Since we published our story on the Mayor’s “review” of recent street safety improvement projects last Friday, hundreds of constituents have reached out to Boston’s City Hall to ask her administration to maintain their committments to safer streets throughout the city.
But during the same period, city crews have also been removing protective bollards and curbs on three recently-installed bikeways, on Massachusetts Avenue in the Newmarket area, Summer Street in the Seaport, and on Arlington Street in Back Bay.
One reader told StreetsblogMASS that they saw city workers removing bollards and protective curbs from the Mass. Ave. bikeway last Thursday on their way to work.
That two-way bike path, which runs from Melnea Cass Boulevard to Everett Square in Dorchester, was installed in 2022 and 2023 after years of planning and outreach that began during Mayor Walsh’s administration. It featured a mix of flexible-post bollards, modular concrete curbs, and more permanent bus stop islands to protect bikeway traffic from the adjacent motor vehicle lanes.
I had a close call today as a truck came swerving into the bike lane to get to the liquor store near Victoria’s Diner. I believe that if bollards were there, they wouldn’t have dared to do that.
Bharath Miriyam of Dorchester
In the last few days, though, many of those barriers have disappeared – leaving the bikeway much more exposed to moving vehicles.
“I use the bike lane every day to go to work – that’s my only way to go to work,” Laura Hidalgo told StreetsblogMASS Tuesday evening. “It feels much more unsafe… but even with less security, I still see a lot of people using it.”
“It’s kind of crazy – we’d gone to so many community meetings advocating for safer streets, and it takes such a long time to make these changes, and then without a moment’s notice they have it removed, without any public input,” Hidalgo said.
Bharath Miriyam, a Boston Medical Center employee who lives in Dorchester and uses this bikeway on a daily basis, told StreetsblogMASS that he’s already seeing riskier driver behavior on the street.
“I had a close call today as a truck came swerving into the bike lane to get to the liquor store near Victoria’s Diner,” Miriyam told StreetsblogMASS. “I believe that if bollards were there, they wouldn’t have dared to do that.”
The city has also removed a row of flexible-post bollards on a bike lane on Arlington Street in Back Bay, between Columbus Avenue and Park Plaza – only four months after initially installing them (see photo at the top of this article).
StreetsblogMASS reached out to City Hall’s press office to ask whether these removals are related to the city’s “30-day review” of new safety projects, and whether these changes are permanent, or merely temporary.
The Mayor’s press office – which, to be fair, is probably more preoccupied with her upcoming testimony to Congress – declined to answer those questions.
“This is previously discussed work. Flexposts are removed or replaced for a variety reasons, such as damage from vehicles,” wrote a spokesperson in an email to StreetsblogMASS on Tuesday evening.
Constituents weigh in for safer streets
Meanwhile, hundreds of constituents have reached out to City Hall over the past few days to ask Mayor Wu and her staff to keep and improve upon Boston’s recent transportation improvements.
When we reported on the Mayor’s “review” of recent safety projects last Friday, we encouraged readers to reach out to Basic City Services Superintendent Mike Brohel if they wanted to weigh in – and to cc us in their emails.
Since then, we’ve received about 150 emails from constituents all over the city, including a handful from nearby cities like Newton, Milton, and Cambridge.
The overwhelming majority of those messages urges the Mayor to preserve the bike and bus lanes her administration has installed in recent years.
Organizers from the Boston Cyclists Union and TransitMatters have also set up action alerts that urge their members to contact City Hall to preserve existing bike and bus lanes.
“Our campaign was a huge success – we had 464 emails sent out,” Cyclists Union communications manager Mandy Wilkens told StreetsblogMASS on Wednesday morning.
