[*BCM*] My thoughts

[Anne Wolfe]

>From what I've seen, Mass Bike under its last two leaders has seriously
upped its game.  And the current form of local chapters has gone a long way
towards addressing the dichotomy you mention.  The people outside Boston
tend to face different aspects of biking issues than the ones that the
Boston urban catchment area does.  The Boston local group of Mass Bike seems
to be running like a shockingly well oiled machine considering the amount of
time they've actually been up and running.

The other problem is that Mass Bike runs up against state and city
bureaucracy.  You, they, and us can all point out til we're blue in the face
that an area is dangerous, and people have died.  This then runs up against
two problems:

1) How to fix it?

2) Once that's decided (and that's not simple), who's going to pay for it?
And where does the money come from?

This is the slowest process you can possibly imagine.  Slower than treacle
in January.  But you gotta keep up the pressure and campaigning and it will
get done.

On 05/04/07, Ian Thistle <idiotkid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So I have been stewing over the last day and here are some points I'd like
> to bring up for discussion.
>
> First, I offer my sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the
> young man who died.  I didn't know him personally but it seems like I easily
> could have.  I'm not sure if his name has been officially released, so I'm
> not going to say it, but he was a friend of friends of mine.  It's a
> terrible tragedy that I'm sure will stick with us for a long time.
>
> What I'm upset about is this:  Anyone who rides frequently in Boston could
> have told you that the area where he was hit is very dangerous.  One of the
> first responses on this list called it a "highway," and I agree.  People
> drive very fast and the road is needlessly narrow.  You always have to watch
> out for Northeastern / MassArt / SMFA students crossing the street without
> warning and yet it's the quickest route from downtown to Mission Hill,
> Brookline Village, and so on.
>
> Sometimes it unfortunately takes a tragedy for things to change.  I'd have
> hope that the area would be improved, except the area of Cambridge St where
> Kirsten Malone was killed three years ago (if I remember correctly) is still
> just as dangerous as it was the day she died.  Similarly, anyone could have
> told you that area was really dangerous before she was killed.
>
> Now, MassBike does some good things, but for a cycling advocacy group,
> they haven't done much to make things better for cyclists in the city (at
> least that I can tell in the four and a half years I've lived here).  One of
> their major recent victories was securing $40 million of funds for bike
> paths (link here)<http://www.massbike.org/projects/federal_bikepath_funding.htm>.
> Most of these are in the rest of the state, and the ones that are in the
> Boston area aren't ones I will ever ride, nor do most of my biking friends.
> I don't want to stereotype, but they seem to mainly be for "weekend
> warriors" rather than commuters.  No matter who rides them, bike paths are
> in my opinion counter to the safety of cyclists, since they get overwhelmed
> by joggers and rollerbladers and they reinforce the idea to drivers that
> cyclists belong off the road.
>
> I don't want to pin it all on MassBike, as I fully support a lot of the
> things they are doing.  I guess what I'm mostly looking for is some way to
> get my voice heard, as a cyclist on the streets of Boston who sees the city
> as needlessly forboding to cyclists.
>
> Lastly, I wanted to voice to everyone that while being scared to ride is a
> natural and understandable reaction to this death, that they shouldn't stop
> riding.  Fewer bikes on the streets makes it harder for everyone still
> riding, not to mention increasing pollution and lowering personal health.
>
> Be safe,
> Ian
>
> _______________________________________________
> Boston Critical Mass mailing list
> list at bostoncriticalmass.org
> http://bostoncriticalmass.org/list
> To unsubscribe email list-unsubscribe at bostoncriticalmass.org
>



-- 
Anne Wolfe, LL.M.
Mobile: ( 077484) 76599
Keep calm and carry on.  - WWII UK Government Slogan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bostoncoop.net/pipermail/bostoncriticalmass/attachments/20070405/a75be5c5/attachment-0001.htm