Commonwealth Ave. bikes lanes and "friends of BUbikes"

[Chris Ditunno]

Dear elected officials and other representatives of cyclists in Allston-Brighton and Boston:

Please see below FYI, and please subscribe to our "friends of BUbikes" Google Group if you haven't already so you can stay in the loop on these important issues (particularly those relating to the bikes lanes on Commonwealth Avenue). And please feel free to check out our blog/site at www.A-Bbikes.org if you want to learn more about our work and the issues important to cyclists in Allston-Brighton.

Travel safe (in your car, or on your bike and/or feet) and we hope to see you at a meeting or posting on our Google group(s) or blog sometime soon,

Chris Ditunno
Allston-Brighton bikes
friends of BUbikes
www.A-Bbikes.org
___________________________________________________________________________

Hello and happy fall to friends of BUbikes... well... looks like with all of the students back in town and lots of folks on bikes (in our mind, a GOOD THING), things are starting to heat up again at BU and in the new bike lanes... more bikers means more user conflict... and we're ALL starting to have our own less than ideal stories of life in those bike lanes...

BUbikes will be formally organizing and submitting an application as a student organization...

FRIENDS OF BUbikes is currently a larger organization that includes more than BU students... and we should start chatting about how to support BUbikes and what we can do to address these issues as well. I'd suggest friends of BU bikes continues to network and post online and maybe meet over coffee or whateva sometime soon... and then we can report back at the next meeting of A-Bbikes to the larger group who attends and via our blog/site. In the meantime, I'm gonna create a space on our blog/site to post stories of what's going on in the Comm Ave bikes lanes for all to see. I've also started taking digital pictures of license plates of those parked illegally in the bikes lanes. I'd like to start some formal discussions with BTD and BUPD about enforcement around bike lanes... anyone else interested in being involved should let me know.

Let's focus on how to get as many folks working together productively to make sure the Comm Ave bikes lanes DON'T become the scene of the next biker accident... the bikes lanes are intended to protect us, promote bike commuting and REDUCE user conflict... let's do our best to try to make that happen... and give those who SHOULD be helping us with the effort as part of their job a chance to do the right thing and re-prioritize (everyone has lots to do on their plate, we just need to remind them and help them understand that this is a daily life or death issue for some of us on bikes!)

I suggest we work hard to engage and work collaboratively with the BU administration (including the BUPD, Dean of Students, Parking and Transportation, etc.) to address these issues. We also have lots of resources to offer and provide to BU to help them address these issues and plan and implement attempts to improve. If BU fails to recognize the importance and urgency of these issues to our community and reprioritize their work load to accommodate these bike-related issues, then we'll have to strategize about alternate approaches to motivate them to do so. Let's work hard to get something good (or better) to happen!

Chris Ditunno
Allston-Brighton bikes

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 10:54 PM, [BUbikes member] wrote:

Hey Everyone,

I think now may be the time to meet up and figure out what sorts of
goals we want to establish and the best way to go after them.  Some
goals (like getting dedicated bike lanes) may be out of reach for now,
but others (like bike parking) are definitely something we could have
a firm impact on.

I'm not sure who's interested in meeting up and touching base, but I
have a few ideas that I'd like to toss around, and I think there's a
lot of leg work that we should divide up and get moving on.  I'd be
happy to set up a meeting in the next week if interested parties want
to send me their schedules?

[], thanks for forwarding all of these e-mails.  I never read the
Freep, so hearing about all this bicycle hubbub has got me all stirred
up! :-)

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 6:12 PM, [BUbikes member] wrote:
>
> Hello again,  Sorry to bug your inboxes, but I sent an online response
> to the Freep's articles and I wanted to send them on to the group.  I
> hope you enjoy my directed ranting:
>
> First, thanks to the Freep for making this such a big issue.  Four
> different articles in one paper really help get the point across.  I'd
> like to add a bit, without trying to restate all the salient points
> made in today's paper:
>
> Frankly, I find it reprehensible that Vineet Gupta passes the buck by
> saying it's the city's responsibility to maintain the bike lanes.  It
> is his campus and his student population that use the lanes, and it is
> his students who are put in harm's way by their misuse.  If he cares
> about keeping his students safe, if he was at all concerned that
> students DIE while biking to class, then his reaction would have been
> different.  You can't just put this issue in the bureaucratic basement
> when it involves life and death situations for students.
>
> What BU needs to do (and should have done) is build dedicated bike
> lanes on Comm Ave.  That is, bike lanes separate from the road,
> divided by a curb, so that cars and bikes don't interact.  Squeezing a
> lane in-between parked cars and moving cars just creates a death trap
> for bikers.  I don't understand why this logic escaped the designers
> of the Comm Ave Beautification Project, it is common practice for most
> urban centers in Europe, especially bike-oriented ones such as
> Amsterdam and Paris.  The city planners over there saw the concerns
> and dangers facing their bikers and built the streets to accommodate.
> Considering BU and the City of Boston just spent MILLIONS UPON
> MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on construction along the Comm Ave strip, they
> really should have done it better.
>
> But it seems BU doesn't really want to concern themselves with the
> plight of its biking population.  I recall last May when they OK'd a
> plan for the construction crews to cut bike locks and steal bikes that
> were locked to parking meters and trees.  Their claim was bikes should
> only be parked on official bike racks (yet it is stupendously obvious
> that our campus lacks the necessary number of racks - so, PUT MORE
> IN!)  The crews did this to coincide with graduation ceremonies, and
> under the precept that the bikes interfered with the construction
> project, and the "beauty" of Comm Ave.  BU claimed it was the city
> that orchestrated it, yet the bikes were sent to 15 Buick Street at
> BU's B&G facility.  When pressured, the city or BU or the crews or
> whoever was responsible quickly stopped the practice (and rightly
> so!).  Still, they thought they could just cut locks and steal bikes!
> What an insult to an entire community of students!
>
> I will leave this post with an anecdote that happened to me the other
> week.  I saw a UPS truck parked in the bike lane right in front of the
> flower shop on Comm Ave.  I walked up to the UPS guy and asked him if
> there was a way he could not park in the bike lanes because it caused
> a dangerous problem for bikers who had to swerve into traffic to go
> around the truck.  He said he was busy and if I had an issue to take
> it up with the cops.  He pointed just down the street to a squad car
> that was also parked in the bike lane, not more than 50 feet away, it
> held two officers sitting idle in the car.  So, I walked up to the
> cops, and asked them if there was a way they could get the UPS trucks
> to not park in bike lanes.  They said it wasn't their job, they don't
> enforce traffic laws.  Fair enough.  So then I asked them if they
> themselves could not park in the bike lanes, since it was creating a
> dangerous problem for bikers.  Instead of answering, they asked me:
> "Are you a biker?"  "Yes I am," I replied.  "Then you're all set," was
> their response (cop talk for "this conversation is over, we don't care
> about you anymore").  So then I asked "Are you guys BU PD."  "Yes,"
> they said.  I thanked them for listening and I walked away, thinking
> I'd report them to their higher-ups.
> A minute later, as I was marveling in their impudence and audacity, I
> saw President Brown walking along Comm Ave, with a rolling suitcase
> and cell-phone call in hand. Feeling confident of my right as a
> student, I stopped the Prez mid-conversation and brought the UPS issue
> up with him.   He said he couldn't have BU enforce traffic laws,
> especially with delivery vehicles.  So then I pointed out to him that
> there was a cop car parked in the bike lane, and he asked me "Are they
> BU PD?"  "Yes," I said.  The conversation ended there, without any
> pleasantries, and Mr. Brown simply turned and walked away from me.  I
> watched him walk past the cop car without saying a word.
>
> So, I ask, even when the problem is presented right to the highest
> administration, to the man who no one can question, what does BU do to
> help out its biking population?  Simply walk away.  Bikers get killed
> in this city all the time due to poor urban design.  Animosity is bred
> by "sharing the road."  I wish BU would pull their heads out from you-
> know-where and recognize this, and for the love of God, build some
> decent dedicated bike lanes!

[Chris Ditunno]

Dear Mr. Riley:

We at A-Bbikes and friends of BUbikes urge you to participate in our discussions about the Commonwealth Avenue bicycle lanes and ask that you please emphasize the importance of addressing these issues in a proactive way to your peers in the various appropriate administrative offices at Boston University. Please see the string of e-mail correspondence below.

We would like to address these issues collaboratively with Boston University in a productive way but to date have not been impressed with the University's response(s) to our inquiries and requests to get involved. We believe that there is currently an important and time limited opportunity for BU to communicate to cyclists in both the general community and on campus that BU is interested in addressing these issues in a proactive and collaborative way... but the longer the delay in official and public response the longer folks have to form their own opinions about why BU has been silent.

Please let us know how best to proceed in your opinion with engaging various appropriate department heads and other appropriate administrative staff at BU.

Thanks in advance for you cooperation regarding these important issues and we look forward to hearing from you very soon,

Chris Ditunno
Allston-Brighton bikes
friends of BUbikes

ABb...@gmail.com
www.A-Bbikes.org