Monthly Archives: November 2017

Let’s talk about safe streets in Cambridge

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I’m tired of going to public meetings. Especially meetings organized by businesses in Cambridge where they accuse bicycle advocates of top-down planning which is making the roads unsafe, open the meeting by saying they don’t care about data (“then why are we here?”) and close by saying the want to collect anecdotes. They go on to complain that there has been no public process (which is interesting, given I’ve been part of a lot of this process) and say that the facilities are unsafe because they think they look unsafe. Let’s look at some of their “arguments” and break them down, and then let’s give the public some talking points for pushing back at subsequent meetings.

1. Don’t let “them” set the meeting agenda. If a meeting is billed as a “community” meeting, it should be led by the community. If the businesses are taking charge, before the start the meeting, go up to the dais and propose the following: that the meeting be led by a combination of the community members and the business association. Have a volunteer ready to go. If they refuse, propose a vote: let the people in attendance vote on the moderator. If they still refuse, walk out. (This obviously doesn’t go for city-led meetings, but for these sham public meetings put on by the business community which are only attended by cyclists if we catch it.)

2. Ask them about business decline data. I don’t believe they have it. They claim that business is down because of the bike lanes, but ask by how much, and how many businesses. There is very likely a response bias here. Which businesses are going to complain to the business community about sales being down? The ones with sales which have gone down. Better yet, come armed with data, or at least anecdotes. Go and ask some businesses if their sales have been harmed by the bike lanes. Find ones which have not. Cite those.


3. There has been plenty of public process. The anti-bike people claim that there has been no public process, and that the bike lanes have been a “top-down” process. These arguments are disingenuous, at best. The Cambridge Bicycle Plan was the subject of dozens of meetings and thousands of comments. If residents and businesses didn’t know it was occurring, they weren’t paying attention. It would also do them some good to come to the monthly Bicycle Advisory Committee meetings, where much of this is discussed (they’re open to the public; and committee members take a training on public meeting law to make sure procedures are carried out correctly). These are monthly, advertised meetings. If you don’t show up, don’t complain about the outcome.

Then there’s participatory budgeting. The bike lanes on Cambridge and Brattle streets rose directly from participatory budgeting. This was proposed by a citizen, promoted by citizens, vetted by a citizen committee and voted on by citizens. Yet because the Harvard Square Business Association didn’t get a voice (or a veto), it was “top down.” They’d propose a process where they dictate the process, which is somehow “grassroots.” This is untrue. Don’t let them get away with this nonsense. The bike lanes are there because of grassroots community activism. If they don’t like them, they had their chance to vote. They lost.

4. Bike lanes cause accidents. After the meeting, a concerned citizen (a.k.a. Skendarian plant) took me aside to tell me a story about how the bike lanes caused an accident. I didn’t know what to expect, but they told me that the heard from Skendarian that a person parked their car and opened their door and a passing car hit the door. I was dumbfounded. I asked how the bike lane caused the accident and was told the bike lane made the road too narrow. He liked the old bike lanes, so he could open his door in to the bike lane. So if you hear this story, remember, this was caused by a car hitting a car. And if someone says that bike lanes require them to jaywalk to reach the sidewalk, remind them that 720 CMR 9.09(4)(e) says that a person exiting a car should move to the nearest curb, so crossing the bike lane would be allowable.

5. Data. The anti-bike forces will claim they don’t want to use data. There’s a reason: the data do not work in their favor. They may claim that the data don’t exist. This is wrong. The Cambridge Police Department has more than six years of crash data available for download, coded by location and causation; the Bicycle Master Plan has analyzed his to find the most dangerous locations. Who causes crashes? More than 99 times out of 100: cars. (Note: object 1 is generally the object assumed to be at fault.)

When I dowloaded these data last year, there were 9178 crashes in the database. If someone mentions how dangerous bicyclists hitting pedestrians is, note that in six years, there have been five instances where a cyclist caused a crash with a pedestrian. (This shows up as 0.1% here, it’s rounded up from 0.05%. Should this number be less? Certainly. But let’s focus on the problem.). There have been 100 times as many vehicles driving in to fixed objects as there have been cyclists hitting pedestrians. Maybe we should ban sign posts and telephone poles.

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I’ve written before about rhetoric, and it’s important to think before you speak at these sorts of meetings (and, no, I’m not great about this). Stay calm. State your points. No ad hominem (unless someone is really asking for it, i.e. if you’re going after the person who says they don’t care about bicycle deaths, yeah, mention that). Also, don’t clap. Don’t boo. Be quiet and respectful, and respect that other people may have opinions, however wrong they may be. When it comes your turn, state who you are and where you live, but not how long you have or haven’t lived there. When they go low, go high. We’re winning. We can afford to.

Cambridge Council Endorsements

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I know you’ve all been waiting for it … the Official Amateur Planner 2017 Cambridge City Council endorsements!

I’ve lived in Cambridge for 6 years now, served on the Bicycle Committee for most of that time and gone to more council and zoning meetings than I care to admit. I’m making these endorsements based on two criteria: bicycle safety and progressive development policy (with a bit of transit thrown in). A bit of background:

1. Bicycle safety has become a hot button issue in Cambridge in recent years as more and more people have embraced cycling to work, and our infrastructure hasn’t kept up. There is some talk that the recent activism, especially among younger voters, will change the makeup of the electorate in Cambridge this year. Nominally, all candidates are for safe cycling, but in reality, some are more than happy to sell out to the interest of the minority of people driving in Cambridge. After several “pop-up” lanes were installed this spring, there was a bit of “bikelash” in Cambridge, with some City Councilors calling for a moratorium until we could figure out how to make bike lanes not impact—well, something. They’re not sure. Let’s call it “easy parking and the free flow of traffic.” Most insidious: the Harvard Square Business Association trying to kill bike lanes because cars. Councilors Simmons, Toomey and Maher supported this. they’re off the list. (They also got their comeuppance: hundreds of cyclists, three hours of public comment and a meeting that ran until after midnight; I doubt they’ll be pulling this sort of stunt any time soon.) Craig Kelley, based on several interactions, is kind of wishy-washy on safe cycling infrastructure, and while he often touts himself as a cyclist, he often veers in to the vehicular cycling realm. Sorry, Craig. For others, and for new candidates, I’ll defer to the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group’s list.

2. Development. Here, most candidates fall in to two camps, the Cambridge Residents Alliance and A Better Cambridge. Both are nominally aligned with allowing more development, but only one—A Better Cambridge—actually follows through. There are a few arguments against additional density and development, none of which hold water:

  • Gentrification. In Cambridge, this has already happened. So new luxury housing is not going to “improve” neighborhoods and increase existing rents, despite what CRA may say. This is, in general, grade-A horse manure.
  • Road/transit congestion. This too is a red herring. Cambridge itself is not that congested, most people bike, walk and take transit to work. It’s the getting to Cambridge part. More local housing will mean more bike/walk/transit commutes, and the answer is not to build less housing, but to improve connections to Cambridge. Yet the CRA won’t take a position on reducing parking minimums.
  • Open space. There is an argument for keeping some Open Space. But for an organization like CRA, open space becomes “parking lots.” This needs no further explanation. (Apparently they have softened it to “it can be redeveloped for affordable housing”—good idea—”but only if the parking is replaced.” Just, no.
There have been recent pushes by small groups of residents to downzone parts of Cambridge (I’m not sure if the CRA took a position on this, but they claim that Cambridge faces “over-development“; however, I know ABC opposed it wholeheartedly.) I don’t like going to these meetings and don’t want to have to go to more! Let’s get councilors who we know won’t buy in to this nonsense. 
A local zoning case in point: There used to be an autobody shop and a couple of businesses in a decaying, single-story building at 78 Pearl Street. These were non-conforming uses, built before the area was zoned C. The land was bought and the businesses relocated. It would have been a perfect opportunity to build a mixed-use, multifamily dwelling with apartments sized appropriately for the area. However, because of the zoning, mixed-use was out (even though it was replacing businesses!) and in place of the building went 78 and 80 Pearl: 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom (as a friend said: “oh, so everyone can poop in their own toilet!”) single-family houses (on tiny lots) for $1.75 to $2 million. Two units instead of six. There are plenty of examples of non-conforming uses which could never be built today but fit in fine with the neighborhood. But given the land values, and the zoning, developers are forced to build this type of low-density, pseudo-suburban housing which is completely unaffordable.

So, while some CRA-endorsed candidates are beyond excellent on bicycle infrastructure (Jan Devereaux in particular, but she’s past president of the very NIMBY Fresh Pond Residents Alliance, so there’s that), this page can not endorse anyone who is endorsed by the CRA. If you’re voting just based on bikes, she should be on your list.

There is some “whataboutism” going on with some anti-development types who say that the fault lies in other cities and towns not doing their part. This is true, but it’s no reason for Cambridge not to develop more housing as well. Remember when Homer Simpson ran a campaign for garbage commissioner with the slogan “can’t someone else do it?” Can’t someone else do it is not a logical policy. Yes, there would be less pressure on local housing prices if the Newtons of the world did their part. But it’s no reason for Cambridge to keep density down.  

Oh, then there’s Tim Toomey. He’s already out for a number of reasons (when he was a Councilor and State Rep, he was making more money than the governor, so don’t feel bad if he loses his job, his pension should be just fine), but please leave him off your ballot entirely. He quashed the idea of running commuter rail to Cambridge because he was afraid of big, bad trains running on train tracks, so instead everyone from the Metrowest/Turnpike corridor drives. More congestion! More pollution! Progress! Thanks, Tim.
So with these criteria in mind, here are the official Amateur Planner-endorsed candidates. It’s easy to remember: they all begin with “M”:

  • Alanna Mallon: I met Alanna when she was canvassing. She gets it. I think she didn’t get the Bike Safety endorsement because she holds back a bit on implementation of bike lanes. But from my conversation, she is very much in favor of transit and bike lanes, and will be an ally on the Council.
  • Marc McGovern: Marc has been on the Council since I’ve lived in Cambridge, and has been on the right side of the debate the whole time. I look forward to him serving another term.
  • Adriane Musgrave: I may have talked to Adriane longer than I talked to Alanna! (Note to candidates: knocking on my door helps.) She also very much “gets it” and is super data-driven and wonky. That’s my kind of candidate!
So there you have it. If these three candidates are on the City Council, the future is bright. I will be ranking them #1, 2 and 3. (I’m not giving away my order.) If you live in Cambridge, vote how you wish. But I would urge you to vote for these candidates.

(I don’t live in Boston, but here’s my at-large council endorsement for Michelle Wu, of course. )