I bike to work!

Dotriderblog spent a few days at a Conference in New York City. Since he was staying down in the East Village and the Conference was near Times Square the foldy got brought along. Here are our impressions from what is admittedly a small sample of riding in NYC. We tried to take a few different routes and we did some minor exploration just to get a wider impression.

There are plenty of great bike lanes all over Manhatten going north and south as well as east and west. My favorite was the dedicated lane down Broadway that I got to tool down every night. It had a terrific feel and had just the right pitch of down hill that made for a pleasant late night gulp of air after a full day of conferencing and the accompanying schmoozing…

My sense was that there wasn’t an overwhelming number of riders out there. The foot traffic won out over cars, buses, taxis or bikes. The bike scofflaws were terrible. Many riders going the wrong way in the bike lane, running lights with impunity, not wearing helmets. I’d say most of Boston’s neighborhoods and certainly our neighbors north of the Charles surpasses NYC in the % of riders. The scofflaws are higher as well.

One odd feature was the high percentage of electric driven bicycles. They’re sort of cool but essentially not particularly necessary in New York as the slope isn’t particularly steep. It is down hill heading down town and up hill heading up town. Go figure… There are tons of delivery bikes which makes all kinds of sense. The electric and delivery riders add to the scofflaw impunity of bike riders as both groups were over represented when noticing anti-social bicycle behavior. There was a high percentage of folding bikes as well since storage space of any kind is at a premium.

Riding at my normally slow pace allowed for stretches of 5-10 blocks before the lights would time out. I imagine someone pumping hard and weaving mercilessly could keep up with the timing for longer than that. The one time we drove, we could make it 12-17 blocks during the middle of the day when the traffic was light.

The biggest danger I felt was the possibility of getting hooked. Every other block it was a challenge to size up the turning vehicles and to decide whether to pass them on the inside or the outside. Phew! The bike traffic lights designed to control this weren’t particularly noticeable and they were generally ignored. Buses were generally oblivious to riders. Since they acted oblivious to cars and taxis as well I didn’t take it personally and just acted accordingly in order to remain safe. The taxis seemed to be aware of bikes and they treated us with the same level of respect as any other competing form on the road….

The roads in general called for heavy duty wheels. YUK! Puddles in all the lanes when it rained. Tons of patches, bumps and hard scrabble surfaces. Take the Mass Ave stretch in front of the Christian Science complex and you have the idea of the condition of a disapointingly high percentage of the road surface. The dedicated lane on the West was pretty cool though.

We saw plenty of bike stores and if the bike share has been rolled out we didn’t notice it.  So bike culture is alive and well in New York, but there is plenty of room to grow and improve. But hey, that sounds like the entire U.S. of A. The bigger and more recognized it becomes in New York, the easier it is to spread the word around the country. So keep it up New York!

On a winter’s day and the sky is grey…

Well that’s not really the point of this blog to recall old Mama’s and Papa’s tunes, but hey why not? We are on a red eye back from a week in California visiting several points between San Francisco and Carmel. While one may think California is the home of the auto-centric and viewing some of the traffic it wouldn’t be hard to agree, except for a number of things.

1. Bikes are allowed on the BART (SF’s version of the T). In fact they have illustrated spots where bikes my be leaned. The CalTrain (their version of Commuter Rail) has entire bike cars that were full of riders. There was plentiful interior station bike parking. Think the tunnel at Down Town Crossing filled with bike racks and bikes… Hello MBTA????

2. No matter how suburban the area there is tons of bike accomodation in the form of well marked and signed bike lanes going to real places. There was one news report of the folks at facebook donating big money to one town to improve its bike infrastructure, among a lot of other things… Hello Corporate Boston as well as State transportation planners????

3. Back to the signage… Even the ever exclusive Monterey Penninsula has signs banning parking from bike lanes. I have yet to see one of those in Boston anywhere, not even north of the Charles. Please correct me, but I’d say we’re LACKING in signage big time! Hello Mass Dot? Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville DPWs?????

4. Tons of by the hour rental bikes available PRIVATELY. We counted no less than 5 different rental franchises in San Francisco offering bikes for as little as an hour. Monterey had 4 in a two block area. Hubway’s set up is expensive? How come there are dozens of companies staffing booths there? Perhaps the weather? This gets back to dotrider’s disenchantment with Hubway as a driver instead of improving infrastructure and working on EDUCATION of riders and drivers alike about bicycling in the city. I’m sorry to be such a Republican on this issue since it is private entities serving the market not public…

So we’ve been on two trips around the school vacation week and we’ve seen Montreal and San Francisco’s infrastructure. This makes me believe our ’50 miles’ is somewhat of a hoax. Counting a blotted out sharrow on Dot-Ave as a bike lane doesn’t count. Sorry. We’re better than we’ve been folks, but let’s set a higher bar. Hopefully the city’s replacement for Nicole Friedman will help address these issues.

Meanwhile Peddle on!

…but its how little you go zero. That’s my bike riding mantra for traversing the streets of Dorchester and anywhere else in the Boston area. The bikes I ride aren’t particularly fancy or fast, so deluding myself into being speed racer isn’t about to happen. Throw in the fact that I’m hardly middle aged anymore and it is truely a matter of not getting hurt. If you go too fast you’re more likely to get hurt or to get hurt worse than if you weren’t going so fast.

So, it’s set that I don’t ride fast, so what about the ‘not going zero’ part? Mass Bikes promotes the Same Streets Same Rules concept and I use their handy plastic hand outs once or twice a week to inform confused riders and drivers alike. That said, there’s no way I’d obey every traffic law on my ride between Dorchester and JP each day.

I’ve worked in JP for nearly 13 years. Since I began working there the City of Boston has added 16 stop signs to intersections I passed through in a car coming and going. There are also three traffic lights that didn’t exist then either. So….as a rider there’s plenty of intersections that I can recall weren’t dangerous enough before to require a Stop sign. That doesn’t drive my thinking related to how I ride, but it is a factor.

The Idaho model probably reflects my approach best. I believe it is Idaho that allows bikes to do ‘rolling’ stops through stop signs and red lights. Given, as Bikeyface so aptly pointed out, that riders see a lot more than our car-bound brethren it isn’t the most dangerous move in the world to continue through just about any Stop sign and a select number of lighted intersections.

There are some roads I would never cross without the light in my favor or at least the Walk light on. In fact I like it best when the Walk light is on in all directions. I deem myself a ‘pedalstrian’ and off I go.

Otherwise there are five lights on my way to work that I’d never run. For the locals that is Park Street at Washington, Four Corners, Columbia Road at Washington, Blue Hill Ave into Franklin Park and crossing Washington in JP. On the way home, it is more nuanced. I rarely run the one at the end of Williams to get into Franklin Park. Turning off Blue Hill onto Talbot has a series of choices depending upon the timing and the car traffic, stopping being one that is part of the mix. Going through Codman Square is its own adventure where the goal is to avoid having to stop as is Peabody Square. That said there are a majority of configurations where stopping is the choice.

It was sad to hear the cops were enforcing riding the right way on Talbot Avenue, since they do it themselves. One suspects they knew the person they pulled over as they discovered a 38 automatic with 10 rounds in it on the rider, so… One suspects there are plenty of folks who had an evil thought the rider was after the bad driver who chased them off the road, but sadly that just added fuel to my partner’s suggestion that I should keep my mouth shut when out on the road. It could happen, and it will when I’m riding with her for sure. I go zero a lot more when riding with her too, but hey usually were not in any hurry when we’re riding together anyway… Pedal on!

Last night I was rolling my regular commuting bike down to Peabody Square to get the flat fixed at Ashmont Cycles when I ran into the owner Jack Peletier on the street headed home. He didn’t look to great. He reported that he was hit from behind by a car on Monday morning while riding from Forest Hills through Franklin Park. A car swerved into the bike lane and took him out. He reported that he had a cracked rib, cheek and bruises and he said he was still in pain.

Here’s a guy who wears more lights than a Christmas tree, usually rides within the boundaries and in this case was IN THE BIKE LANE! I can only imagine the reaction of the driver, “He shouldn’t be on the road.” Alas Jack was a victim of what represents only 3% of all bicycle accidents, someone hitting you from behind.

Perhaps as a result of that news, riding in today it felt like every car was out to get me. I had to yell and bell at just about every intersection as cars swerved to go around folks, made unsignaled turns, ran red lights that were red for quite some time and even came right at me on the wrong side of the street. That and thinking about poor Jack made me angry.

Further, I recalled that I was riding at the other end of the Park about a half hour after Jack got whacked and I was watching all the cars drift into the bike lane I was thinking it would only be a matter of time before someone got hit by one of these drivers. Who knew it had just happened!

Jack will be okay, so why am I so pissed off? It’s probably because as good as the City’s efforts have been to promote cycling and improve access a lot more needs to be done wrt educating ALL of us, drivers, riders, pedestrians EVERYONE of the rights, responsibilities, perils and promise of riding a bicycle in the city of Boston. If they find money to expand Hubway, here’s hoping they get so much they can run some public service announcements promoting co-existance between bikes, cars and pedestrians.

Perhaps the Mayor’s Office could prevail on the folks at the Globe to take a more supportive roll promoting safety? They could arrange a sit down between local riders and the wags at the Globe to add some perspective? While the Globe has been okay at reporting at times they revert to auto-centricism (recall Brian McCrory’s rant last year for instance) which isn’t helpful.

How about finding a bigger forum for Bikeyface? All the blogs and interchange back and forth between riders and drivers isn’t worth a whit compared to Bikeyface’s insight wit and intelligence at showing how a bike rider thinks and lives on the streets of greater Boston. In fact, it’s probably a universal urban story. Here’s a case where a picture is worth a lot MORE than 1000 words (or the 500-700 or so I usually limit myself to here).

It’s a small wonder there’s a ‘war’ going on between cars and bikes. It’s one bikes have no chance of winning outside of our own personal feelings of smugness for saving energy while getting in shape. I know I was most happy today when I went by the 30 or so cars backed up on Washington Street short of Columbia Road. I suspect drivers hate bikes because of times like that. When they’re stuck in line waiting one or two light cycles, how dare that bike zip past and go right up to the light and disapear without being seen again.

So, if anyone in the bike advocacy world happens to read this we’re ALL ready to help spread the word that bikes are here to stay and they’re an integral part of a modern city’s transportation network. Now that we have 50 miles of bike network it’s about time everyone knew about it and what that means. Education is job #1!

Thanks for reading. I feel a little better now.

Wow! What a nice puff piece in the Boston Globe last week highlighting the stories of the biggest Hubway users. One MBA student, a hospital worker and a case worker were highlighted and they were thrilled that there was a Hubway near home and work. Wouldn’t that be a nice perk for ALL Boston residents?

I can see the guy from Mattapan riding to his hotel worker job in Kenmore Square in 25 minutes instead of taking the series of buses, trolleys, trains well over an hour to get there.

Or how about the Savin Hill based dude with a restaurant job in Chinatown who now has an after hours ride home?

Perhaps we’d see the JP Groover girl cutting through Franklin Park on a Bixie over to her job in Codman Square?

Thanks whoever thought of using their data to highlight that regular people actually use Hubway and for $85 ($60 if you hang in there) a YEAR your commute is covered for half the time. I wonder what positive impacts that would have in neighborhoods with the largest share of the working poor?

Sure the working poor would benefit, but so would the other couple of hundred thousand of us who work but aren’t poor. Everyone says Somerville and Cambridge are denser, but oddly when one looks at population and area the density in those towns run about the same as Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain and Mattapan. A lot of Roslindale would fit as well until we got out toward West Roxbury and Hyde Park. And at that, one suspects we could find pockets of those neighborhoods that are as similarly dense as anywhere.

We’re working on some form of this question for the State of the City event tonight. Where’s the equity? Not in the City of Boston’s planners heads that’s for sure.

** Post State of the City comment: I never did ask my question, but it was as though Boston Bikes read this post. Equity was used by everyone several times and we’re being heard. Hopefully funds for another 20-30 stations out in the neighborhoods will be found for this year. Isn’t there a shoe company out in Canton who might want to sponsor in their direction? I guess it might be a conflict with the other deal that helped secure Hubway out in Allston…

Otherwise I’d ask where the Sharrow guy is on Dot Ave by the end of Mather Street (oops! it showed this morning looking pretty fresh) and is there a plan to return the Sharrow guys to Dot Ave south of Gallivan Blvd? It was resurfaced and painted sans sharrows… But it’s only one detail no? And it’s in Dorchester so who cares… I’ve heard that one before…

We were in Montreal last week and despite the Bixie’s being put away for the winter there were ample signs of an active bike culture in operation. Nice lanes, good signs, a welcome sign for bikes on the Metro, parking meters with bike lock spaces on them and lots more. The issue bike advocates are fighting is that anyone cited while riding their bike has points put on their auto-driving record. That might sound fine, but you don’t need a license to ride a bike so anyone who doesn’t have a license can’t get points. Anyway, it’s going to court so we’ll keep an eye on that. Otherwise it’s Three Cheers to Le P’tit Bar on Ave St. Dennis!

Thanks to the warm and relatively snow-free weather, winter riding has grown in leaps and bounds this year in Dorchester as well as all over Boston. Dotriderblog hasn’t missed a day in January riding to work. It took until the end of February to log 200 miles and at this writing 200 will be surpassed before the end of the day. Not a day goes by when I don’t see plenty of other riders out and about finding their way, no matter the conditions.

I haven’t always been a winter rider, but this is now the 5th year running that I’ve ridden to work at least once a week every week. With the right clothing plus making an old Dahon picked up at a local yard sale the foul weather bike (can ride the T if it is totally yucky), we’re committed to the point where it won’t just be a day each week streak. The ‘every day except when we drive for work or leave town from work on Friday’ streak is approaching a year and after last January we’d expect a few streaks ended and began again then.

Adding to the fun of being a winter rider has been the semi-regular stop off at Ashmont Cycles on the way home. I had long imagined being the one and only visitor but it seems to have developed into a neighborhood haunt for regular riders as well as curious ones. I’ve only been in there once this month when there wasn’t at least one other person in there doing business or just hanging out.  Often there’s a crowd. The community building that is going on there is awesome to see and to be a part of each day.

Ashmont Cycles owner Jack Peletier doesn’t seem to have to fall back on his previous career choice as much as he thought he might this winter. It’s great to see another person making money by thinking the best of Dorchester consumers. No one I know has gone broke by overestimating the buying power and consumer demands in Dorchester.

Along that line over 600 folks showed up at the first Winter Farmer’s Market in January. The next few weeks has seen at least 300 folks still showing up. While there were some moans about the prices, anyone who goes far and wide for produce knows the prices are fine. While the effort is part of a community effort to set up a food coop, the wave of folks is a signal to high end food retailers that they’re missing a huge market by not setting up here. But hey, they’re corporate and much smarter than anyone daft enough to try in Dorchester…NOT!

So if you’re out riding in Dorchester folks, do stop in and say howdy to Jack and the rest of us hanging at Ashmont Cycles. There you’ll find the diverse range of folks who make up the Chile Pot (a more accurate term than melting pot?) that makes up Dorchester and those of us out riding every day. He’s got a lot more inventory in there and you’ll have a chance to perhaps influence what else will grace the ever-reorganizing and expanding store.

One final comment: THANK YOU PARKS FOR PLOWING GLEN ROAD IN FRANKLIN PARK!!! After blowing it off the first ‘storm,’ they got it on the second one. We’re hoping that will be the norm from here on out forever! Fingers crossed.

The first work day of the New Year and it’s a fine day for riding to work. We didn’t see our usual compliment of riders but we were early. The dog walkers were out in the park and they all had leashes on their dogs! Great start to a New Year.

Just a quick comment here about dogs. Toni Pollack the Commissioner of Parks said at a recent meeting that dogs are the number one source of complaints and the biggest source of strife for her and her staff. Hey dog owners, did you hear that???? You as a group are hated and despised by Parks because you’re a pain when you let your dog run without a leash or you don’t pick up after your dog. It sounds like how bike riders are perceived by many automobile drivers… I’m sure most dog owners aren’t like that right? 😉

So we see the State of the City’s Bike Program has been set for early February. We’ll have to work on our tongue bighting as the city has made a lot of progress in the past year. Ideal no, but progress non-the-less. The most exciting was the fact there has been a consulting group hired and the process of drafting a bike plan for the entire city has begun. Three years late, but it has begun. That will help advocates as well as city and state planners going forward to insure a complete streets approach is taken when doing road work in Boston.

We’re hoping the City steps up it’s public relations to support bicycling and to begin educating ALL of the public of the benefits of bicycling to those who do and those who don’t ride. The health benefits of course for riders as well as the savings, financial and environmentally no matter how incremental all count. Educating automobile drivers is paramount right now for sure to help increase safety and to diffuse the growing animosity between riders and drivers.

We’re also hopeful that Hubway would expand to more Boston neighborhoods. If a neighborhood is urban enough for ZipCar what’s up with no Hubway?

‘I bike to work!’ is feeling a bit bored looking at the bike scene and we’re hopeful those working full time advocating for complete streets and better biking will continue their fine work while remembering the working folks of Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury as well as anywhere around town really who don’t have the time or inclination to speak up. Folks who ride not out of choice, but because it is all they can afford. Making them feel better about riding as well as helping them to ride safe and as they should instead of sidewalking or riding into traffic like we see daily in Dorchester. That would help all riders and it might make these riders life time riders instead of folks likely to opt out and use a car the second they think they can afford one.

Going forward, idling and Franklin Park are two issues where more time and energy may be going during 2012.

Idlers are of a similar ilk to drivers who yell at bikes to get off the road, clueless. How to get through to these folks is a big question. Anyone have any ideas? Maggie doesn’t think me yelling at them or leaving single brochures on their doors is effective. But that’s all I have right now. So far the Globe hasn’t run any letters commenting on the potential upsdie of educating all of us on the obvious waste of money and harm to the environment idling is in our economy. We’ll keep trying though.

Meanwhile, Franklin Park is 25% of the City of Boston’s parkland and it is generally used as a storage yard and dumping ground for the other 75%. When locals ask for more services they get lip service from Parks saying their budget is strained. Meanwhile anyone with two eyes can see the budget may be strained but it is obvious Franklin Park isn’t getting its share of the budget outside of the golf course which takes in a few bucks for the City. Does this sound like a familiar story? Yup! Of course we’d love to slip a disc golf course in there as well, so we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile Peddle on!

Here we are in the middle of December and most of us are still out riding. There isn’t a ride lately that I don’t see other riders somewhere on my short commute. What five years ago was a lonely pursuit during December and the other winter months today looks more like spring and summer five years ago. Of course living through the warmest fall on record (or was it 1975–I remember doing a lot of the Long Trail in Vermont that fall) has helped. But so has the ever-growing bike culture which has really taken root in Boston.

That leads to the question of what is Boston’s bike culture?  How does it reflect the rest of our community? Is there a way to influence bike culture? Can bike culture be an influence on the rest of us?

It’s funny when you talk with other riders how similar our outlook and experiences are. It must be what a rider sees while riding a bike that shapes our perception on things. Often we notice stuff that those riding along side us inside their cars are often oblivious too. Our awareness contributes to drivers chip on their shoulders.

While there are the obvious answers about the root of our bike culture, basically the origin of today’s movement goes back to the run up to the financial crisis of 2008 when investment banks were leveraging themselves 30 or more times and ‘hedging’ their bets in all kinds of markets thus sending their value spinning out of control to the point where we had $4.50 gasoline in the United States. Throw in the wave of increased unemployment and suddenly that dusty bike in the basement took on a new look. Out in Dorchester you began to see increasing numbers of folks of all race and age groups setting out on their bikes.

Dorchester also had a generation of bike culture that dates back to the 1970s when the ten speed racing bike was introduced into the market. Up to then it was a clunky heavy bike and being fancy meant having a three speed Raleigh. There is a core of riders in Dot that were part of that movement. Many of us never stopped riding. That’s my generation. We’re so glad to see a new generation take to it in even bigger numbers and with more success than ours.

Thus the core of bike culture and what will move it forward and further into the main stream are the Gen X  & Y types who may have grown up in the suburbs but have chosen city life over suburban life built around a car. It is the strength of that energy that has encourage dotriderblog as much as anything over the past few years. Keep it up folks!

Just remember that your experience isn’t unique! Your choices while possibly being informed and studied aren’t the ones that all riders may make. Keep telling your stories. Keep thinking big picture and that we need a consistent region-wide approach to biking that includes everyone, especially those in our more economically diverse neighborhoods.

Hence the general theme of “I bike to work!” Dorchester’s diversity isn’t just racial. It’s economic as well. We heard a statistic that 02124 has as many millionaires as Fairfield, Connecticut. One suspects Dot has more folks living under the poverty line too. It probably has one of the largest slices of the middle class as well. Housing 17 union halls it was roots to the working class to boot!

We need to help the folks who are out riding to jobs in down town hotels or restaurants at all hours and in all weather that are the under counted and under served segment of bike culture. Of course precisely because this segment of the Dorchester community isn’t seen that the rest of us get less services and support than other parts of the city. Despite our constant presence at city events. Despite the real facts about our neighbohood. So, keep up your great work bike advocates! Just work for all of us!

The week just past and some upcoming meetings are proving to be very exciting for bicycle advocates in the city of Boston. Wednesday night keen observers saw that Boston Bikes was opening a planning meeting with their design firm Toole Associates to view the initial Master Plan for Bicycle Infrastructure and to suggest tweaks and or areas where there might be something BIG that hadn’t been thought of yet.

Dotriderblog’s big idea turned out to be taking a lane out of the Callahan or Sumner Tunnel and dedicating it to bicycles. I’ve since dubbed it the Thomas H. Menino Cyclo-Tunnel. I’ve also further dreamed that a bike lane be suspended from the ceiling of the tunnel and a limited height lane remain under it thus only limiting trucks and other tall vehicles and not any automobiles. Of course that would significantly add to the expense.

Expense wasn’t the question in the plan. It appears to have taken EVERY suggestion by ANY bike advocate from ANY part of the city and incorporated it into a huge series of sharrows, bike lanes, dedicated lanes, cyclotracks and separate pathways. WOW! If instituted (w/o the THM C-T) I believe that would bring Boston’s bike infrastructure to nearly 400 miles of roadway.

Of course not even I asked how much or how long at the time. A lot of the plans are already in the mix like the Morrissey Blvd Master Plan that calls for all kinds of new accomodation. Given the pace of events in the City the Mayor will have to hang around another 20 years in order to see this dream realized. I’m not sure if I’ll last that long myself…

Hopefully this plan will come together and we’ll start the day by day work to begin implementing it. There will be a lot of community meetings in any bike advocate’s future if these are to get done. Of course, the more is installed the better the results the easier it will be to convince crabby neighborhood groups that it is in their best interest to go along with this.

Hence Dotriderblog’s other MAIN suggestion might appear to be a good idea in terms of developing a constituency for more bike infrastructure. EDUCATION! There needs to be a plan to educate riders and automobile drivers alike about bicycles and how to operate them and for cars to deal with them. The more of us that understand how bikes should work on the road the better. Perhaps I’ll be able to go for more than a day without someone suggesting I get off the road.

The meeting in Dorchester on Thursday showing how DCR is trying to proceed with the Neponset Bikeway along the Neponset River was truly exciting. We’ll know by the end of the year if the Federal Funding will be forthcoming for same. We noticed the TIGER funds got through the latest budget vote yesterday although the cutting of the high-speed rail funds might eat into that… (sigh).

The Missing Link’s in Dorchester will be slated for completion if the TIGER Grant comes through. If it doesn’t they will be left off the current plan except for perhaps having the plans completed. So keep your fingers crossed or contact the White House, your Senator’s and your local Congressperson and tell them to speak up for the Tiger Grant for the Neponset Bike Way!

Next week will be a meeting on the Casey Overpass and a Cyclo-track extension on Morton Street. Cool! Go folks go! I hope that one works too! Quite an exciting week!

Peddle on!

This post may get changed and added onto. Any of my local friends PLEASE either post a comment or e-mail me directly if you think of anything I’m leaving out.

We’ve caught wind of an event by Boston Bikes on 11/16 at the Library to provide input to the direction they should be heading when developing more bicycle infrastructure. WOW! Outside of ditching cars there are dozens of suggestions that come to mind.

To start, if the City and State would only require ALL ROAD PROJECTS include a plan for bicycles, we’d get off on the right foot. It seems there have been a dozen or so projects in Dorchester that simply haven’t thought about bikes for a mili-second. Boston Bikes would take a big step up if they had more input on the projects. We might have lanes on Morton Street, Geneva Avenue, Bowdoin Street as well as a few other streets. Or Sharrows anyway.

What’s the dream? Let’s start with Mass Ave from Everett Square to BMC. A separated bike lane from the Square to the bridge past South Bay would be a good start. Then a solid lane up to the point where cars have to veer around the fire station and THEN a direct bike lane up Mass Ave in the face of the one way traffic coming south. Add southbound lanes all the way and we’re in there.

So, while we’re looking at commutes, finishing lanes on Blue Hill Avenue to Dudley and all the way to Mattapan works. Branching off that, River Street, Cummings Highway, Norfolk Ave, Morton Street, Seaver Street (Talbot, American Legion Hwy, Columbia Road and Warren Street (sharrows) are done!), Quincy Street and hey! Dudley could use attention.

Looking off Dot Ave, Adams Street (in Lower Mills and Fields Corner), Neponset Ave, Freeport Street, Hancock Street, Pleasant Street, Boston/Dorchester Street, D Street, Dover Street Bridge all come to mind. Morton Street and Washington Street from Lower Mills? Sure.

Harvard Ave, Bowdoin, Ashmont Street, Park Street all come to mind as east/west streets that are major arteries in Dot. Granite Ave? Let’s! Adams Street from Adams Village? Of course!

Out on the waterfront, we have the Missing Link movement trying to obtain millions to finish that neglected segment. How about Morrissey in front of BC High and the Globe? Lane after lane for cars…nothing for bikes! Day Blvd, Columbia Road out to Southie? Way overdue. Old Colony Boulevard!

Improve ALL access points to Franklin Park so we’re not jumping a curb or slithering through a gap in the fence. Yup!

There is an effort somewhere (is it dead?) to make a bike trail along the Purple Line. Sounds good!

How about Hubway stations at JFK, Fields Corner, Ashmont, the new Purple Line Stations, Franklin Park and on into other neighborhoods? Great idea! Throw in UMass, Codman Square, Grove Hall for Hubway? Wow!

We’re going to measure the width of Dorchester Avenue where the state only deigned to put Sharrows and compare it with the other laned part of the Avenue. We’re hoping (and pretty damn sure really) that something built in 1804 maintained most of its original width from Lower Mills to Congress Street no? Betcha!

So that’s it off the top of my head right now. Please let us know if you have any other thoughts. Dot-centric of course. Thanks!