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.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet