MassDOT has rearranged its construction zone to improve bike and pedestrian access on a key crossing of Interstate 90 in Boston's Allston neighborhood in response to a Streetsblog reader's petition last week.
As we reported last Thursday, a MassDOT construction project on the Cambridge Street bridge in Allston had erected construction barriers that blocked the southbound Cambridge Street bike lane and the southern entrance of the Franklin Street footbridge over I-90.
For most of last week, those barriers had funneled hundreds of bicycle users and pedestrians who use both bridges to share a narrow, broken sidewalk between the footbridge and the Harvard Ave. intersection.
On Wednesday, StreetsblogMASS reader Emily Jacobsen, who regularly bikes over the bridge on her commute, emailed local elected officials and started an online petition to draw attention to the problem.
After we published our first report on Thursday morning, MassDOT issued a statement to say that the agency "has heard the concerns of bicyclists and will make minor adjustments to the barrier to reallocate space while continuing to prioritize the safety of all users including construction crews."
This morning, Jacobsen sent StreetsblogMASS the photo at the top of this article to show what changed over the holiday weekend.
MassDOT's work zone continues to occupy the sidewalk and bike lane on the northern (westbound) side of the bridge. The work has also restricted westbound car traffic on Cambridge Street Bridge to a single lane.
However, the construction barrier that had formerly blocked the bike lane on Cambridge Street to the west of the Franklin Street footbridge is now gone, allowing southbound and westbound bike traffic to enter and use the bike lane once again.
MassDOT informed us last week that bridge users should expect the work zone and lane closures to remain until October.
The new configuration is "better at least in the sense that you aren't forced down the sidewalk," wrote Jacobsen in an email to StreetsblogMASS, but she added that "they really missed an opportunity to give a safe lane to cyclists all the way to the intersection" by moving the crash barrier between the bike lane and motorized traffic.
