In recent years I have decided to be a very visible cyclist on Newton’s streets. After all, my cohort and I, biking enthusiasts in general and members of Bike Newton in particular, have been asking much of city government. If we demand safer roads and more bike lanes, then we should demonstrate our commitment to bike whenever weather conditions permit it.
I also represent cyclists who do their errands on bicycle whenever practical. In recent years, cyclists have been able to bike just about every month, thanks to Climate Change. At 10 AM, the sun shining and the temperature at 43 degrees, I decided to shop on bike with stops in Newtonville and the Highlands. I also wanted to see how safe I’d feel on some of the major arteries in the city (Note: I would not undertake this journey during Rush Hour).
The first challenge: Chestnut Street, never a comfortable ride even in midsummer. Recently, it has been under repair between Beacon and Commonwealth. To avoid the twistiest parts of Chestnut, I passed through side streets before emerging at Chestnut and Fuller Street. No problem at all.
Now Chestnut Street between Fuller Street and Washington is narrow and often crowded with cars. Thus, I biked on sidewalks whenever possible, returning to the street when the road was empty. I passed no pedestrians but would have stuck to the road if I had. In this manner I reached the light at Chestnut and Washington Street without incident.
Trader Joe’s lies about a half mile to the east from Chestnut Street on Washington Street, and traffic was light. This stretch has lots of parking and few businesses. I hope that Newton follows through on plans to build bike lanes on both sides of the road, with a single lane of traffic in each direction and ample sidewalks.
Afterward, I traveled to Newtonville to visit the bank and then to travel up Walnut Street to Whole Foods on Beacon Street. I passed over the Mass Pike on Lowell Street before turning left onto Austin Street. After the bank, I biked cautiously through the business district. Now I love the European quality of the new Newtonville, with its outdoor seating and bump-outs. For bikes, though, there is no space for coexistence with cars. Fortunately for me, drivers gave me space to share the road. I also could have cut over to Lowell Avenue, a friendlier route for bicycles.
Starting at Newton North, Walnut Street has a painted bike lane, which worked just fine for me in the light traffic. I suspect, though, that inexperienced cyclists would be intimidated without any barrier between cars and bicycles. The road, fortunately, is wide, and my only difficulty arose when I approached Commonwealth Avenue. With cars on my tail, I climbed onto the empty sidewalk until reaching the light. From there to Beacon Street, the bike lane returned for most of the way.
After Whole Foods, I biked home on Beacon Street, my two baskets filled with food. Beacon has a painted bike lane, and the traffic was light. Between biking and shopping, my odyssey had lasted about an hour, and for the most part I felt safe. The drivers on the road were unfailingly cooperative- not always so at Rush Hour.
What had I learned? Experienced cyclists, if they choose their routes well and avoid narrow streets and Rush Hour traffic, can prosper on Newton’s roads. Nonetheless, if the Garden City truly wants to reduce automobile traffic by encouraging cycling, it will need improvements on its major traffic arteries. Let’s activate projects already proposed for Washington Street and Needham Street and Hammond Pond Parkway. Let’s also develop plans for Centre Street and Hammond Street, to name two other roadways.
Thanks Bob for stressing safety. As an all-season bike commuter, I wish Beacon St were safer in both directions with truly protected bike lanes rather than just a painted lane. That lane is co-extensive with the “door zone” and vulnerable to cars that may suddenly decide to dive for a parking space or pull into a gas station. And of course even the painted bike lane vanishes at times and turns into mere shared-lanes. The built-out restaurant seating in Newton Center, perhaps a Covid necessity once, rarely seems to be used in this colder weather and forces us cyclists back into the car lanes. I would advocate for their removal.
Bob–bravo. I take many of these streets on 2 wheels myself. Washington is probably my least favorite, but most necessary street (trader joes, after all).
We should start work this spring on a Master Plan for biking, walking and access. It’s important to do all three together so we aren’t building a plan that works for pedestrians, but not those biking, and especially we need to keep those with impaired mobility in mind for any plan.
I hope you and other interested residents will be a big part of the planning!
Is there a map which shows “best bang for the buck” proposals for protected bike lanes?
It should start with popular middle/high school routes.
Surely, the streets have already been identified? Why the secrecy?
Thank you, Bob, for the sensible post. Several posters on this blog assume that the occasional bicyclist should be able to ditch their car and hop on their bikes to do errands. As you said, you rode in nice temperate weather during daylight and not during rush hour..and you are an experienced cyclist. The city has a long ways to go before biking (beyond recreational) is truly made safe for the masses.
Thanks to all. Bugek, Safe Routes to School is a community group that has taken the issue of biking safely to school by the horns. It shares your perspective that popular routes to school should get the highest priority for protected, dedicated bike lanes. They have pursued other approaches as well. Follow them on Facebook and other sites. No secret here really, but change, unfortunately, takes time.
Some roads, just don’t have the room for bike lanes.
For example, how would you propose to add bike lanes on Chestnut between Beacon and Commonwealth?
The road is barely wide enough for the automobile traffic and the sidewalks are wedged in between property lines and the street.
I have no problem with cyclists jumping on the sidewalk. I know you do that. Is that the solution for those areas?
I’ve got a problem with cyclists jumping on the sidewalk. It’s a common misconception that cyclists are safer if they stay on the sidewalk, so why invest in bike lanes? Outside business districts sidewalk riding is legal and cyclists can yield to pedestrians, but eventually, they have to deal with traffic, whether it’s at the next intersection or crossing the next driveway (dangerous points of conflict responsible for a significant share of crashes and injuries) or just to merge back into the road where it might seem safe again. To be safe, cyclists need to get off and walk their bike. That’s not a solution. Well designed, contiguous bicycle facilities minimize conflict points and provide predictability for cyclists and motorists.
Perhaps though the idea engenders some resistance. You are quite right about that stretch of Chestnut, which I manage to avoid for the most part by tooling down side streets. It would take major re-engineering of some streets to create adequate space for a bike lane. For now, the city will focus on the low-hanging fruit.
Kim, it is true that some roads don’t have space for bike lanes. Sidewalk riding isn’t really a great answer though. Conflict with pedestrians is a hazard to both walker a biker. Newton sidewalks themselves are often narrow, in poor repair, discontinuous, or plain non-existent. Newton Police crash reports show many crashes where bicyclists emerge from sidewalks and collide with motor vehicles.
On critical streets where bike lanes are not possible, the best remaining safety option is slower speeds. This solution is also useful in neighborhoods, which should be safe enough for bike riding in the street by even less experienced riders.
Kim, I don’t think Chestnut Street should be the arterial commuter cut-through that it is. It should be a slow neighborhood street, safe for many users.
If it were blocked at the midway point between, say, Beacon & Comm Av (except for emergency vehicles) it would become a livable street in an instant.
Newton has great East-West roads: Beacon, Comm., Washington, Rte9 (for cars). But lacks the North-South capacity for bikes and cars. I think we should focus on ways to get bikes from village center to village center.
I don’t bike but I walk a lot. Whatever works for bikers, works also for pedestrians, so I support all suggestions. I’d like to add that many sidewalks on Center street and route 9 are blocked by overgrown bushes and tree branches, which should be also addressed.
MAPC just came out with a ranking of bike trails and bike lanes around the Boston area. Newton doesn’t fare all that well compared to our neighbors. To me, the most telling measurement is the ranking of existing bike lanes as a percentage of arterial street mileage (p 22).
https://www.mapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Metro-Boston-Municipal-Trails-Bikeways-Greenways-Inventory-2020-1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2-15Cmrd5zci4mUZojitbe4-KjkrPdMW9zPHhniSGXw-FuPdYKeC6FYA4
To be fair, MAPC’s maps are out of date.
A great resource, and thanks, Chuck! The data demonstrates that Newton lags behind comparable communities and sits in the middle of the pack for dedicated bike lanes, shared-use lanes, and foot paths. The question: How do we make up ground?
Local opponents of expenditures on safer streets argue that only an elite group of people ride bikes on a regular basis. But they are not the main impediment. In Newton, the slowness of improvements has more to do with the expense. City funds are tight and even affluent citizens resist paying higher taxes. For projects like athletic fields, swimming pools, and tennis courts, I have proposed that Newton auction naming fees, as many other communities have done. The City Council has always resisted this approach. Funding road improvements to create bike lanes and wider sidewalks and bump-outs and so forth? That’s a complicated business.
Bob,
Surely the infrastructure bill $ that just passed can be spent on bike lanes. How much has been allocated to Newton?
If the mayor is not leading on this, $ will be spent elsewhere
Not Just Bikes has a great video on winter cycling and how places with good, cleared bicycle networks have the same amount of cycling in winter as they do in any other season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
There is another factor to consider when looking at bike infrastructure and that’s the rise of electric assist bikes. The Build Back Better bill includes a provision for tax credits on e-bikes. From CNBC “Individuals who make $75,000 or less qualify for the maximum credit of up to $900. Joint filers who make up to $150,000 can qualify for two bikes and up to a $900 tax credit on each. It phases out for taxpayers above those income levels. E-bikes with a sticker price of more than $4,000 don’t qualify for the credit.”
Vermont has offered incentives for e-bike purchases for quite some time and has seen some good results from it. There is an argument to be made that if we’re going to offer rebates and incentives for expensive electric cars, then we should do the same for other electric vehicles.
Here in Massachusetts there is still work to be done. E-bikes are currently classified as mopeds, so they’re technically not allowed on protected pathways like the Charles River bike path (though, that’s rarely enforced). Nearly all other states classify e-bikes as class 1, 2, or 3, and there is an effort underway to match that here. It’s a big reason why BlueBikes doesn’t currently offer an electric option, even as it’s part of similar programs (such as Citibike in NYC).
In countries where biking is popular for everyday transportation, different bikes types are popular too, like the Dutch bike, with an upright, step-thru frame. The bikes are designed to be used in all weather with built-in lights, locks, fenders, and racks to carry bags, packages. They are designed for the average person wearing street clothes, not a MAMIL (middle-aged man in lycra).
Wonderful and thoughtful post Bob. Bicycling here during the late 1940s to mid 1950s involved some of the same concerns that Bob and others raise, but our goals and expectations were more modest.
A significant difference in terms of safety was the lack of conflict between motorists and cyclists because almost all those on bicycles were kids and all those driving cars were adults whose kids were on those bicycles.
None of the dozen or more kids I biked with would have wanted to ride their bikes during the very coldest days of the year and certainly not when there was snow or ice underfoot. We would have been baffled as to why anyone would have wanted to push things to that extreme.
There were certain major roadways in my part of Newton we avoided traveling on unless absolutely necessary including Chestnut (the worst then as now), Beacon, Center and Walnut. This was during the time we were holding late Friday afternoon races on the newly opened 128 north of Route 9. The fact of the matter is that we felt a lot safer on 128 than we did on some of the major thoroughfares here that we found to be congested and pothole prone. We were allowed the limited use of sidewalks on the major roadways during that time, but there were too many pedestrians to make it really safe or useful.
The main connecting roadway to most parts of the City was the carriage road on Commonwealth Avenue. I could safely access it in five or so minutes from my home on Dickerman Road in the Highlands to Plymouth Road, around to Beethoven, across Beacon, down Evelyn Road to Commonwealth, turn right on the carriage road, down to Beaumont to the High School. Or I could turn left on the carriage road and access safe side streets to most places on the north or west of the City. Many more before the Mass Pike divided so many things in this City.
Most of the roads and sidewalks were in much better shape back then than they are now.
As someone with balance issues, I find biking in Newton challenging. I usually ride on summer weekends at 5:30 am when there is little traffic. I find a route to get out to the Comm. Ave carriageway, go west to Washington Street. Go right on Washington Street through West Newton and complete the loop by taking a right on Lowell Avenue to Comm. Ave. My biggest challenge is the paving on the side streets I take to get back and forth from Comm. Ave.
I think we need bike routes that take advantage of our side streets like Lowell Avenue. If those alternate routes are well paved I think we could have a better and safer biking experience in Newton.
Applauding those who can ride this time of year, but for many…
Brrrrrr. #BabyItsColdOutside
Bob…you do not give yourself enough credit. I am avid biker who bikes year round. Biking in the winter builds strength because the colder air is denser, tire resistance is greater, wind, etc. When I read this post I see the credit to climate change and the reference caused me think about winter riding. I had to learn to ride in the winter. It took time. I had to learn how to dress for the cold and get the proper gear. A 25 degree ride is different from a 35 or 45 degree ride. Anything above 50 and I am in shorts. The biggest obstacle for me is snow/ice and wind. Wind can be demoralizing in the winter. As I looked through my riding logs, I was thinking about your comment that it has become easier to ride in the winter and I not sure that is true, I just think you have learned to ride in the winter.
Luckily the NWS has a long history of weather records available so it is easy to look at the data. I took the data from 1900 to 2020. Some observations from the data:
– Average annual Boston area temperature has fluctuated from 47 to 55 degrees…but the mean has only risen from 50 to 52 degrees. 2020 was the highest average temp on record, but are winters warmer?
– If we only look at the winter months (DEC, JAN, FEB, MAR), winters have become warmer, but not by much. The mean winter temp from 1900 to 2020 has risen from just under 32 degrees to just over 34 degrees. If we drop the winter of 1904 from the data set, the mean is even tighter. 1904 winter average temp was 26 degrees. Wow…that is cold. No other winter comes close. The warmest winter was 2012 with an average temp of 39.1 degrees and all winters since have been colder, although 2020 was close at 38 degrees and that was the year I biked >6k miles.
– If you look at average winter temp by decade, I think it is more telling as the years affected by Pacific warming cycles get averaged out. I will only go back as far the 1950s but here are the averages.
1950s = 33.6
1960s = 31.7
1970s = 33.2
1980s = 32.8
1990s = 34.5
2000s = 33.5
2010s = 34.5
The last 30 years are pretty much the same with yearly fluctuations.
– As for average annual snowfall, what the records show is more extreme winters since 1971. Records for a lot of snow in 2014-2015 or snow droughts in 2011-2012. If we use the average snowfall by decade, we see that we are having MORE snow since the 1980s, not less. It might be surprising to people that we are having more snow than the 1970s and 1950s.
1950s = 36.4 inches
1960s = 49.4 inches
1970s = 44.6 inches
1980s = 32.8 inches
1990s = 49.7 inches
2000s = 45.6 inches
2010s = 53.0 inches
It will be interesting to see what this winter brings as a second year of a La Nina. I am hoping for dry roads and sunny days. Looks like a nice warm stretch upcoming and maybe I will be able to get a couple 50 mile rides in.
Bill Koss
Thanks Bill for the snow report, most appreciated. When I was living in Toronto in the 1970s I rode my bike frequently in the winter and loved a Sunday outing. I must start again here in Newton.
@Bill Koss. I wrote up some of the preliminary findings about climate change at EPA in Washington during the mid to late 1980s. We had far less data than we have now. Even so, there were several strong early warning indicators and by 1988 I was cleared to state pretty emphatically that we were heading for a potentially irreversible “tipping point” if we didn’t take immediate and drastic action to reverse the trends. One thing we knew then as now is that warming temperatures could produce a lot more moisture, so it was pretty obvious that given the right mix of temperature and moisture, there would be occasions when we would get a lot of snow. It was irksome when some of the bozos on right wing talk radio would denigrate the threat of climate change anytime we got hit with a freak snow storm in early springtime. No responsible source would attribute any single event to climate change, but to stoke the lie that more snow points to the absence of a climate change threat is just not true. You are right that Pacific warming cycles affect a lot of what actually happens, but the specifics of that are above my pay grade.