by @BarryRafkind in Announcements, Bicycles, Public Health & Safety
Posted on November 15, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Last Modified on August 16, 2009 at 3:46 pm
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Two days ago, the City of Somerville announced it would start enforcing regulations prohibiting the use of bicycles on sidewalks with fines between $20 and $50. [1] Mayor Curtatone claims the crack-down is meant to ensure public safety amidst “increased bicycle and pedestrian traffic” and “substantial use of bicycles on sidewalks”.
Given the city’s budget problems [2], I wonder whether this policy change is motivated more by a need to find new sources of revenue rather than by public safety concerns. I could imagine that bicycle use may have increased dramatically in response to high gas prices, but whether this has resulted in more bicycle-pedestrian accidents has so far been lacking any quantitative justification. Where are the numbers to support this policy change? If the city is looking for money, it ought to deploy traffic officers on the side-streets to watch for speeding drivers.
The timing of this announcement is also peculiar given that we’re in Winter and that surely means that bicycle use is down, naturally.
Bicyclists ride on the sidewalk when they don’t feel safe or have room to ride on the road. The city should be adding or improving bike lanes [3,4], enhancing street lights, installing bike racks, and fixing potholes to make the city bike-friendly, not punishing cyclists for protecting their own safety on the sidewalks.
Please leave your comments below.
[1] Nov 13, 2008 City press release : SPD TO INCREASE ENFORCEMENT OF CITY BIKE REGULATIONS
[2] Oct 21, 2008 City of Somerville Memo: Coping with State Cutbacks and Economic Turmoil (pdf)
[3] Oct 21, 2008 City press release : MAYOR CURTATONE JOINS CYCLISTS ON NEWLY INSTALLED BIKE LANES
[4] May 28, 2008 City press release: New Bike Lanes Line Beacon Street and Broadway
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This is ridiculous… part of my commute to and from work is along the Alewife Parkway, where motorists are very aggressive and unfriendly to cyclists. I ride on the road when I can, and the sidewalk when the road would compromise my safety. Now I get to choose between riding in an unsafe environment or being fined. Thanks, Somerville! Keep up the great work protecting your citizens.
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Krystle, you shouldn’t need to worry about bike fines along Alewife Brook Parkway because the regulations pertain only to business districts:
Of course, it makes sense for bicyclists to use bike lanes where available. I wonder how much of the SPD resources are going to be devoted to enforcing these regulations and how well are the no-bike areas marked?
I also wonder about the 50-foot range for some of the regulations (pdf, see Sec 13-5). Are those areas clearly marked or are people supposed to know when they are within 50 feet of the named streets?
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Actually, I’ve been smacked once and forced to jump away a couple times from bicyclists in Davis, including once on the block with the Social Security Administration building.
Hurrah for bike lanes!
But if you don’t feel safe riding your bike in a busy area with lots of pedestrians (including the disabled) — WALK YOUR BIKE.
A bicyclist who endangers people on foot is no better than a driver who endangers bicyclists (although possibly less likely to be lethal).
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I always give pedestrians the right of way, and it’s not that hard to avoid them. An inconsiderate person is just as likely to hit someone or be in the way while walking their bike as while slowly riding it on the sidewalk. I don’t ride my bike down busy, pedestrian-crammed sidewalks – that’s ridiculous, and no considerate, sane person should be doing it. But not every area is busy, and even the busy areas are not always full of people.
One of the big problems is that bikers don’t have full rights (or at least, they’re not often enforced) on the road, but neither do they have pedestrian rights. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been forced out in traffic because someone lazy decided the bike lane is a great place to stop their car to pick up or drop off people/packages/run in for something/whatever. Trying to go around the car out into traffic can be very dangerous, but apparently the sidewalk is out of question. If the police are going to be cracking down on bikes on the sidewalk, I’d like to see tickets and fines being handed out more vigorously to drivers who use the bike lanes as their own personal parking spaces.
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As a Somerville bicyclist, I’m fully in favor of enforcing vehicular laws on bicycle riders. I have seen far too many riders who make me ashamed to be a bicyclist. I’ve seen people ride wrong way on one-way streets, run red lights and stop signs, turn left onto a rotary, ride on dark streets without lights, and generally behave like fools. I make a point of stopping at stop signs, using hand signals, and staying off sidewalks where marked, because I believe that the only way bicyclists are going to get respect from car drivers is to earn it.
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I can see both sides of this, and what’s really called for is people using common sense and being careful about those who are more vulnerable: cyclists in the street and pedestrians on the sidewalks. This is hard to write into law, so we get draconian rules.
Cycling, I do use the sidewalk when the road gets too scary. On the sidewalk, I’ll often go back into the road if I see a walker; pedal slowly enough to avoid passing a pedestrian until the road is clear or there’s a place to re-enter the road; thank pedestrians who step aside to let me pass; dismount when I can’t pedal without being rude.
As a pedestrian, I’m often enough threatened by cyclists speeding along on city sidewalks.
Of course I know how rude a lot of drivers are to cyclists. As a driver, however, I have my share of horror stories about cyclists; I’ve been in two minor accidents caused by bicycles, and no, the cyclists weren’t hurt. Long ago and far away, I drove off the road and into a stone fence to avoid a cyclist. More recently I was rear-ended when I stopped short to avoid a cyclist who ran a light and darted in front of me on a stormy night. In both cases the cyclist was nowhere to be seen as we assessed the damage.
The city shouldn’t pick on cyclists, but it’s hard to ask the police to enforce common decency and manners, which is really what we need from everyone.
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Krystle — what you are doing there is just encouraging all the people with worse judgment than you have to trust their poor judgment by riding on the sidewalk. “She can do it, why can’t I?”
It’s like the role model who drinks and drives because they know how much they can take. Maybe they can, but if someone sees that and gets into an accident, it’s as much the fault of the role model.
Riding on the sidewalks in the business districts — if that’s what you are doing — may get you a ticket if you’re doing it safely or not. It’s not just about how you ride. It’s about fairly enforcing the law so the people who aren’t competent are also scooped up. There is no bicycling competency test to show how stellar your personal skills and acumen are.
And you’re setting a lousy example for the student who clipped me last year. I’m sure he thought “everybody does it, why not me?”
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I’m on the Somerville Bicycle Committee, and I also would like to discourage people from bicycling on sidewalks in busy places like Davis Square. The sidewalks are narrow and crowded, and 12-mph bicycles just don’t mix well with 3-mph pedestrians. People should be able to slowly stroll the sidewalks in peace without having to worry about being hit by (very quiet) bicycles.
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Ron, how much input did the Bicycle Committee have in the design of these regulations?
Does the city have any numbers on this issue or is it all based on anecdotal evidence?
I haven’t checked out the bike-free signs in the designated areas, but do they seem adequately posted?
Any idea how many officers will be assigned to this beat? Will they be from the SPD or Traffic and Parking?
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As a physician and a regular bicycle commuter in Somerville, I strongly support enforcement of the laws regarding sidewalk cycling, which specify the speed of a “slow walk” on residential sidewalks and no bikes in commercial districts. Older people and toddlers are at high risk from sidewalk cyclists, and there are plenty of heedless and dangerous cyclists out there.
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I agree with enforcing the no-bicycles-on-sidewalks-in-business-districts rule. My seven-year-old daughter nearly got run over by a bicycle last Saturday. We were walking on the sidewalk in the early evening (it was dark), and a bicyclist with no headlight (so we didn’t see her, and she didn’t see us) nearly plowed into my husband. Then she swerved at the last minute to go around him, and rode right straight toward my daughter. If I hadn’t grabbed my daugher’s coat and yanked her out of the way at the last second, my daughter would have been bowled over and probably hurt.
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Jeanine, glad to hear no one was hurt. It sounds like the lack of sufficient lighting was also a major factor in that incident. One would expect business districts to be well-lit after sun-down. Where were you walking?
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We were walking in Ball Square. There’s a bike lane there, but I guess the bicyclist didn’t want to ride there without a light, so she endangered us instead. It was also rainy and windy. Both by husband and daugher had umbrellas, which may have obscured their views.
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Did Janine precisely say that she was in a business district? Is the cyclist allowed to hit her daughter if she wasn’t?
As a sometime-cyclist, I’d appreciate clarification of the rules *outside* of business districts. Actually, I wouldn’t dream of riding a bike on the sidewalks in Davis Square. If the double-parking and other vehicular nuttiness makes biking too scary, I walk my bike along those sidewalks–often an obstacle course even on foot.
I thought riding a bike on the sidewalk *anywhere* was illegal–but I do it, usually when the road gets threatening–and try to remember that pedestrians have the right-of-way and I’m breaking the law.
So what about non-business districts?
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Kathy, yes Jeanine said she was in the Ball Square business district.
According to the traffic regulations, you may ride your bike on the sidewalk in non-business district areas as long as you yield to pedestrians :
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Barry,
These messages do cross each other; Jeanine’s last message was apparently sent but not yet posted when I sent mine.
The point I’m trying to make is that it would be helpful if we were less legalistic about out “rights” and more aware of the ways in which others may be threatened by bicycles, cars, and even rude pedestrians.
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Kathy,
You have hit the nail on the head! I completely agree with your point and would extend it beyond bicycle regulations to suggest that mutual understanding is the key to a healthy community. I hope that this blog can challenge us to consider opposing viewpoints and strengthen our relationships. I want to hear your ideas about how to achieve the awareness you mentioned. And if others have ideas, please share them.
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This thread started with a speculation that enforcing the law is based on impure motives and that it is “ridiculous” to do so. In a democracy, government and laws are what we all agree to do together. Once people start treating laws as discretionary and relying on private “understandng” the door is open to vigilante thinking and dangerous behavior. If a law isn’t working, of course it should be changed. Wink-wink nudge-nudge absence of enforcement is a kind of corruption in itself.
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Bill, I don’t think anyone was suggesting that bike regulations should be treated as discretionary. Of course there can be laws made and have been made in our country that should not be followed because they are unconstitutional.
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I just wanted to add a little background on the establishment of the original ordinance. The Somerville Pedestrian Group, under the direction of Greg Hill, led the push for regulations regarding bicycles on sidewalks. The Somerville Pedestrian Group was particularly concerned about elders being hit by cyclists on sidewalks. I went to the public hearing for the regulations held at the Department of Traffic and Parking on August 21, 2001, just before the then director of Traffic and Parking was due to ship overseas with his National Guard unit. There was a great deal of business on the agenda because nothing much could be done during the director’s absence. Greg Hill was there, I went with another member of WalkBoston to speak in support, and there were one or two people from the Somerville Bicycle Committee also present. We waited hours for this issue to be taken up; the director wanted to postpone it for his return, but finally agreed to allow testimony. The Bicycle Committee had had an opportunity to review the regulations beforehand and was supportive. As others have noted, the ordinance prohibits bike riding on sidewalks in specific business districts: Davis Square, Union Square, Porter Square, Broadway, Ball Square, Teele Square, and Magou Square. Massachusetts law allows municipalities to ban bike riding on sidewalks in such districts; municipalities do not have the power to ban bike riding on sidewalks outside these districts.
Cambridge has similar rules on its books and has begun a program of more actively enforcing all traffic rules for cyclists. My impression is that Cambridge does a much better job of posting signs indicating where cycles are prohibited from sidewalks.
A final note: when I was growing up in New Jersey in the fifties, local police departments conducted bicycle safety programs in the elementary schools. We were taught that bicyles were required to follow the rules that applied to motor vehicles, that they did not belong on sidewalks, and that they needed bells and lights. Is there anything equivalent here?
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For the record, here’s what state law is regarding bicycle operation and sidewalks. Chapeter 85, Section 11B is easy to obtain on the web.
Chapter 85: Section 11B. Bicycles; operation and equipment; regulations; federal product safety standards, effect; races; violations; penalties
Section 11B. Every person operating a bicycle upon a way, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth except limited access or express state highways where signs specifically prohibiting bicycles have been posted, and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth and the special regulations contained in this section, except that: (1) the bicycle operator may keep to the right when passing a motor vehicle which is moving in the travel lane of the way, (2) the bicycle operator shall signal by either hand his intention to stop or turn, and (3) bicycles may be ridden on sidewalks outside business districts when necessary in the interest of safety, unless otherwise directed by local ordinance. A person operating a bicycle on the sidewalk shall yield the right of way to pedestrians and give an audible signal before overtaking and passing any pedestrian.
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I’m a 15 year “veteran” city biker. My friends and I never ride on the sidewalk. In fact, when we would see people riding on the sidewalk, we would yell “Time to grow up and ride like a big boy!”
Now that I’m a stay at home dad, the last 3 years of strollers in and around Davis, Harvard and Porter Squares, I’m even more militant with bikers. If I see someone coming down the sidewalk I purposely hog the road! Then I say something, which i think more people should do.
The worst is seeing adults biking on sidewalks.
Any good biker will tell you that you need to drive defensively but with aggressive confidence. If you’re too scared to bike in the road don’t bike!
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As an avid cyclist and commuter from Cambridge to Boston I have to ride through the streets of Somerville. I agree riding on sidewalks is hazardous for pedestrians but if anyone has the pleasure of riding through Union Sq. or down Somerville Ave. which has been under construction for what seems like a century, you know that it is suicidal to be on a bike. You can quote all your section 4-b, 5-14′s all you want but it comes down to the fact that the streets are just not safe for cyclists. Why doesn’t the city concentrate on making the streets bike friendly by paving them or creating bike paths. Hey wait, what about the minuteman trail they talk about but never work on? And please, if you do finally decide to work WITH the bicycle community and construct bicycle lanes along the streets, don’t be as pathetic as Cambridge and just allow it to become a double parking lane for cars!!!
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Bike Path: Somerville actually is moving forward. This summer they built a park and paved out to Central street. Connecting the end of the path at Cedar St. to this park is going to get done but it’s a lot more involved. They have to build up a tressel type structure for the bikes where the railroad tracks turn.
later it will connect to Boston.
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As an avid cyclist and commuter from Cambridge to Boston I have the pleasure of riding through the cavernous streets of Union Sq. and Somerville Ave. You can quote all your section 4-b, 5-14′s all you want but it comes down to the fact that the streets are just not safe for cyclists. I agree riding on sidewalks is hazardous for pedestrians but if anyone has been hit by a car, doored or had a friend killed by a T bus as I have, you know riding a bike through the city is hazardous as well. And I would say, quite a bit more hazardous. I am not condoning the fact that cyclist should ride on sidewalks but the city needs to concentrate on making the streets bike friendly by paving them or creating bike paths. Hey wait, what about the minuteman trail they have been talking about extending for years but never work on? And please, if you do finally decide to work WITH the bicycle community and construct bicycle lanes along the streets, don’t be as pathetic as Cambridge and just allow it to become a double parking lane for cars!!!
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Chris M, I’m sorry Somerville ain’t perfect for you. I, for example, tend to get caught up walking on broken sidewalks and bricks. These are terribly hard on my mom, who needs a walker.
If you want perfect bikeways, can I recommend Portland, Oregon? They rarely use brick on the sidewalk there either. Personally, I like the people here, and I like the culture better.
For all you biking fanatics (and here I exclude Ron and various sane folks who understand the exigencies of sharing roadways and sidewalks) — if bike lanes are your first priority over community, and that makes it hard for you to walk your bike when legal and appropriate, then Portland is the town for you! I can recommend some great cycle shops there.
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I don’t ever remember saying Somerville wasn’t the perfect place but you are correct, places like Portland are continuously voted some of the best places in the country to live because of the fact that they accommodate people that ride bikes as well as joggers, hikers or any person that cares about their health and the environment. I guess riding through potholes and getting hit by cars on our bicycles now means we don’t like the people who live in the city of Somerville. That was not what the post was intended to say and I apologize if that is how you read it. It was to point out the fact that with gas prices and oil companies profiting record numbers and our environment declining at an enormously fast rate, you would think cities, not just Somerville but others would start looking at helping out those who have adopted and alternative way to commute.
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…but I used to live in Portland, and I can assure you that if you rode a bike on the sidewalk (bike lane or not — and there aren’t bike lanes everywhere even in PDX) you’d get slapped with a ticket in no time. Not only that but people aren’t quite as rude as drivers *or* riders *or* pedestrians there.
But the point I’m trying to make is that regardless of how well or not a city treats its cyclists, it’s no rationalization for breaking the law and endangering pedestrians. If you can’t ride your bike safely and legally, you can walk it.
Every Friday, or in some towns like Eugene it was one Friday a month, the bicyclists would come out and take up an entire driving lane with their bikes in a Critical Mass bike ride. This served to raise awareness that bicycles have *equal rights* on the roads.
However, Critical Mass and the cycling community from San Francisco to Seattle got the concessions they got by generally following the system — working the bureaucracies, lobbying, and taking advantage of the laws where they were favored to get publicity and raise awareness (as they did in the Friday Critical Mass rides).
They carefully monitored their own numbers in solidarity though, and tried to keep down abuses by irresponsible bike riders and particularly messengers and such. It takes give and take on both sides to make these things work.
Saying (as some people have in this thread) “I don’t have to follow the law because the government hasn’t given me everything I need” would sound whiny and sad (and perhaps scary!) from someone who was, say, a car driver endangering pedestrians.
Regardless of how green a bike is, that doesn’t give the bike rider a write-off on courtesy or the law.
A *vast majority* of bike riders are polite, safe, and law abiding. But the folks who scoff at the law and are rude and dangerous, or who mourn but don’t organize, are adding to their own problems and every other bike rider’s.
As Ron can attest, I’m a very casual bike rider — generally, I’d rather walk or take the T, especially in bad weather. But I confess, I’m 50 and a little matronly. My halcyon biking days were before the bottle bill, when you went through a patch kit every week for the broken glass on the streets, and there were no bike lanes and very little support for bikes (uphill in the snow both ways, I know!
.
Bike riders have a better position and situation today than in the late 70′s. This is a positive base to build on. Folks like Ron are doing that.
We’re unlikely to see the kind of bike artery system that Portland has just because our city is so old. Portland was a city planned when land was essentially free and roadmaking tech was reasonably modern. Roadways are straight and on a grid system. Very few parking lanes were sacrificed for the bike lanes. Because of the grid system, major arteries could be designated as bike ways and made memorable and expedited paths between any two points in the 5 quadrants (well, yes, they have NW, NE, SW, SE and N Portland quadrants — I just report the news!
. Generally, I would only have to bike 3-4 blocks at most on a road without a very safe bike lane.
But you have to remember that this comes with a cost, in the Pacific Northwest. In Seattle, for example, it’s $100 ticket for a pedestrian to jaywalk. Do you have any idea how much any municipality in metro Boston could make on *that*? But, on the other hand, anyone community in Metro Boston would be appalled that a ticket would be issues for jaywalking.
Portland is great in some ways, but unlike Somerville (or the surrounding communities) the parks are mostly “keep off the grass” and kids (and in some neighborhoods, people of color) are still apt to be chased out of the park at any hour.
But, they make the bikes run on time…:)
This issues will always be a tension between safety and freedom, law and liberty.
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Bikes are good, OK? I ride one sometimes, love it when I do, want to feel safe, and have sometimes broken what I *thought* was the law (like Chrism, I learned as child that no one who had graduated from a tricycle belonged on on the sidewalk) when the alternatives seemed entirely untenable. Probably I never did this in a business district because it didn’t make much sense.
As Shava Nerad has repeatedly pointed out, you can always walk a bike through areas where you’re clearly in competition with pedestrians.
There’s a new-ish bike lane on Willow Street, a major thoroughfare moving north-south–always a challenge in Somerville because of the the RR lines–near Davis Square. It used to be two lanes for cars and is now one, always backed-up and often near-gridlocked at rush hour. I rarely see see bikes there as I sit in my car trying to get home. But within the last few weeks I came within inches of hitting a cyclist who bombed out of that street the wrong way as I turned into it–in the dark, in the rain, without lights.
Please let’s not be self-righteous on behalf of any one constituency. The streets are congested and the local traffic culture and traditions are anarchic. The situation calls for a great deal of self-policing and putting-oneself-in-another’s-shoes. If the city can be found at fault, that hardly justifies threatening Janine’s daughter, in or out of a business district.
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Sharing the road is a rare talent, even among pedestrians. I can’t count how many times that I (on foot) have had to detour into the road to walk around knots of revelers chatting in front of a restaurant or clots of people toddling/staggering along four abreast. We need bike lanes in the roads, and we need walking lanes on the sidewalks! Failing that, we need some kind of universal road courtesy awareness.
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