Charlestown Removes Existing Bike Lanes!

EDIT:

The Charlestown Patch has pictures and more info.

Before

After...

—————————————————-

I got this in the email today? Could a city really be foolish enough to remove already installed bike lanes?

Looks like the newly installed bike lanes on Main st. were removed over the weekend. The city apparently removed them because members of the Neighborhood Council, after a meeting in November, insisted that Charlestown did not want or need bike lanes. Guess they would rather have residents pay extra taxes to paint/remove than to get out and bike.
lame.

Can any one confirm this? If this is true, it is by far one of the more idiotic things I have read recently. Thanks for the tip Craig.

EDIT:

More good info from the comments:

If the Neighborhood Council was responsible for the change, they’re the ones who should hear from us. You can find all of their emails at http://www.charlestownbusiness.com/cnc.html.

The Chairman is Tom Cunha: [email protected]

Also, the City Council rep is Sal LaMattina: [email protected]

EDIT:

Of all the dumb shit, whats wrong with these people?

It has just been confirmed for me that Charestown removed existing bike lanes, because they didn’t think they were needed? Seriously this is some stupid shit. How can the city be claiming that it has this big bike plan in place, and then allows the neighborhoods to remove bike lanes? And what exactly are they going to replace them with? More parking? More car lanes? I bet that will help cram some more cars into Charlestown, which is exactly what that place doesn’t need.

When are people going to wake up and realize that the one thing that is poison to an urban neighborhood is more cars. Its time to design a city based on people, not on cars, and nothing is more of a human scale transportation option than walking and biking. You can’t have more walking and biking if you do dumb shit like waste money on removing existing bike lanes.

And where was the city on this? Can someone explain to me why Charlestown is able to remove bike lanes? Isn’t the city in charge of this? How does removing existing bike lanes fit into their plan to install a bunch more lanes? Should we count this as negative miles of bike lanes?

Also why in the world would you pay to have existing already installed bike lanes removed? Did the city look around and figure since it has solved all of its other problems it could use all that extra money laying around to remove the bike lanes? Seriously walk around Charlestown, there are plenty of things that could have been spruced up if they have some extra cash laying around.

This is a disgrace, and Charlestown residents should be ashamed that they are lead by such shortsighted leadership. The city of Boston has some serious questions to answer as to why they allowed this to happen.

Does anyone have any pictures of the removed lanes, I would love to post a shining example of just how poorly our tax dollars are being spent.

EDIT: Ok I am trying to track down all the parties involved in this, was anyone actually at the meeting in which they decided to remove the lanes? Does anyone have pictures of the removed lanes (scrap marks on the pavement?), can anyone find exactly where (preferably on a google map) these lanes were before they were removed? I have sent word out to my contacts, and am waiting to hear back, but I figure you all ride as much as I do (or more) so maybe one of you has seen or heard something.

EDIT: Got this from the comments

The Charlestown Neighborhood Council is hosting its monthly meeting at the Knights of Columbus. Come air any questions or concerns you’ve got. Meeting starts at 7 p.m.

Its a bit last minute, but perhaps we could get some cyclists to ride over and let them know how foolish a choice they have made.

EDIT: Another update from the comments

If you’re unhappy about this, you should probably let the City know. Maybe if they get enough feedback, they will realize the mistake that they made:

Nicole Freedman, Boston Bikes
[email protected]

Tom Tinlin, Boston Transportation Commissioner
[email protected]

Mayor Menino
[email protected]

Make noise people, this was a foolish choice, and we can’t let them think it was anything else.

EDIT:

Seems they removed the bike lanes at 4am…which was lovely for nearby residents apparently.

At 4 a.m. I awoke to the sound of a truck and a sander-type machine under my bedroom window on Main Street. Seems they were UNDOING the bike lanes that were painted in the dark of night a few weeks ago by GRINDING THE PAINT OUT OF THE STREET. No cop – no permit (I asked when I went out to yell at them), and no sense of professionalism when I asked them to stop. Lots of paint dust all over the street, parked cars, and into the environment. The guy said he had a permit, but couldn’t produce it. Told me, “Go call the City.” Calls to the Mayor’s Hotline and BPD didn’t help. The work continued down the street for hours – NO ONE SHOULD BE AWAKENED IN THE WEE HOURS BY ANYTHING BUT AN EMERGENCY VEHICLE !!! Someone really goofed on this one. (via)

EDIT:

MassBike has given their view on this

And the patch has pictures (see top)

Add to Reddit.

Tweet