Why It Was Wrong For Charlestown To Remove The Main Street Bike Lanes

Now that the dust has settled on the Charlestown bike lane issue its clear that removing them, at least removing them so quickly, was the wrong decision. Before I get to laying out any justification for the title of this post a quick recap on the situation.

If you believe everyone, here is basically what happened. The city of Boston painted some bike lanes on Main street in Charlestown, an elected neighborhood advisory board said “Hey we love bike lanes, and we love bikers, but you didn’t ask us about putting those lanes in, so remove them.” Several days later the lanes were removed under cover of night. When people found out about it, they threw a stink.

Removing the lanes so quickly was the worst possible response that Charlestown could have taken. Heres why.

If Charlestown had stopped to think about it they would have realized that removing the lanes without any community process, wasted a lot of money, and is exactly the kind of thing Charlestown were so upset about in the first place.

They could have said:

“OK we are not happy that we didn’t get a say in installing these lanes, but since we love cyclists so much, and the lanes have been paid for, and we are in the middle of a massive recession, and they are already installed, and we love community process over here, perhaps we will ask the people of Charlestown if they want the lanes before we spend a bunch more money to remove them.”

They then could have had some of that community process they seem to value so much, and the people of Charlestown might have actually said “Yes we want to keep them.” The city certainly would have saved a bunch of money, and Charlestown would have been able to show the city how real community process is done. A win win.

If, on the other hand, the community of Charlestown had said they didn’t want the lanes, the cost would have been the same for removing them, and the principle of community involvement (which Charlestown says they are all about) would have been preserved. Instead the lanes were hastily removed with no public comment period, wasting money, and embarrassing everyone involved.

It also sets an unreasonable speed expectation. Will all future city projects be completed this fast? If we call up city hall asking for something repaired, and its not done instantly by road work ninjas under cover of night should we be up in arms?

The lesson we should learn from this incident is that times they are a changing. There is a shift in the way people get around Boston, cycling, walking, and public transit are growing, and car driving is shrinking. Boston is on its way towards becoming a more livable city, a city designed for people, not for cars. There is bound to be some hiccups on the way towards a better Boston, and this is one of them.

I was heartened to see that people got upset about this, it means they value bicycle infrastructure, and don’t take kindly to it being installed, and then suddenly removed. Even if the way it was installed wasn’t perfect, we can’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. We also need leaders who are forward thinking, when planning infrastructure, and when responding to events like waking up to find surprise bike lanes on your Main street.

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Charlestown Removes Existing Bike Lanes!

EDIT:

The Charlestown Patch has pictures and more info.

Before

After...

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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)

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