Longfellow Bridge Now Has A Dedicated Bike Lane Going Both Ways

It’s a little tricky (you have to wrap around under the bridge and the path is far from clear), but it sure beats walking your bike northbound battling pedestrians.  The BCU has released this video to help you figure it out.

I have used it a couple of times, and found it confusing all of those times, you are put into conflict with traffic both pedestrian and car at odd points, but with a bit more signage it might be ok.  I still think they should just close the bridge to cars, and let cyclists/pedestrians take the whole thing until it’s done being fixed.

I disagree with the video that this path is an improvement…at best it is a temporary compromise.  The path is crazy bumpy, the approaches are a mess, I have already noticed pedestrians on it, the interaction with cars are all from blind directions, you literally have to look behind you at most intersections to see the cars coming, there is all sorts of curbs with ramps that have gaps and its pretty easy to exit the ramps into the curb which will cause accidents.  It’s also a functioning construction zone, I got a mouth full of cement dust yesterday because they are still breaking up concrete on the bridge. Just watch the video again and look at how much the camera shakes going over the bridge, and pay attention to all the times the cyclists is put in conflict with cars coming from strange angles, there are just too many problems here.

Final verdict…well at least I wont have to walk my bike over the bridge anymore…

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