[BostonAreaCycling] Bruce Freeman trail - an accident, or a teachable moment, waiting to happen

[rod]

Out of curiosity, I tacked an excursion to the Bruce Freeman Trail
(Phase 1) onto a Sunday ride through Carlisle's Great Brook Farm State
Park area.

Good news: the first 6.8 mile segment (Phase 1) is attractive and
pleasant, traversing rural wetlands, suburbs, and the beginning of the
Lowell cityscape (trail terminates at 225 in Westford and at Cross
Point in Lowell). Kudos to the folks who did the considerable work to
make this happen.

Good news: folks are using it in relatively large numbers, with
cyclists, skaters, walkers, runners, families, the usual mixed use
scene. The local community really seems to be taking to it.

Bad news: there seems to be no culture of safe shared use yet, so
there is all sorts of random naive behavior that makes the typical
Minuteman Trail Easter Parade look like the acme of disciplined
choreography. Nice people riding 4 abreast in a rolling road block,
people riding two abreast occupying 70% of the trail width, random
zigs and zags, parents sitting children down in the lane next to a
bollard to adjust their skates, etc. I saw a number of near accidents,
and one very minor collision between two bicycles, owing to this good-
natured anarchy.

Presumably, this will improve over time. But a little bit of signage
could help; the Minuteman Trail has some very useful signs
establishing elementary norms (e.g., "all users keep right"). The
simplest thing would be to paint a yellow center line to reinforce the
idea that there are actually two lanes.

Anyway, it's a commendable addition to the complement of Massachusetts
rail trails, and is clearly being adopted by the local community. But
this isn't be beginning of the world, and a little more work to
educate the user community would go a long way to keeping some of them
from having a good day turn into a bad day.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Boston Area Cycling" group.
To post to this group, send email to BostonAr...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to BostonAreaCycl...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/BostonAreaCycling?hl=en.