The Boston Transportation Department is planning "near-term" changes to Cambridge Street in Allston between Harvard Avenue and the Charles River, where paint-only bike lanes currently guide cyclists through a series of intimidating merges with speeding vehicles headed to and from the Massachusetts Turnpike.
In an open house last Tuesday, staff from the Boston Transportation Department presented sketch plans of the project, which would generally add new flexposts to the existing bike lanes and shorten crossing distances for bikes and pedestrians at side street intersections along the corridor.
The proposed project would reduce the ramp to one lane where it diverges from Cambridge Street, add a physical buffer for the bike lane, and build an ADA-accessible, high-visibility crosswalk (click the image to view a larger version):
Harry Mattison, a safer streets advocate who lives in the neighborhood and bikes on Cambridge Street "many times a week," attended the city's open house last week and greeted the plans with enthusiasm.
"The change to the on-ramp is great," said Mattison in a phone interview last week. "Making it narrower will really change the dynamics there to make it much safer. Senator Brownsberger and a whole bunch for neighbors have been asking for these changes for a long time."