Somerville PD stopping cyclists running red lights (Sat 11:45am)

[dcltdw]

3 officers standing by the CVS stopping cyclists. Not sure if they're ticketing or not, but I suspect so.

Comments

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Now if they stopped people from biking the wrong way, we'd really be making progress. (OK, I think it was Belmont, but in the last day some bicyclist came down the one-way bike lane against the direction of travel. Fortunately I happened to notice before I opened my car door in their face.)

[dcltdw]

I don't have enough data to form an opinion.
If there have been bike/pedestrian or bike/car collisions or near-collisions there recently, then yes, raising awareness/enforcement is a good idea.

I'm in favor of changing the "bikes stop at red lights" to "bikes yield at red lights", so I think there's room for reasonable behavior.

I realize the phrase "reasonable behavior" in a discussion of bicyclist behavior in Boston is a bit like throwing red meat to a pack of hungry dogs. :)

[somergirl80.livejournal.com]

"YAY" is my thought on this too!! I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've nearly been hit by some fool on a bike while it was at a red light and I was walking in the cross walk. Just the other day someone nearly hit my dog. Don't even get me started on driving on the road with them. They dart out in front of cars and act like they own the road. Of course this isn't all cyclists. There are many who are very respectful and follow the rules.

[avjudge]

A couple of weeks ago, around dusk, I was at the light in Union Square, in the middle lane to make a left turn to stay on Somerville Ave. A bicyclist was on my right and what turned out to be a Somerville PD SUV on my left. When the cross traffic cleared, bicyclist went, and the policeman put on his lights & stopped her. Be warned, it happens!

As for one-way streets, I have no objection to people biking down our one-way street. It makes no sense to me to climb north halfway up Winter Hill just to turn around and ride down the hill to your destination to the south. Everyone on our street bikes two ways. I'm not saying this is appropriate on all streets, but I've never felt the least twinge of resentment toward those who do this on ours. (Of course there's also that illogical feeling of ownership of our street - if I'm crossing to a neighbor's house I'll often walk diagonally up the street rather than cross at right angles.)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

In Germany it's pretty common to allow bicycles to proceed the wrong way down low-volume one-way streets: http://www.adfc-fulda.de/cms_select.php?ID=437 (page in German)

[ron_newman]

Also in the Netherlands. It makes sense anywhere in Somerville except for really busy streets like Bow St, Elm St, Highland Ave, or Somerville Ave.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Yeah. In my case I think it was either Concord Ave in Belmont on Main St in Waltham. There is no reason why they shouldn't have been on the other side of the street.

[ron_newman]

There's no reason ever to be riding on the wrong side (and especially not the wrong side bike lane) of a two-way street.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I wish cyclists wouldn't go the wrong way down Hancock Street between Charnwood and Summer. The cars parked on both sides of the narrow street mean that when you turn left on Hancock from Summer while driving, you really can't see bikes coming the wrong way until you've started turning and there's not a whole lot of room for the cyclists to move to the side.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Looking at the map, Hancock is only one-way for that one short block, likely to deter cars from using it as a through street from Highland to Summer and Elm while still allowing vehicle access to Charnwood and Windsor.

I bet lots of bikes turn down Hancock off of Highland and then are surprised to be facing a one-way sign. At that point, they're screwed, because to continue their journey legally, they'd need to turn right on Charnwood, right on Willow, go back out to Highland, and find some other street that goes through to Summer. It's a nasty trap. If ever there were a scenario to *allow* counterflow bike travel, that's it.

I bet there are some improvements that could be made to address the visibility issue while allowing counterflow bike traffic. Eliminating left-hand-curb parking, painting a counterflow bike lane, and then posting signs for car drivers to watch for counterflow bike traffic might do it.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

Other cyclists can walk their bikes on the sidewalk for the whole 30 seconds it takes to walk that stretch like I do - it's legal, fast, and doesn't put anyone in danger.

[ron_newman]

This street should just be made two-way, preferably all the way down to Elm Street.

[jducoeur]

Problem is, "low-volume" is hard to define. Having nearly been driven into traffic a couple of times when I was biking down Cedar St and some jackass comes biking up the bike lane in the wrong direction, I am *passionately* against this for basically any "through" street...

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The streets in Germany that allow this typically have posted signage--if there's no sign specifically allowing counterflow travel by bicycles on a one-way street, it's prohibited. I suspect some governing body needs to do a study and make a determination on where to put up the signs.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

If only they'd do that with cars.

[jlauspitz.livejournal.com]

Exotic travel sight: I was once in a university town in foreign country (Belgium) and saw a bunch of bikes stop for a red light even though there was no traffic in either direction on the cross street. Amazing!