Longfellow To Be Closed To Bikes On Weekends During Construction (Sorta)

From the globe:

There are still a few weeks left before Boston-area residents will have to deal with weekend Red Line diversions on Longfellow Bridge — those are scheduled to come in August — but local bike enthusiasts won’t be able to use two wheels to bypass the gridlock.

Though cyclists will be allowed to travel in both directions on the bridge during most of the construction project, officials at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation have decided to bar bike-riding during the 25 weekend Red Line diversions, when the T will cease running at the bridge, and buses will instead run shuttle service between Park Street, Charles/MGH, and Kendall/MIT s tations.

“It’s purely out of concerns for safety,” said Michael Verseckes, a MassDOT spokesman.

During those weekends, the bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic to allow a steady stream of buses to cross the bridge uninterrupted, Verseckes said.

In recent years, there have been multiple incidents of MBTA buses involved in crashes with bicycles, several of them fatal. Verseckes said the agency decided it was too dangerous to have biycles riding alongside so many buses on the narrowed bridge without having a physical barrier between them.

Cyclists who want to cross the bridge will have to dismount their bikes and walk them across the bridge.

It takes all of a couple minutes to walk your bike over the Longfellow, this is really not a closure so much as a delay for most cyclists. Don’t be that person who is riding your bike through a bunch of pedestrians, just get off your ride, walk over the bridge and hop back on. Shouldn’t slow you down but a few moments.

I feel sorry for all those people in buses and cars, and anyone taking the red line, this is going to be a mess…stick to the bike.

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