In response to a motion in Traffic Council to make permanent a trial removal of parking on Walnut Street (south of Beacon to Forest), Alderman Jay Ciccione said:
If we’re going to start doing this [remove the parking permanently], then I say we take away parking on every street in the city. Simple as that. I just don’t think it’s fair. You’ve got people who’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for homes and were able to park in front of their homes and now you’re going to take away their ability to be able to have — as they said — a landscaper come.
Jay’s full comment is short (under 2 minutes) and worth listening to in its entirety. (The motion passed 4-1, with Jay the lone nay vote.)
Jay raises many of the commonly held objections to removing lightly used parking to create room for bike lanes. He’s comprehensive, coherent, and impassioned. But, he’s on the wrong side on this issue. The comment is particularly timely because Public Safety & Transportation, a committee Jay chairs, is taking up a Traffic Council policy statement on bikes and on-street parking this evening.
The roads are a public asset. Buying an abutting home does not give you any claim or right to the use of the city right-of-way. Nor, does it insulate you from changes to the right-of-way that have an impact on your home’s value. And, is it even clear that the availability of on-street parking has an impact on property values? Around the corner on Beacon between Walnut and Centre, no parking is allowed. Property owners seem to be doing fine.
Having occasional access to on-street parking is not an illegitimate claim. The question is how strong that claim is when there are competing claims. The competing claims on Walnut St. are safety (generally) and bicycle accommodations (and safety of bicyclists). Bike advocates have long agitated for safe bicycle accommodations on Walnut St., a key corridor for all travel. But, it was local residents concerned about safe car travel and pedestrian crossings that instigated this particular request to remove parking.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), full bike lanes cannot co-exist with legal parking, even if only occasional. It’s a regulatory restriction. If the city were to allow parking to accommodate landscapers or occasional visitors, it could not provide the full measure of safety to bikers that bike lanes provide. Without the full measure of safety that bike lanes provide, many bicyclists won’t use the route.
Ultimately, the first priority for the allocation of the right-of-way ought to be transport: cars, bikes, and pedestrians moving from one place to another. Not storage. Providing occasional storage for abutters on Walnut St. would prevent the use of the road by bicyclists in higher numbers.
As for Jay’s comment about taking parking away on all Newton streets, I can’t wait until he sees the bicycle plan currently in draft form. On-street parking is only an issue on main corridors and a handful of routes to high-priority destinations (like NSHS and the south-side middle schools). On less busy streets, the expectation is that cars and bikes and parked cars can get along fine.
@Sean – thank you for posting this. I really appreciated Jay’s comments during the meeting. I do feel at times that the only voices heard are those of the bikers and while I feel biking is a good idea bike lanes are not the answer to all traffic problems. Ideally those involved in making decisions on transportation would look at the larger issue that includes bike safety, car safety, pedestrians safety and the needs of people to visit various areas of Newton with temporary storage for their vehicle.
I like riding a bicycle – I would like to see bike lanes everywhere – but not for the harm to homeowners and visitors to the city.
It always astounded me that the city’s attitude to parking is polarly different from that of the successful commercial entities. For example, big shops in Newton have parking spaces for their customers – but no-one of them uses parking meters at its parking. Why? Because no-one of them wants to scare customers off its business.
And what does the City of Newton do? Does it scare the people off the city with parking meters and bans on parking? Yes, the City does. For the sake of little parking fee income the City worsens the people’s sentiment about the city, and thus drives the real estate prices down together with the real estate tax return and, as a result, loses a lot of income.
I believe that Alderman Jay Ciccione is right – he wisely connected parking with hundreds thousands of dollars for homes.
Mr. Roche, owners may not have a right to parking, but they do have an expectation and have enjoyed a convenience some perhaps for quite a long time. Blithely shrugging off the concerns of folks like these is typical of the manner in which you advocate for issues you favor, which frankly is a shame. An approach that might be preferable would be to find a way of compensating those who are on the loosing end of the proposition. Maybe there is something short of continued parking that could be done for these people by the city at least on a temporary basis to acknowledge their loss. Surely the braintrust that is the BOA can find some way of bridging the divide.
I don’t feel strongly one way or the other about this issue. However, eliminating parking where it once existed diminishes the value of the surrounding homes. The city is obligated to lower the assessed value of each of those homes. That’s something that should be addressed by the Assessors Office immediately. If the city does not take that action, each of the homeowners should apply for an abatement.
Alderman Ciccone is Right.
Mike,
You’d have to establish that removing on-street parking actually decreases the market value. I’m not so sure that it would. Do you think the homes on Beacon between Walnut and Centre have lower comparables because they have no on-street parking?
Sean– The comparison to any other location is entirely irrelevant. The impacted residences had an amenity that existed when those properties were purchased. If the amenity is subsequently eliminated by the city, that translates to lesser value. Admittedly the difference may be marginal. But I think it’s hard to argue eliminating the amenity has zero impact on value.
Guys, those big lots that have non-metered parking also have aggressive tow policies to patrol it. Something is needed to insure parking turnover. Meters are your friend, not your enemy. Otherwise each business would have separate spots and a random tow policy to enforce.
As for the value of the homes, I think the only ones that *MIGHT* lose value is if they didn’t have a spot to park on their own property.
If we have any realtors reading this perhaps they can weigh in on the value parking in front of a property has on marketing that property and whether or not they would think the homes along this stretch of Walnut (between Beacon and the fountain) would be more desirable to a new buyer, with or without street parking.
This issue isn’t hard to solve. You give the home owners one or two “parking cards” that allow the owner to have a contractor, landscaper, etc. to park in front of their homes.
I can’t imagine that property values would go down as a result of this regulation. If a property doesn’t have off-street parking, then that’s already figured into the price people will pay for it. You say tomato, I say tomahto, but in my mind a more aesthetically pleasing Walnut St. increases the value of a home. As a fairly recent home buyer who spent a year looking for a house, we wouldn’t have considered a home that had cars parked all day in front of it. We’d find the address of a house on sale, look on Zillow/Trulia for info, drive by, and go on to the next property if it had a major (for us) downside like a line-up of cars in front of it.
Really Jane? You say tomahto? We’ve known each other for years and I never thought of you as the tomahto type. Huh.
Unfortunately, there is likely no way to know precisely the value of on street parking for these exact homes. After all, what valid experiment could be performed? Mr. Roche’s unsubstantiated claim that there is no impact seems a bit self serving. Jane’s suggestion that parking cards be allowed kind of goes against the parking ban. After all, if the city has determined that it is unsafe to park on the street and if a bike lane is put in, then how can the city allow contractors (with their awful, evil, polluting, leaf blowers) park on the street? Give the owners some reasonable tax abatement for some period of time say 5 or ten years and be done with it.
Is this even that much of an issue? I’d be curious to see how close many of the street-fronts affected are to side streets where parking is still going to be legal. I can say that as a biker parked cars are a bit of a menace. On major thoroughfares, if someone opens a door AND another car is overtaking you on the left that is literally a life-threatening situation. I think I speak for most bikers when I say that all we want to know is that there are a few major streets that connect into the larger network of smaller ones on which we can ride safely. Less-crowded streets have no problem with cars as it is simply too unlikely for the situation I identified above to happen.
@Ben – you may be on to a reasonable solution. In cases where parking is removed the city can make accommodations to remove the parking restrictions on adjacent side streets. In this case on one end of the new parking banned area we have a side street (Carthay Circle) with resident only parking and on the other end no parking and 1&2-hour only parking.
My concern/objection to how these decisions are being made is the everything is done on a “block by block” basis without a broad consideration of the needs of the larger community.
With all this combustion, I have to believe we can find some reasonable accommodation that will be fair to affected homeowners and still preserve the safety features that I feel are central to the ban. I supported the parking ban because I became convinced that it was causing a number of hazards affecting pedestrians, homeowners with hidden driveways, and drivers trying to access Walnut Street from the numerous side streets that intersect with it. Now that we have done it, let’s keep looking for ways to improve and refine the issue. This is merely the end of the beginning.
Sean is self-serving and selfish because he personally likes to bicycle. There are now bike lanes in many places in Newton. Yet one sees very few bicyclists. And, often when you do, they are not even in the bike lane, but are out in the street anyway, many riding side-by-side so they can talk to each other. The bike lanes have been a nuisance, reducing the driving space, and an imposition on the vast majority who don’t use them. And they aren’t really so safe for the bicyclists.
I know someone who lives on Chestnut St. in a portion which is too narrow for on-street parking for visitors (without a bike line) and it’s a real negative in thinking about purchasing a home.
Barry goes personal:
I’m an unabashed bike advocate, and readers should take that into account when reading my posts and comments. But that doesn’t make me self-serving.
I’m happy riding in traffic. Personally, I can take or leave bike lanes. For years I’ve ridden on roads without them, including Walnut St. When necessary I ride through the circle of death, on Route 9, &c. The presence or absence of bike lanes isn’t going to have one iota of impact on my travel decisions.
I’m for bike lanes because I think more biking is good for our community and I know that there are lots of people without my experience or tolerance for risk who won’t ride without accommodations. Most of the bike advocates in Newton have been working for years on projects that they won’t use themselves.
Sean,
I should have said that it appears to me that you are being “self-serving and selfish” about this particular issue. Not an attack on you in general, since I don’t know you. Except for your trying to get the city to redirect traffic off your street to other adjacent streets some time ago, causing more traffic on other streets. Hmmm.
Barry,
You really should turn a more critical eye on your sources for nasty characterizations before you repeat them. The characterization doesn’t even make sense. Ultimately, it’s just going to make you look bad.
While critics of efforts to redesign an intersection were, by their own admission, principally concerned about traffic being diverted to their street, I and others were motivated by safety for our kids walking to school and to friends’ houses. Even if diversion were as bad as the critics feared, the change in volume on my street would have been unnoticeable. Blue on black. The proposed redesign demonstrably made the intersection safer, dramatically lowering speeds.
Oh, and the trial results showed no meaningful diversion.
That’s just not true Sean. I showed, using the city’s own data that there was diversion. And it was meaningful if you looked at the increase in volume on Walter and lower Jackson. The idea that the % deversion is based on the more travelled road seemed to come up later. With those rules, if you diverted only 5% of the cars on PArker to Daniel St, that wouldn’t be considered a change for Daniel? C’mon. On top of that, I think it’s time you stopped saying that modification was safer. That’s absurd. It was not safer to have cars heading toward pedestrians on the sidewalk and it certainly wasn’t safer due to the sun glare in the morning. It was an unsafe change. After the Alderman came down to actually look at the thing we were able to get the decision reversed. Not to mention, being able to convince the aldermen to approve an appeal to the no stop sign decision of the traffic council. Your techniques and attitudes do not seem to have not changed with respect to the Walnut St. issue. What happened to your comments about getting more neighborhood buy-in if you did something like this again? And claiming that 10 people out of 40 is a reasonable percentage for making this decision; Greg’s comment about ends justifying the means was spot on regarding those actions. I happen to agree with Barry, but since whenever you come across any viable opposition you claim the “getting personal” card, I’ll refrain from commenting on it.
Talk about your diversion …
I must not have been clear enough on this point in the past, so let me try to restate. The measure of diversion created by the Daniel/Jackson St. intersection was properly measured by the diversion to lower Jackson and Walter St. How much diversion should have been acceptable was one issue. Whether there was actually diversion during the various trials was another. We’re going to have to agree to disagree on the latter point.
The magnitude of the diversion from Daniel St. is only relevant to the repeated assertion that those of us who proposed the redesign were solely motivated by a desire to divert traffic from Daniel St. to other streets. For that to be true, the diversion from Daniel St. would have to be meaningful. Even under your worst-case scenario, the diversion from Daniel St. would not have been remotely noticeable. Blue from black. Not our motivation.
From the beginning, our only motivation was safety at the intersection. The best way to increase safety is to decrease speeds. The proposed redesign slowed traffic significantly. Car-by-car. Hour-by-hour. While I admire your creativity, your safety arguments just don’t hold water.
As for my role on the Walnut St. matter, you should do your homework. The neighborhood brought the request to Traffic Council. I testified, but I had nothing to do with bringing the matter in the first place. There was a full discussion about a trial of no parking — with the expectation that, if the trial was successful, the change would be made permanent — well before the survey. The survey was one part of a discussion reviewing the change. It was hardly the basis for the decision.
By the way, I happen to like the idea of bike lanes, whether or not you have to take away -permanently- someone’s parking is another issue. I don’t see why it can’t be done in a way that accommodates the residents in some way. The bicyclists may be inconvenienced in some cases. They should either slow down and stop to allow cars to pass them by, and in some cases the motorists will have to wait for the bicyclists when it comes to getting by the parked cars.
Ira’s second comment nicely gets to a question that Bob and others have raised/touched on: why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t we have bike lanes and occasional on-street parking.
It’s a real quandary. Where parking is only occasionally used, bike/parking conflict is rare and it might be reasonable to expect bicyclists to, as Ira suggests, work their way around the parked car. But, for good reason, the city is not permitted to stripe bike lanes where parking is allowed. So, it’s an all or nothing proposition: bike lanes and no parking or parking and no bike lanes.
There are (at least) two reasons to be discouraged by this binary choice:
* You’re sympathetic to the folks who want on-street parking in front of your house
* You want bike accommodations and wish there weren’t the issue of on-street parking as an obstacle
Why not, then, just skip the bike lanes and let everybody fend for themselves? Because, the evidence is pretty clear that there is a pool of potential bicyclists who will only ride if there are bike lanes along the main routes they need to travel. It comes down to a choice between accommodating those riders or accommodating occasional parking.
I wish it weren’t such a stark choice.
Jay is correct in his practical approach. The City giveth betterments (curbing, sewer upgrades, etc.); the City taketh(negative betterment) – each with its associated financials. While the cycling advocates gain in new accomodations, the individual immediate abutter taxpaying property owner does not receive an abatement. Where is the Hall’s logic?
Schlock-a-doodle-do,
Who says City Hall won’t give an abatement? Certainly it’s not too much to ask the homeowner to request one first.
Creativity? Well, it was backed up by two Alderman committees, as well as the abutters, as well as the folks who use the intersection as pedestrians, motorists and at least one cyclist. Not to mention the record of emails that go back years which exhibited your motivation quite clearly. So, to use your own amazingly arrogant words (not that you’re arrogant, that would be personal) “you’re on the wrong side of this”
If you’re counting results, you’re definitely on the right side. You prevailed. Congratulations. (And, it’s worth noting, the compromise solution turns out to be more effective than it looked like it would be.)
If you’re looking at the substance, you’re still on the wrong side. The intersection could have been much safer had you not been quite so concerned about making sure traffic stayed off your street and stayed on your neighbors’ streets.
Time to move on. You may have the last word, if you’d like.
That’s a very unique way of denying the worth of the opinion of the overwhelmingly vast majority of people in your neighborhood. Although my english is terrible, does that sort of convey the fact that everyone other than maybe 2 or 3 people thought it was a terrible idea?
People on the other side of Parker St. even hated it. They didn’t care about diversion. Diversion was a factor as to why some of us didn’t like it, but it was by no means the reason the Aldermen reversed their decision, and it wasn’t the major factor as to why I disliked it. That bump out was an unsafe modification to an intersection, that, according to the city’s guidelines, didn’t even warrant traffic calming. Oh, is it my turn again – You’re on the wrong side. 🙂
Seanarini,
I love your passion and cause, so often we need an opinion which may not be popular but helps so many to peel the moss off the tyres.
The fact is that biking is simply a practical way to get around Newton. We have a variety of villages which are within a sweet-spot biking distance of many residents. That’s a fantastic thing to encourage – both to promote healthier lifestyles AND to reduce environmental and parking impact from local businesses. Bike lanes on a few major thoroughfares would make a difference to those of us who like to bike but aren’t as hard-core as Sean is (though we may envy his cojones). Again, on side streets this isn’t an issue. There’s room to navigate. But on streets with heavy traffic there should be at bare minimum a painted-line bike accommodation so that people who chose to bike can do so safely and without the fear of getting ‘doored’.
@Groot – would there be a way to simply give Walnut Street residents the requisite permits for those side streets? That would stop them from being used as unrestricted parking lots and might ameliorate those residents who live on the side streets.
A huge amount of the focus and energy has been about bike lanes on the major arteries across the city (e.g Walnut St). This has led to the bike lane vs parking fights.
Jim Lerner from the Bike Pedestrian Task Force has been slowly collecting bicycle rider’s suggestions of how to get around the city while avoiding the main roads as much as possible.
An idea that intrigues me is whether there might be away to think of this in terms of car arteries and different bike arteries. Most of the routes on Jim’s map are low traffic side streets. On those streets you don’t need dedicated bike lanes because the auto traffic is so low. What about figuring out dedicated bike arteries. These would be primarily on low traffic side street but they would definitely need to connect together using small portions of the main car-heavy roads. We’d only need bike lanes on those small shared portions where the cars and bikes are together.
With clear signage for the bikers, we could mostly keep the bikers and the cars apart. That would definitely be far safer, it would minimize the bike vs parking disputes, and it would make for far more pleasant bicycling.
Greg- Nah, I don’t say tomahto.
I agree with Jay Ciccone on most issues, but we disagree on this one. There are solutions to the issues he raises.
There are a few problems with problem with the “alternative” route strategy. The first is a simple one. Take a look at a map of the city. If you want to get east/west or north/south, there aren’t many alternatives.
Second, a lot of things a bicyclist may want to get to: villages, schools, parks, &c. are on the main routes.
Third, taking alternative routes may not be as safe as you think, because they introduce a lot of turning activities and crossings. The thing about a main route (think Beacon Street) is that once you’re on it, you’re not really crossing anything except other main routes and there are stop lights at most of those crossings.
Bike/ped looked hard into this problem years ago when the city sought a waiver for bicycle accommodations on Walnut St. (How things change!) The city proposed an alternative route that was riskier in meaningful ways.
Fourth, the alternative route strategy makes bicycles second-class road users.
It might be different if Newton had more of a grid-like street network, where there were minor streets parallel to main streets. But, because of geography and land use, there aren’t that many of them.
Cars are welcome and accommodated on all streets. Bikes should be too.
Sean –
>> Take a look at a map of the city. If you want to get east/west or
>> north/south, there aren’t many alternatives.
Hmm, I just did and there are alternatives so loong as you can occasionally use a piece of main road where necessary
>> Second, a lot of things a bicyclist may want to get to: villages, schools,
>> parks, &c. are on the main routes.
Schools and parks tend mostly to be on secondary roads or at last have some access via secondary roads. In any case, where we need a main road we’d use a bike lane.
>> Third, taking alternative routes may not be as safe as you think, because
>> they introduce a lot of turning activities and crossings.
Is that hard data or gut feel? Certainly my experience and gut feel says that nearly any low traffic route is safer than nearly any high traffic route. I don’t have any statistics at my disposal. Also, if we designate particular low traffic roads as bike corridors, I’m guessing there are various things we can do to make them safer – stop signs on cross streets, signs, and markings, etc
>> Fourth, the alternative route strategy makes bicycles second-class road users.
No, bicycles already are 2nd class road users due to size and weight and all the bike lanes and signs in the world can’t change that. I think the way to bolster bikes’ standing on the road and their safety, is to give them their own corridors where cars are actively discouraged.
Maybe I should have added “practical.” Take Walnut St. between the Highlands and Newtonville. There is no roughly parallel route. You might figure out a circuitous route that has you getting on and off Walnut St. But, it won’t be a practical alternative.
Other challenges: get from Newton Centre to the Boston line. From Waban to Auburndale. From West Newton to Watertown Square.
“Where we need a main road we’d use a bike lane” ends up the exception that ate the rule.
Every low-traffic route I’ve seen ends up crossing some high-traffic route at a side street. The city’s alternative to a Walnut St. bike lane, for instance, had bikers cross Beacon somewhere other than the Four Corners intersection. Much safer to cross Beacon on Walnut with traffic stopped on Beacon than to cross two lanes of traffic on Beacon.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree with your separate but unequal approach to bike safety.
@Ben – permits for the Walnut St. residents could offer some help for visiting guests but as some (who wish for parking) have stated this does not help for gardeners and construction folks. It was interesting to me that at yesterdays’s Newton Highlands village day I was talking to to Walnut St neighbors who both had supported the parking ban but one is having second thoughts. Perhaps the permits would help in this case. some residents
To my mind this would be another local fix to the broader problem of parking needs for residents, visitors and employees. If permitting was used to help folks (employees for example) to park on side streets we start to move to a less local solution.
If each household has 2 “parking cards” that can be placed in a vehicle parked in front of that house that allows contractors, landscapers, etc. to park in front of the house where they are working, then the problem is essentially solved. In fact, i suspect such a system would allow landscapers to park closer to a house than was previously the case when cars were parked all day on Walnut St.
@Jane – this is an option but may not be acceptable to the folks lobbing for bike lanes. The problem as I understand it is bicycles would need leave the bike lane to pass parked vehicles. On high traffic streets this could be a safety issue to the bikers.
Groot’s (mostly) right, Jane. Let me expand.
Where there is not enough right-of-way for both a parking lane (about 7′) and a bike lane (5-6′), regulations and safety guidelines prohibit the city installing (striping) a bike lane if parking is allowed. If there is not enough space for both, you have to choose one or the other.
Is there a different bike accommodation — not a bike lane — that co-exist with parking? After years of thinking, writing, and talking to experts about the problem, I’m not aware of one. If you’ve got one, please share here.
Sean – Of course, each specific route has its own tradeoffs, questions and issues – that’s true whether you’re talking about high (car) traffic routes or low traffic routes.
Here’s what puzzles me about your approach. On the one hand, you say that you’re fine with biking on high traffic routes with no bike lanes but that your goal is to make biking more attractive to other less adventurous bikers. Without a doubt, those other less adventurous bikers will be much more comfortable on quiet sides streets where ever possible. As a parent, no matter how well marked bike lanes are on a high traffic street like Walnut, I’d always rather have my daughter on a side street for as much of her ride as possible.
You seem to have a very doctrinaire approach to this – i.e. since there are some issues with some routes on low traffic streets, then low traffic streets should not be part of the plan. I think THE biggest element in getting more people on their bicycles and keeping them safe, is as much as possible keep the cars and bikes away from each other. Because they will sometimes, in some places, need to share the road doesn’t mean you throw that goal out the window.
As you say, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on your high traffic purist approach to bike routes 😉
Jerry,
You know what rhymes with doctrinaire? Au contraire, as in to the contrary, I’m not really so inflexible.
I start from the position that bikes are a legitimate form of transportation — for commuting, for errands, for visiting — as well as pleasant recreational vehicles. As such, they should be accommodated as much as reasonably possible on all roads.
No question, we should have routes on quiet side streets. But, those should be complements to, not instead of, accommodations on corridors. There’s a spectrum of bicyclists, and it includes folks who would like to take a safe and direct route. Remove the hurdle of no accommodations and you’ll add those riders to the streets. That won’t address the case of bicyclists who would rather avoid the main roads altogether.
We should also be aware that the volume of traffic along a route is not the only — or even the most significant — safety factor. Riding along low-traffic streets might seem safer, but it may not be, especially if using side roads involves a lot of crossings or left-turns.
In fact, the biggest element in keeping bicyclists safe is numbers. There is no more reliable way of making streets safe for bicyclists than to put more bicyclists on them.
>>> . There is no more reliable way of making streets safe for bicyclists than to
>>> put more bicyclists on them.
Is that your gut instinct or are there stats to back that up. Both from gut instinct, personal experience and anecdotal evidence from news reports I think bikes on quiet side streets are immeasurably safer than more bikes on busy car laden streets – even with good bike lanes, etc.
With a little work, I think we can create some safe bike boulevards, that are relatively direct routes and only occasionally merge with high traffic streets. Along some routes that may not be possible. In the cases where there is a low-traffic relatively direct alternative route, why would anyone choose to forgo it favor of a high-traffic route. I don’t see this as an either/or choice.
You seem to be arguing against the use of all quiet streets for bicycle routes. Lets use the quiet streets where we can and use the busy roads where they make sense. That’s the way to get more folks pedaling. No matter how good the bike lanes are, or how many bike riders are using them, the less adventurous bikers will never love riding down Walnut St with two lanes of car traffic.
Stats.
The “stats” your pointed to say more bikes on Walnut St would be safer than less bikes on Walnut St. They definitely don’t say more bikes on Walnut St would be safer than the same bikes on, say Lake Ave.
You assume that it’s a binary choice: the same bicyclist unwilling to ride on Walnut St. without accommodations would be willing to ride on a better marked Lake Ave.
The fact that people were willing (84 on at least one day) to ride on Walnut St. in traffic rather than along quiet side streets like Lake Ave. suggests that quiet side streets are not an appealing option for all.
The goal is more bicyclists on all streets, not the streets that some view as an acceptable alternative.
And, I think you continue to discount the fact that using side streets introduces crossing risks.
My (now 8-year-old) daughter and I have been biking for years from our home (off Parker) to the New Arts Center (just off Walnut). When we go the direct route, we make a right onto Parker (no conflict), go left at Beacon (light controlled), right onto Walnut (no conflict), across Homer (light controlled) and Comm. Ave. (light controlled), with a last right turn to get to the parking lot (no conflict).
The alternative, by Crystal Lake, has us cross two lanes of traffic on Parker without any control, two lanes of Centre without any control, and two lanes of Beacon without any control.
It may be counter-intuitive, but given my weeks of bicycling experience, I’m much more comfortable riding along with busy traffic than trying to cross it.
>>> The goal is more bicyclists on all streets
Exactly! So why in all of this back and forth haven’t you conceded that there might somewhere in this city be even a single low traffic route we would want to encourage bicycle use on as an alternative to a more problematic piece of high traffic route?
Because that question hasn’t been asked?
You and I have been talking about general strategies. You suggested that the city should come up with a plan for creating alternative bike corridors. I’ve been suggesting that the city provide bike accommodations along existing travel corridors.
I’m not totally against the concept of alternative, parallel bike corridors. As a general matter, I get a little squeamish about saying bikes only belong on one set of roads. Main corridors are attractive to bicyclists for the same reason that they are attractive to motorists. Also, a general strategy of looking for alternatives likely leads to folks not working hard enough to accommodate bicyclists on the corridors.
Specific to Newton, there just aren’t that many alternative opportunities. The Bike/Ped Task Force’s experience with Walnut St. stretching back years is a case in point. We agreed that the proposed alternative route (I don’t recall the exact details) was probably the best alternative available, but was not a reasonable alternative to Walnut St. It was too circuitous and introduced crossing and turning challenges.
Is it possible that there is place where an alternative does make sense? Sure. But, it would need to meet at least one of these two criteria:
* There really is no way to provide accommodations on the corridor
* The alternative is not excessively circuitous and doesn’t introduce its own safety concerns (crossing and turning)
If there are places in Newton that meet the criteria, they are the exception, not the rule. I’d be interested to read an example you had in mind.
One other thing to note: if your goal is to provide an alternative corridor (as opposed to providing for the bicycle traffic that arises naturally on a side street), you need to provide corridor-level accommodations. Are folks on the likelier narrower side streets going to be any more willing to give up parking for bike lanes than their neighbors on the corridors?
Sean said “The goal is more bicyclists on all streets, not the streets that some view as an acceptable alternative.”
Whose goal? Yours? It’s not my goal. It’s an inferior mode of transportation except in crowded inner cities, like Amsterdam, which Newton isn’t. It’s unpleasant in adverse weather, like rain, snow, wind, etc. It’s overall a slower way to get from one place to another. It accommodates only one person (usually). One needs to find a place to leave it upon arrival at a destination, or simply leave it on the sidewalk or street in people’s way and at risk of being stolen.
If people liked bicycling so much, you’d already have seen a lot, and then a lot of complaints from those people demanding better access. Right now, it’s a few advocates who think that if they force enough unpleasantness to driving, it will force those who really don’t want it to do it. Like global warming alarmists, who want people to use renewables even if they make no sense.
A bike would be good for fun to go to Newton Centre in nice weather. But don’t take away my ability to drive conveniently.
Whose goal is more biking? Country’s, state’s, and city’s to name three.
Slower? In rush hour I can get from my home to my office in East Cambridge faster by bike than any other mode, and I’m no Lance Armstrong. I frequently beat my neighbor from City Hall to home, without any heroics (or light violations).
Only accommodates one person? For sure, but then the car’s available for the many fewer trips with more than one person.
Unpleasant in adverse conditions? Some of my favorite rides are in wet weather. With the right equipment it’s completely doable.