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Citizen complaint of the day: Those damned/blessed new bike lanes in JP
By adamg on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 11:50am
An outraged citizen files a 311 complaint about the road markings along the Arborway and Centre Street that went in this week as contractors get ready to place bollards for a new bike lane to replace one of the four current car lanes between Parkman Drive and the Arborway rotary.
Thanks for adding a lane that will only be used by ATVs and dirt bikes, but can we be practical and switch it back to two lanes so us blue collar workers can actually get home?"
Ed. note: This is the stretch of road with two main lanes and two carriage-lane lanes in each direction.
Another citizen is also outraged, but at the first outraged citizen, and so files a 311 reply - under the topic heading of "rodent sighting:"
Hey asshole, take the train or ride a bike. Boston isn't built for that many cars anyway so you should be happy about this.
Meanwhile, a third outraged citizen files a 311 complaint about the situation downstream from Jamaica Pond, along Chestnut Street near Perkins Street, just before the mini-rotary at the Brookline line:
10 cars and trucks parked in bike lane. Please start enforcing bike lanes with tickets and tows.
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Comments
Mock Surprise
It isn’t just in West Roxbury that people equate bike lanes with an assault on Hard Workin’ Stiffs?
Delusional Yuppies
No. In the Roxbury and Hyde Park FB groups people of all ages and races complain about bike lanes. Try a Twitter search too.
Nothing more interesting/annoying than watching delusional yuppies trying to convince themselves they have locals who support them, somewhere, in some neighborhood. Naw.
All the long time residents resent you and especially the bike lanes. Outside of the academics.
That is all.
Sounds like you need to meet
Sounds like you need to meet more Bostonians. Born & raised in Dot since 1983 & know Bostonians who bike, would bike if it wasn't so dangerous & some who don't & won't.
That includes a long-term Bostonian right on the Arborway carriageway who is pumped about now having a better bike lane outside the front door.
Converting a 2 lane
Converting a 2 lane carriageway on a six lanes road into on motor vehicle lane and one bike lane seems wicked practical to me actually. There's plenty of schools in Boston so it should shock no one that climate change is real, transportation accounts for a bit chunk of emissions and thus everyone needs to drive less. There is no choice left, we waited too long.
Working stiffs need bike lanes too.
Share the road, outraged git.
American Legion Highway....
Go down American Legion Highway and tell me how an operator yields the right of way to a Firetruck, Ambulance, or Police vehicle.....Hint: you can't.
Two foot high curb to your left a bazillion bike lane bollards to your right.
They don’t drive a car,
They don’t drive a car, genius. Bikes aren’t the ones blocking ambulances you hypocrite.
Less cars.
Less crashes.
Less need for ambulances.
Oversized flammable four wheeled things are a problem.
I’ve seen bike lanes wide enough for emergency vehicles. More of those would be good.
"working class types"
Funny how such self-described blue collar workers don't get that it ain't the size of the pipe but the diameter of the nozzle that controls flow.
And it ain't the size of the wire but the resistance ...
Makes me wonder if they just wear a blue shirt now and then and never actually deal with such blue collar things as plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc.
Because its too hard to understand systems when your blue collar ass actually ... isn't.
LMAO
LMAO @ the outrage over blocked bike lanes. Teehee.
Fine, honey
We will just ride down the middle of the unblocked traffic lane. Not only legal, but required to avoid "door prizes".
And you can just sit back and wait for the lane to clear and cyclists to return to it, because bikes are legal vehicles and cyclists have as much right to the roadway as special motorized transport users do.
Note: this is ALL in your driver's manual. Don't like it? DON'T DRIVE.
I just wish more of my fellow
I just wish more of my fellow cyclists actually acted like the vehicle operators they legally are. Stopping at stop lights, for example, or not passing cara on the right in the same lane just to get to the front of the line. The law protects us using the regular lane, but we should respect ALL the laws, not just the ones that make our lives more convenient
Tell you what
The next time you're out with your fellow cyclists, do a count of the number of bicycle traffic violations you see. Then do a count of the number of motor vehicle violations. Make sure you count them all, mind: failure to come to full stop, failure to yield (lots of different flavors of that one), lane change without signaling, speeding. Count 'em all.
Both cyclists and motor vehicle operators fail to obey the letter of the law, but one is much more consequential than the other.
Okay?
You don’t need to go to the middle of an unblocked lane. You quite literally pick your bike up and go around that shit, or -gasp- go on the damn sidewalk for 5 feet. Y’all are so pressed for no reason.
Why would I dismount, waste
Why would I dismount, waste time and need to yield to oncoming traffic when I can just take the lane and make it the problem of the person behind me?
Then don’t. Come on uHub and
Then don’t. Come on uHub and complain. Hahahaha!
Oh please
Act your age.
Is that expected
when someone is riding a box bike that weighs about 90 pounds, excluding its load of children/groceries/work supplies?
Because those are completely legal and appropriate to be ridden in bike lanes. And we should be encouraging as many people as possible to use them rather than cars. Are you volunteering to come lift them onto the curb for people?
Oh, what about children? Should they dart out into 30mph traffic when their bike lane is blocked on the way to/from school?
Or, if you're a driver...
Instead of stopping in the clearly marked bike lane, you quite literally continue driving until you find -gasp- an open and legal parking space.
My friend got in a terrible
My friend got in a terrible bike accident (several days in the hospital) when a truck driver parked in the bike lane. I get that the City of Boston, the cops and you dont care, but it has real world consequences, even if you just think its funny when citizens are hurt and maimed by these people.
The moral of that story is
The moral of that story is that bicycles are extremely hazardous to your health.
Do you have a setting other than 'callous'?
Every day you make the world a meaner place.
Moral of the story is
Moral of the story is bicyclist are crashing into double parked cars and nearly killing themselves? LOL
LMAO over car drivers giving
LMAO over car drivers giving thousands of dollars per year to Exxon Mobil like a sucker and getting heart disease from sitting on their fat ass all day.
Yes, please take a big whiff
Yes, please take a big whiff of my exhaust while I sit on my fat ass at the lights at Forest Hills. LOL
All bodies are good bodies
People can have good or bad health and fitness in all body sizes, but aside from that, I agree that it's baffling that people are opposed to other people doing what they can for the environment and their health.
People are insufferable
People are insufferable, I swear.
Loggin a ticket over a bike lane being built. Like 311 cares.. I see a auto-closed ticket in the future. Take it up at a planning meeting, not on BOS311.
The blocking lane 311 request is valid :-)
Fake news
Pender rotary is clearly DOWNSTREAM of the pond. I demand a retraction to this falsehood.
More interesting to me - that's a Boston street that 311 would cover? Or does 311 work in Brookline too?
Brookline has its own app,
Brookline has its own app, crappily dubbed BrookOnLine.
Up and down and alll around the town
Fixed. I should know better.
Thank you
Your journalistic ethics have no parallel.
I"ve been walking in bike
I"ve been walking in bike lanes or the street lately because sidewalks are nasty. Centre St., Causeway St North Station across from Hub where Half Time Pizza used to be, and along Mass Ave near the hospital. Mystery poop, sticky drinks, and other mystery substances. I know I speak for plenty of pedestrians. Any out there with other nasty sidewalk experiences?? I'll keep using the bike lanes to walk.
Hey come on now! That's not right.
Bike lanes are for bicyclists--not for walkers. Just be careful when you walk on the sidewalks, that's all.
So now instead of just watching where you walk
you still have to do that, but also play frogger?
Blue collar workers? You're
Blue collar workers? You're rich and employed in their eyes. Why don't u get out of your comfort zone and actually get to know these menaces on ATVs and scooters and hear about how riding is a way to escape from the bullshit and the reason why they can't be a blue collar worker like you?? Why don't you enjoy the rewards of helping someone? They're good young people inside who need caring and attention.
The blue collar worker line
The blue collar worker line is BS. Every single job I am on has multiple people cycling, scooting, etc to it. Myself included. That shift is only growing.