New Bike Lanes On Comm Ave
Written by Boston Biker on May 11and new sharrows on Arlington apparently! Pics soon!
Edit here are some pics, I took some video too, but you will have to wait till I get home for me to upload that stuff.
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- This is where the new lanes end on the outbound side, I feel like they must not be done yet because they sort of dump you into this confusing area, hopefully a transition will be put in to get you over to the other side of the road.
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- nice wide bike lanes!
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- a view from above showing the new lanes in the underpass
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- where the right hand side lanes end, and where the left hand side lanes start.
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- once the right hand side lanes end, you get these nice big sharrows on the right, you can see the left hand lane on the left.
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- coming up from the underpass you can see the buffering.
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- Coming up from the underpass you merge with traffic beautifully.
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- left hand lane at an intersection
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- The start of the left hand lane
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- looking back at the left hand lanes, no door zone!
I have to say I am impressed with these lanes, They still seem to be missing markings in the underpass area, and they need to work a bit on the transitions at the ends (I suggest Boston’s first bike box!) but the entire experience of riding down this street has changed. You feel…AWESOME! No longer are you looking for doors opening on your right, while having cars zoom by on the left. Going through the underpass is a DREAM. You get the whole left lane to yourself, with a nice big buffer zone to keep cars out. You pop up on the other side and don’t have to worry about merging with traffic.
The basic way you used to have to take that underpass was move far to the left in the right hand lane (so people could see you and not try to go around the corner too fast) and then when you got to the top you had to merge with moving traffic. No more! Now you just sort of glide through easily and really the entire feel of it is great.
They even did a lot of work on the street in front of the public garden, getting you around the right hand turn. There are now sharrows on the left most and right most lane, when I get the video’s up you can see them in action.
I think this is a banner job from the city, and hope that we see more innovative solutions like this.
EDIT: here are the videos I promised
EDIT: Sorry about the pics can’t seem to get them to rotate, just flip your head to one side for now I guess 🙁
Also just heard that there are more markings and bike boxes coming soon to these lanes, so those of you worried about the transitions give it a couple days and then re-evaluate. Also heard that they are going to be green!
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