Eyes On the Street: Somerville’s New Protected Bikeways Around Porter Square

This fall, the City of Somerville is putting the finishing touches on a network of new protected bikeways that will link several bike routes between Porter and Davis Squares – a project mandated by the city’s 2024 Safe Streets Ordinance.

The project renovated a 0.7-mile segment of Elm Street and an adjacent quarter-mile segment of Somerville Avenue with new protected bike lanes.

The new facilities extend an existing protected bike route on Beacon Street and Hampshire Street (in Cambridge), which connects Inman and Kendall Squares and ranks as one of the busiest bike routes in New England.

The project also converted Mossland Street – a short connector between Somerville Ave. and Elm Street – into a new low-traffic “neighborway” connection that prioritizes bike and pedestrian traffic.

Mossland is now barred to motor vehicle traffic at its intersection with Elm Street, but bike and emergency vehicle traffic can still get through (the wooden barriers in this photo are slated to be replaced with plastic flexible-post bollards):

Another feature of the project is a dramatic reduction in the size of the Beech Street intersection with Elm Street.

Previously, Beech Street had an unusually wide right-turn lane onto Elm Street to permit high-speed turns; now, a large wedge of asphalt has been blocked to motorized traffic, and the intersection of Elm and Beech has been converted into an all-way stop:

The Beech Street reconfiguration is notable for another reason, too: it’s actually located in the City of Cambridge.

Transportation planners from Cambridge coordinated design work for Beech Street with the City of Somerville’s redesign of Elm Street to complete a seamless connection across city lines – a relatively rare example of successful inter-jurisdictional cooperation.