I could almost have the most glorious route home – stopping along the dedicated bike lane on Cambridge Street to go to the fishmonger’s, the green grocer’s, and the Italian bakery – supporting these local businesses and providing my family fresh food. Then I’d head down to pick up the Esplanade to ride along the river and then across town to my home… It’s almost idyllic, world-class even, except for the section by the Museum of Science which is the scariest cycling I’ve ever done in my life.

This is the only place in all of Boston where I always ride on the sidewalk, due to the absolute visceral terror of being in the six lane road with freeway-speed cars. In the summer I don’t even try this route – the sidewalks are filled with distracted tourists enjoying our fair city, as is their right, and even getting off and walking with a bike is a hassle to them (and me) as there’s just no room.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, and the DCR could fix all that! They’re even having a public meeting about it on Monday. I was very saddened to learn from MassBike that:

It is vital that bicyclists be well-represented at this meeting, as it appears that the DCR plans to shunt bicycles onto a narrow shared-use path rather than including bike lanes on the road.

We already have a narrow shared-use path and it doesn’t work at all! Please come out and help support the development of a viable bicycle infrastructure in Boston. Please?

Arrow points to the drawbridge in question.

Photo Credits: Google Street View

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm and is filed under chiccyclist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.