[*BCM*] Observation

[Thomas John Vitolo]

> And if the BPD gets involved, you would have to obey the laws such as
> traffic lights and
> stop signs and so on.  

Doubtful.  In fact, I'd bet what would happen is that the BPD would make it more
like, ahem, a parade.  They'd likely simply block intersections and give us a
"free pass" without regard to the light.  It's far easier and safer to keep the
group together.
 
> But I think that if more people did turn out, you could have a road
> lane full of people,
> and if they stopped at a light, when that light changed you'd still
> have a block long of
> a road lane full of people, and that would be a good thing.

It doesn't work.  More specifically, it only could work if
 (a) the distance between lights was nearly identical, and
 (b) the light cycles were the same period and the same time for that particular
street, and
 (c) the cycles timed out to be exactly the pace of the CM.

This is derived from queueing theory, of which I'm a graduate student.  Frankly,
there's no way to keep the mass together if it stops at lights, because even if
(a), (b), and (c) were met, people on the cross street turning on to the street
the CM is on would bisect the stream of cycles.  Once you've got a bisected
stream, that stream could easily get bisected again at the next cycle, etc.  For
a thought exercise to understand why this is so, imagine a caravan of 10 cars
driving down Mass ave, all doing exactly the speed limit, and never speeding
up/slowing down at lights to stay together.  The first car would likely get
ahead of the last car by over a mile over a 10 mile span.


>  And
> still, the car traffic
> could get by, and people could see the beauty of what CM can be.  I
> think it is just such
> a shame that it isn't that now, and as CM keeps to the marginal
> fringes, that margin is
> going to get narrower andnarrower, which is such a shame.

Ultimately, since I believe that stopping at lights fractures CM in a way that
is both far less safe and less effective for CM, I believe that riding in 1 lane
is also a show-stopper, since it leads to (a) cars trying to make right or left
turns through the mass, (b) cars speeding to pass the mass (which can be very
dangerous to the cyclists and any other motorists/peds in the area), and (c)
added confusion when the CM doesn't stop at a red light, since it's "half" or
"one third" as wide, and therefore "half" or "one third" as massive from the
perspective of another set of vehicles preparing to go through the newly green
light.


In my opinion, CM simply can't function safely or effectively if fragmented by
traffic lights, or if it allows cars to pass by riding in a single lane.  It's
best method of keeping cars from growing frustrated, if that is important, is to
not ride along the same road for very long; constant "wiggling" between streets
and avenues will dramatically reduce the average and worst case waiting times
for motor vehicles, at the "cost" of distributing the delay amongst many more
drivers.  Additionally, not riding right at 5:00pm (which the Boston CM doesn't)
helps tremendously.  The 6:30ish ride is at the back half of rush hour, on the
day of the week when many more people are likely to leave work early.


 - Tommy V

Thomas John Vitolo
Ph D Systems Engineering Candidate,
Boston University

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