, 2010
thanks for the update. i would’ve come if I’d known about it. can you post the next meeting date on this blog, so that those of us on Boston Biker can see it? I ride from Westwood through JP to East Cambridge and would love to see more bike lanes.
10:26 am on February 4th, 2010
I was the voice of dissent Lauren mentioned. However, two others at the meeting also expressed concern about getting doored when in bike lanes.
Most of the proposed bike lanes would not be safe to ride in at any speed above 5 mph. You need to be at least 11′ away from the curb when there are parked cars to be completely out of the Door Zone. The proposed parking lane (7′) + bike lane (5′) together are 12′. So only the last 1′ of the bike lane is a safe place to ride. But most people, especially the new riders who we hope to attract, will ride in the middle of the lane — smack in the door zone.
(Note about Hampshire St [Cambridge] Study: this only showed that putting in a line dividing parking from travel lane on a narrow st made bicyclists think they could move a little left, since they would not be in the official ‘car lane’. It did not however pull many of them FAR ENOUGH out to be outside of the door zone.)
Moreover, through most of this area, and especially Green St to the Monument, traffic moves at less than bike speed most of the day. The bike lane would encourage cars to stay left and encourage unwary bicyclists to pass on the right — even though cars can and do turn right at any time to enter a side street, driveway, or parking space. That’s how you actually get hit, not from behind!
The city & state should do a lot more to tell people that bicyclists have equal rights to the road. Too many people believe that bicyclists should not be in the way (but feel free to block everyone when making a left turn or waiting for parking in your car!). But if you want to do a special treatment for bicyclists in a commercial district with lots of parking turnover and little street space, than make bike stencils in the lane, just like Corinth St in Roslindale Square. IT ALREADY IS A BIKE LANE, as much as it is a car lane or a truck lane or a motorcycle lane!
I could be wrong, but I don’t think people will support removing any substantial amount of parking in this corridor to put in bike lanes. In my nearly 18 years of experience in Boston, I have only seen on-street parking removed 3 times: Huntington Ave near the MFA and Wentworth, a few blocks of Mass Ave near MIT, and, more recently, N. Harvard St near the Harvard Business School. These cases demonstrate the rule: removing on-street parking will be acceptable only when the sole abutters are large institutions with off-street parking. That circumstance doesn’t exist in this corridor.
I advocate parking prohibitions from 7 am to 9 am on the inbound side and 4 pm to 6 pm on the outbound side, with the parking lane reserved at those times for buses, bikes, and right turns. In the morning, at least, the removal of parking would not conflict with businesses, since few are open. It would make cycling much easier at the busiest times, and would greatly speed buses. And motorists would merge into to the right lane to make a right turn — eliminating the right hook danger for bicyclists — since it would actually be a lane big enough for motor vehicles and since if they did otherwise they would be crushed by a bus.
I also think we should (restore) metered parking to increase turnover, decrease double-parking, make driving slightly less attractive, and to create a fund for neighborhood and streetscape improvements. However, earmarking any part of even new parking meter revenues for any one purpose is VERBOTEN in Boston, at least under the current Mayor.