Last week our cycling community, and the city, was rocked by the tragic death of Boston University student Christopher Weigl. By coincidence, a hearing on bicycle safety brought the community together at City Hall later that day. Both events have many left asking what’s being done to make our city safe for cyclists, and rightfully so. Personally, I have been inspired by the outpouring of concern, support, validation, and sense of togetherness in our efforts to make Boston a world-class caliber city for bicycling.
Over the past five years, our Boston Bikes program has grown tremendously. Bicycle infrastructure is popping up in every neighborhood. A few years ago, when I announced “the car is no longer king” in Boston, it was before we had 675,000 trips on Hubway and before 9,000 young people went through bicycle education classes in schools around the city. That vision has guided the rapid growth in cycling throughout Boston.
Comments
Please, please, please get them off the sidewalks. Making the city safe for cyclists is fine, but how about making sidewalks safe for pedistrians.
Mayor Menino,
Ticketing cars in the bike lane is of course welcome. Your police force though completely ignores cyclists who run reds, ride the wrong way, brush pedestrians, don't yield right of way etc. They are allowed to act in a way that does not garner the respect of drivers with much bigger and heaveier vehilces. EVERY vehilce i point out to patrolmen that endangers the public is ignored by the patrolmen. They tell me, "it is only a bicycle". The patrolmen on bicycles are perhaps the worst example of law breaking and dangerous riding - they too ignore the rules that hold our commute together.
The only effort the police make is a three day a year "crackdown" that is essentially a light and helmet giveway to cyclicts without them.
And you ask cyclists to police themselves. The last I looked we were not in an anarchy. Cyclists, nor drivers nor pedestrians are given the credibility and mandate the police are.
Enforcement means enforcement. I suggest you instruct the police force to enforce the rules of the road on cyclists with the same vigor and consistency they do on drivers. Until they do, we have completely failed on the "E" for enforcement.