At the next Cambridge City Council meeting on Jan. 26, the city’s representatives will consider an order introduced Monday night to kill the Pearl Street “Complete Street” reconstruction project. This leaves the “Base Plan” as the only option, which BostInno opined back in December features even less adequate bike safety infrastructure than the “Complete Street” version.
The difference between the two reimaginings of Pearl Street are striking. The “Complete Street” option calls for the prohibition of parking on one side of the street from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m to allow for strict cycling and bus and drop off use. The “base plan” calls for new crosswalks, six-inch curb bump extensions, and raised intersections.
City Councilor Tim Toomey filed the late order suggesting to City Manager Richard Rossi that the “Complete Street” version be abandoned on the grounds that the “removal of a significant amount of parking spaces to create a bike lane has caused much concern and opposition.” Further, the order reads, “Cambridge must also maintain a balance with residents who have a real need for automobiles as well as a place for them to park.”
Interestingly, though, a survey conducted of Pearl Street residents and those who live in close proximity found that just five percent of the 322 respondents felt that Pearl Street was comfortable for bikers. A substantial 75 percent felt that cyclists sharing the road with vehicles is the biggest challenge on Pearl Street.
As of late, however, the City Council has been hearing from residents that they do not want any change in their parking which is likely what Councilor Toomey is responding to, according to a source close to the matter.
The “Base Plan” also keeps Pearl Street at 11-feet wide, a safety hazard in its own right. One study suggests that travel lanes 10-feet and wider are responsible for 900 extra traffic deaths annually.
According to open-sourced traffic accident data, aggregated by the City of Cambridge, 54 accidents occurred on Pearl Street over a period of from 2010 to 2013 , exemplifying just how dangerous it can be to trek down. Five of those directly involved a bike and another 15 involved a parked car, lending credence to the fact that perhaps accommodating parked cars at the expense of some kind of bike safety infrastructure may not be the best approach.
Some 168 hours of video footage of 17,000 cyclists and 20,000 vehicles in Austin, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. was enough evidence for researchers to contend that cycle tracks, a bike lane separated from the road by a physical barrier, is the safest bike infrastructure for cyclists.
Featured Image via Creative Commons/ Tim Pierce (CC BY 2.0)
