Now, Stidman says the advocacy group has about 1,300 paying members. Just last month, the city had a groundbreaking ceremony in downtown historic Boston for its longest cycle track, a bike lane that is physically separated from the street.
In other words, the union and the city’s bike network have come a long way. And now, Stidman says it’s time to leave the organization behind: The Roxbury resident is heading to the consulting firm Howard Stein Hudson to advise on transportation.
“I had always seen it as something I would start and hand off to others,” he said. “There is a lot of new leadership popping up across the city.”
Stidman grew up biking in Colorado and worked as a reporter in Boston before starting the bike union. Since the union began, he and other members frequently pushed city and state officials for such projects as cycle tracks on Commonwealth Avenue, the bustling thoroughfare near Boston University known among Boston bicyclists for its crashes.
The bike union is now looking for a leader at a time when biking can still be a dangerous prospect in some areas of the city. On Friday, a bicyclist was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer in the Back Bay.
Stidman’s departure comes after other prominent leaders in the local biking community have moved on to other posts. Recently, Nicole Freedman, the coordinator of Boston Bikes, left for Seattle, and longtime MassBike executive director David Watson stepped down.
Thomas Tinlin, the state’s acting highway administrator, worked frequently with Stidman when Tinlin was the top transportation official in Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration. Tinlin admitted they butted heads sometimes, but said he knew Stidman was just passionate about his cause.
Tinlin said he has attended many public meetings where Stidman would bluntly make his case to people who didn’t bike or care about bike safety.
“That wasn’t always met with rose petals and unicorns, but he was never deterred by that,” he said.
Still, Stidman said he’s optimistic about the city becoming as bike-friendly as it can be.
“The ultimate goal is a place where everybody feels like they can pop out of their front door, hop on a bike, and bike to work without worrying about getting hit by a car or getting harassed,” he said.
Train safety experts say a technology called “positive train control” could save lives.
A federal law passed in 2008 wanted major railroads across the country to install the technology by the end of 2015.
Last week, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officials revealed they won’t have the technology installed by that time. T officials have pointed out that most other transit agencies across the country are also behind, and a new report from the Federal Railroad Administration confirms this. But that same report also shows that the MBTA plans to complete the project later than most other railroads: By 2018, the agency may be one of just a few major commuter rail networks that will still lack the technology, according to the federal report.
In a chart, the report listed 38 major railroads across the country, including Amtrak, the New York’s Metro-North Commuter Railroad, and the freight railroad CSX. Out of those, 29 railroads plan to implement the technology by 2018, and another eight didn’t include exact dates. The MBTA was the only railroad that reported it would take until 2020 to implement the technology.
The technology automatically slows down trains at critical junctures. The National Transportation Safety Board, estimates that positive train control could have prevented 300 deaths and more than 6,700 injuries in the last 50 years or so.
According to the T, the agency will choose a contractor for its $490 million project installing the technology later this year.
Michael Verseckes, a spokesman for MassDOT, pointed out that the technology was installed on the Northeast Corridor rail line, which includes the Providence commuter rail line. But the T is still evaluating the proposals for obtaining the technology for the entire commuter rail system.
Nicole Dungca can be reached at nicole.dungca@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @ndungca.