This Wednesday, in beautiful Central Square, there is a thing called the 10-in-1 StreetTalk. The folks at LivableStreets solicit 10 presentations of no more than 7 minutes, and gather people to hear them.
And guess who’s presenting? This guy. And guess what I’m presenting about? This. Of course.
Find out more information here. And come for the other presentations!
The MBTA recently announced a pilot program to extend service hours on Friday and Saturday nights. This is a great step for the T, which hasn’t had subway service after midnight in over 50 years. While it does reduce the amount of time the T will have to inspect and fix its aging infrastructure, the other five nights will still have time for track work, while serving the busiest nights for late-night ridership. This is all good.
What Boston will still lack is an actual late-night transit system.
In every other major transit city in the country (More than 25% mode share: NY, Chicago, SF, DC, Philly or more than 1m daily ridership: LA), there is an option for getting around between midnight and 5 a.m. Not just on weekends. Not just until 3. (DC is a slight exception, some overnight bus routes shut down for 30 to 120 minutes around 3:00; but some routes, like the 70, have no more than an hour gap in service.) Service may only come every hour, and it may be a bus instead of a train, but if you need to get somewhere at 2 a.m., you might be able to take a bus there. This is not the case in Boston, and even with added Friday and Saturday night service, it still won’t be. Several smaller cities operate all-night transit systems as well.
Late night transit service is going to cost money, but depending on how it is structured it can serve two economic purposes:
Obviously, New York skews this whole chart. It has more than four times the transit ridership of any other city, and 138 all-night routes (18 subway lines, the PATH, the Staten Island RR, 16 bus routes in Manhattan, 29 in Brooklyn, 47 in Queens, 17 in the Bronx and 8 on Staten Island). Let’s remove New York. Here’s the same chart, sorted by transit ridership, with the number of overnight routes highlighted:
Notice something conspicuously absent in the chart for Boston? It’s the only city with high transit ridership without overnight service. The next largest? Atlanta, which is not known for it’s transit friendliness (i.e. we’re not moving the Red Sox to Danvers) and has a third the daily ridership of the MBTA. And several smaller cities have pretty comprehensive late-night transit systems. Las Vegas makes sense; the city basically operates 24/7. And last call in Miami is 5 a.m. But Cleveland and Baltimore? They’re not what we think of as 24-hour cities. Yet they provide overnight transportation.
(By the way, if anyone knows of any other cities with overnight service—other than Newark which runs the 62 all night to EWR, I know about it—let me know. I was surprised that I could find neither a list of transit agencies by overall ridership nor a list of cities with overnight bus service. If anyone wants to help fill out these lists, I’m all ears.)
The state, thanks in part to LivableStreets’ tireless advocacy, finally repaved the Harvard (/Mass Ave/Smoot) Bridge, and restriped the bike lane to a full five foot width. Previously it had narrowed to 20 inches at the foot of the bridge, which was substandard and dangerous. Now, it’s 5 feet wide, making it much easier to navigate on bicycle, and keeping the cars in the middle of the road. Here, in two pictures is the progress that was made:
In the animated GIF (on the right; give it five seconds), I didn’t perfectly take the picture from the same angle, so it’s not layered right on top (the “before” picture was taken the summer doing recon from a BS traffic stop). Note the location of the drain, and that while the bike in the “before” is closer to the drain, he’s outside the bike lane, while in the “after” the cyclist is further from the drain, but comfortably in the bike lane. Yes, at the edge of the frame is a Street Ambassador, the work of whom led to this better bridge. So that’s cool, too.
Also, the pictures were taken at 1:30 (standard time, November) for the after and 6:30 (daylight time, July) for the before, and the shadows are the same length.
Massachusetts has taken on a surprisingly progressive role in transportation policy in recent years, with the transportation secretary publicly stating that “we will build no more superhighways” and setting explicit goals for a shift away from single-occupancy driving. As part of this fix-what-we-have policy, the state is planning to convert the whole of the antiquated tolling system to open-road tolling, eliminating toll boots and charging vehicles based on transponders and license plates. This is a good step forward as it will not only reduce congestion at toll booths but also reduce the amount of land required by the serpentine ramps and plazas needing at Turnpike entrances and exits. While rural interchanges won’t be changed, it give the opportunity to rework a lot of urban land previously occupied by redundant roadways.
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| Typical traffic. |
The Turnpike-Cambridge/River Street-Soldiers Field-Western Avenue interchange is a royal mess. It is so confusing that the state long ago stopped maintaining lane markings, and today it is a free-for-all as vehicles jockey for position as ramps funnel in to each other at a series of lights. For bicyclists and pedestrians? It’s a nightmare. Coming east on Cambridge Street is nearly impossible through the traffic chaos, and even crossing Western Avenue and Cambridge/River Street on the Paul Dudley White Bike Path is difficult, without a specific bike/ped cycle, crosswalks, curb cuts or even, at the southern bridge, a walk light!
A bit of a radical idea here that I’m proposing would be to move Soldiers Field Road away from the River. From Boston to Watertown, nearly the entirety of the Charles River is lined by highways. Yes, there is a bike path squeezed in between the riverbank and the roadway, but it is clear that cars are given the priority—we’ve turned our back on the river. The bike path is narrow, and when it intersects roadways crossing amidst the turning vehicles, it is perilous. It is a poor excuse for bicycle infrastructure, yet it is quite heavily used. Added to this, Soldiers Field Road doesn’t even follow a straight line but hugs the riverbank, adding distance (and pollution) for motor vehicles.
Here, then, is a conceptual plan to both improve the Turnpike interchange and the connection between the Turnpike, Soldiers Field Road, Western Avenue and River Street. Just doing the first part will still result in backups, congestion and pollution, and do nothing to improve the lot of pedestrians or cyclists. This plan would improve conditions for all users, and while it would require a major buy-in from Harvard University (which owns the land Soldiers Field Road would be rerouted across), they would be given a major incentive: an Allston campus connected directly to the river (in fact, some of their long-range plans have included decking over part of Soldiers Field Road). Depressing and covering the road would be simple compared to many similar projects (i.e. the Big Dig) as it runs almost entirely through post-industrial brownfields and athletic fields, no major property takings or utility work would be necessary, and much of the route would be closed to trucks, meaning the road clearance would only have to be big enough for emergency vehicles (and, perhaps, transit buses).
I’ve annotated the map, each letter corresponds to a comment below:
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| Click to make big! |
A: The eastbound Turnpike main trunk would be depressed below the westbound trunk, allowing ramps to overlay.
B: A single westbound ramp would allow access to Soldiers Field Road in both directions, as well as River Street in Cambridge. Western Avenue would be accessed via Soldiers Field Road. Note that if Soldiers Field eastbound were merged with the Turnpike (see below), these ramps would be mostly below-grade; it could be built to allow that sort of conversion at a later time.
C: Soldiers Field east mainline. These roadways, and the ramps on and off of them, would not require truck clearances (but would require clear “no trucks” signage).
D: Cambridge Street could be narrowed to 4 lanes, and narrower yet between ramps. Sidewalks and cycletracks could be elevated to avoid ramp entrances and exits. Traffic from Western Avenue to Cambridge Street via Memorial Drive.
E: Offramp to Cambridge Street would end at a traffic signal.
F: Elevated cycletrack / sidewalk allows cyclists to avoid traffic signal and on/off ramps.
G: River bike path built 12+ feet wide, utilizes one of the disused Soldiers Field underpasses to avoid grade crossings. This would allow a 8-mile traffic-free trip from the Charles River dam west to the Western Avenue Bridge in Brighton by foot or bicycle. The other side of these underpasses would be filled.
H: Separated cycletrack facilites on the Western and River/Cambridge bridges would connected with the grade-separated riverside bike path. The riverside path could be set back from the riverbank, which would be maintained for active and passive recreation.
I: Rebuild the Weeks Bridge with ADA accessibility, and connect to bike paths for a river crossing.
J: The connection between Soldiers Field Road and the Eliot Bridge would be grade-separated; the current connection has a three-phase light in the center. Another option would be a single-point light between the Soldiers Field East-Eliot Bridge and Eliot Bridge-to Soldiers Field East which would reduce grade separation.
K: The current underpasses under the Eliot Bridge for bicyclists and pedestrians would be retained. Sidewalks / paths on the bridge would be used for grade-separated access to south-side pathways.
L: Most of the intersection east of the Eliot Bridge would be rebuilt as a wide swath of parkland.
M: A bicycle bridge would be built across the Eliot Bridge connection, cutting some distance off this route. Grade-separation would be integrated with the Eliot Bridge, and the current Eliot Bridge underpass would be retained (K).
N: Ramps to the current elevated structure would be built not to preclude future grade separation eastbound.
O: Mixing zones on Soldiers Field Road would be three lanes wide, and long enough to allow traffic to merge across two lanes to access various routes (although engineering would be required to determine the optimal length here so as not to bottleneck).
P: Ramps to Western Avenue would be built to specifications for truck traffic; north of this it would be cars-only. Traffic destined to Harvard Square would be routed west on Western and then east on Harvard, or via Memorial Drive.
Q: Ramps at North Harvard Street would be offset to keep construction away from Harvard Stadium. The track would be reoriented after construction.
While adding Soldiers Field Road reconfigurations to the rebuilding of the Turnpike interchange, the project should still not be viewed in isolation but rather as part of the larger transportation network. A few things to consider:
Much has been written about Boston’s Silver Line (including on this page). It’s certainly not rapid, but it is rather convenient: I made it from Kendall Square to Terminal A in 25 minutes. The problem? It should have been 23.
I’ve noticed in the past that the Silver Line experiences long waits at the D Street grade crossing after it exits the tunnel. On my ride yesterday, I decided to find out just how long, by means of Youtube:
The bus gets to D Street, and proceeds to sit there for not 30 seconds, not a minute, but just shy of a minute and a half! This is a major service failure. The scheduled time from South Station to Logan airport and back is 45 minutes, meaning that if the bus loses 1:30 each time it crosses D Street, 7% of the route time is spent waiting for a traffic light. For the SL2 line, which is a 25 minute round trip, 3 minutes is 12% of the total operating time!
There’s this thing called “transit signal priority” which could be employed to eliminate these wait times. A sensor could be placed just outside the WTC station (and a similar one on the inbound run) which would be tripped when the bus passed by (there are already sensors which detect the bus and raise gates when the pass, and which close barriers should someone attempt to drive in to the tunnel). This would give 15 seconds to flash the don’t walk sign and change the light, allowing the bus to proceed through the intersection at full speed. Traffic would not be dramatically impacted since there light would only be red for a few seconds when the bus passes, and an algorithm could be put in to place to assure the green cycle for traffic was long enough to avoid backups (but not, you know, not 90 seconds when very few cars pass through; see above).
Transit signal priority (TSP) is not very expensive; even at the high bound it costs $35,000 per intersection. Ridership on the SL1 is, give or take, 8,000 per day. This means that in a year, for one penny per passenger, trip lengths could be reduced by more than a minute. This should be implemented immediately.
What’s more, this would result in reduced operation costs for the MBTA. Buses cost somewhere on the order of $100 per hour to operate. Even if the average time savings per bus was only 30 seconds, this would equate to 4.5 hours of operating time per day, or a $450 savings. Assuming a $35k cost for TSP implementation, it would pay for itself in 78 days—two and a half months.
The argument could be made that these times would just be built in to schedule padding at the end of the route and savings would only be from the reduced power use related to not stopping and starting. But, especially on the SL2, saving a couple of minutes could be used to decrease the overall route time and increase service, something the Seaport District desperately needs. At rush hour, decreasing the trip time from 25 to 23 minutes would allow headways to drop from 5:00 to 4:36—a capacity increase of 8%—without any additional cost. This would allow for 3 additional round trips at rush hour, or 75 additional minutes of service, which would save the T $125. By this metric, the payback would be $250 per weekday, and take 140 weekdays to pull in to the black. That’s 7 months. After that, it’s gravy.
(Another improvement: extending overhead wires along the whole of the SL2 route would allow the buses to operate without a change of power twice per trip; combined with the savings at Silver Line Way this might allow service to operate at 5 minute headways with 4 buses—a dramatic savings, albeit one with a higher initial capital cost.)
There is no logical reason that transit signal priority should not be immediately procured and installed at D Street. There is no need for a time-consuming review process; the benefits are clear and any disruption to traffic will be far less than the current disruption to the traveling public. While the Silver Line is still hobbled by a convoluted route system, low capacity, slow tunnel speeds, traffic and a poorly-designed power switch (often requiring the operator to exit the bus and manually raise the trolley poles), this inexpensive change would be a good start to dramatically improve service.
An article about the Hyperloop recently crossed my Twitter feed. Now, normally I wouldn’t really spend much time on this topic, but this article is particularly risible. Why? Because the backers of the project are now favorably comparing it to the Concorde.
No. Seriously:
“It’s similar to what the Concorde did for air transport … This will revolutionize how we transport people from city to city.”
Oh, lordy. Here’s what the Concorde did for air transport. It created a very small, niche industry which offered a somewhat faster product than what existed. This product was available only at a huge markup to the main market. It had severely constricted capacity. Development cost 12 times (*) initial estimates (so much so that it is an above-the-fold example in the “cost overrun” Wikipedia article). It received massive government subsidies. And after 30 years of serving a very small market, it was retired from service.
Let me repeat that: the Concorde is no longer in service. It didn’t revolutionize how we transport people by air. It first flew in 1976, and last flew in 2003. The 747 first flew in 1969, and continues to transport people by air today. If the Concorde had revolutionized how we transport people from city to city, we’d probably still be using it today. We’re not. The jet? It revolutionized travel—before that most everyone crossed long distances of water by boat, and on land by train. The Concorde? We’re still flying conventional jets.
And they’re crowdsourcing this? Let me just take a flyer here. Elon Musk scribbled some ideas on a napkin (and the Tesla is doing great, at least when it’s not catching fire) and now a couple people are crowdsourcing the project, and comparing it to something that, while a technological marvel, was for all intents and purposes, a financial disappointment.
However, unlike the Concorde, I doubt the Hyperloop will ever get off the ground.
(* Note that with the same level of overrun, the Hyperloop would cost $72 billion to construct, which is as much as the High Speed Rail proposal. Except the High Speed Rail system can carry 10 times the passenger load (or more). Remember, the Concorde only had 100 seats. Most everyone else flew—and still flies—on conventional jets.)
There’s an article on TheAtlanticCities which is bouncing around the office about how painful it is to wait for a train (I’d add: especially if you don’t know when it might come). But even with the proliferation of countdown timers (except, uh, on the Green Line), any disruption to the published (or, at least, idealized) headways can cause headaches. And when headways get at all discombobulated, passenger loading becomes very uneven, resulting in a few very crowded trains that you, the passenger, are more likely to wind up waiting for and squeezing aboard.
For instance, let’s say that you ride the Red Line in Boston. The published headway is 4.5 minutes (two lines, 9 minute headways for each line). Assuming you’re going south through Cambridge, the agency should be able to send out trains at the exact headways from the two-track terminus, barring any issues on the outbound run. You’d expect that, upon entering the station, you’d have an average wait of 2:15, and the longest you’d ever wait for a train would be 4:30 (if you walked in just as the doors were closing and the train was pulling out of the station).
In a perfect world, this would be the case. In the real world, it’s not. In fact, it probably seems to many commuters that their average wait for the train is more in the four-minute range, and sometimes as long as seven or eight minutes. And when a train takes eight minutes to come, the problem compounds as service bunches: the cars get too full, and dwell times increase as passengers attempt to board a sardine-can train and the operator tries to shut the doors.
Here’s the rub: even if most services run on a better-than-average headway, passengers are more likely to experience a longer wait. Here’s an extreme example. Imagine a half hour of service with five trips. With equal headways, one would arrive every six minutes, and the average wait time would be three minutes. Now, imagine that the first four services arrived every 2.5 minutes, and the final one arrived after 20 minutes. The average headway is still six minutes. However, the experienced average is far worse. Unless the services operate at that frequency due to load factors, passengers likely require the service at a constant (or near-constant rate). Imagine that one passenger shows up each minute. The first ten are whisked away quickly, waiting no longer than three minutes. The next 20 wait an average of 10 minutes, with some waiting as long as 20. In this case, even with the same average headway, 14 passengers—nearly half—wait longer than the longest headway if the service was evenly-spaced.
I used the Red Line as an example because I have experience with this phenomenon, and also data. Back when I first collected Longfellow Bridge data, I tracked, for two hours, how often the trains came. It turns out that the headway is actually 4:10 between 7:20 and 9:20, more frequent than advertised. However, nearly half of the trains come within three minutes, which means that there is a long tail of longer headways which pulls the average down. So instead of an average wait time of 2:05, the average user waits quite a bit longer.
Assuming that each train carries all passengers from each station (not necessarily a valid assumption), the average customer waits 2:32. This doesn’t seem like a long time, but it means that while the trains are run on approximate four minute headways, the actual experience is that of five minutes, a loss of 20% of the quality of service. Five minute headways aren’t bad. The issue is that there are several periods where customers wait far longer than five minutes, resulting in overcrowding on certain trains, and longer waits for the same ones. The chart below shows wait times for each minute between 7:23 and 9:23. Green is a wait of 2:15 or less, yellow 4:30 or less (the advertised headway). Orange is up to 6:45, and red is longer. About one sixth of the time a train is running outside of the given headways. And three times, it is longer than 150% of the advertised headway.
Another personal observation is that, try as I might, I seem to always get caught on a packed-full train. This is due to the same phenomenon. Of the 30 trains noted, only eight of them had headways of more than 4:30. Those 8 trains—which, assuming a constant flow of riders, accounted for 27% of the passengers—served 56 of the 120 observed minutes, carrying 47% of the ridership! Ten trains came within 2:30 of the previous trains. These trains accounted for 33% of the service, but only served 19% of the ridership. So while one-in-three trains is underloaded, you only have a one-in-five chance of getting on one of those trains. And while only about a quarter of services are packed full, you have a nearly 50% chance of riding one of those trains. So if you wonder why it always seems like your train is packed full, it’s because it is. But there are just enough empty services that once a week you might find yourself in the bliss of a (relatively) empty train car.
Overall, I mean this as an observation of headways, not as an indictment of the MBTA. Running a railroad with uneven loads (especially at bus- and commuter rail-transfer stations), passengers holding doors and the like can quickly cascade in to a situation where certain trains are overloaded, and others pass by with plenty of room. Still, it’s infuriating to wait. But it’s interesting to have data, and to visualize what it looks like during the course of what seems to be a normal rush hour.
(On the other hand, there are some services, like the 70 bus, which have scheduled uneven headways and where the actual level of service is significantly impacted, but that’s the subject of another post entirely.)
Twice this summer, we counted vehicles on the Longfellow. Between June and July, when the lanes of the bridge were shifted and constricted, bicycle traffic was level (well, actually, it rose slightly) while vehicular traffic decreased. I was otherwise occupied this September and didn’t get a chance to do a comparable bike count until last week, when I eked out an hour to sit on the bridge.
And the results are so mundane they aren’t even worthy of charts and graphics. Basically, the numbers were within a thin margin of error of those from July:
(All values for peak-hour of the count, note that the Longfellow runs east-west; Eastbound towards Boston, Westbound towards Cambridge)
Eastbound Bikes: 308 (July: 298)
Westbound Bikes: 63 (July: 68)
Eastbound Pedestrians: 65 (July: 83)
Westbound Pedestrians: 191 (July: 201)
Inbound Vehicles: 411 (July: 415)
So the bridge, even after two months of people getting used to the traffic patterns, has seen no major changes. Any drop in non-motorized use might be attributable to cooler weather (in the mid 50s rather than the upper 60s) or to random variance. And assuming a normal traffic day, there has been no significant increase in traffic since the bridge has opened.
It’s the last piece that I find most interesting. It really speaks to the concept of “induced demand.” With the wider Longfellow, we say 800 vehicles per hour traversing the bridge in June. Once the bridge was narrowed, that number fell to 400. There were weeks with dozens police directing traffic, but the number of cars very quickly hit a new equilibrium. People do not seem to need a major education campaign to figure out where to go. If the new roads are gridlocked, they’ll find alternate routes. The system has not ground to a halt (although inbound at the evening rush often backs up the length of the bridge). There are too many variables to find out if people have switched to other routes or modes or just not made the trip, but traffic in the morning across the Longfellow has not been the apocalypse.
It’s tomorrow. The Friday before Columbus Day.
I have no actual data to back this up. Only anecdotal and empirical data. (Oh, and data from the Pike, which claims it’s second to the Friday before mother’s day in May, but I think that might be just for the Pike without the added benefit of every road north and south of the state, too. How prescient that this article comes out right after I post this.) But here’s what happens, and here’s how to avoid it.
Boston sees a lot of bad traffic. In the winter, when everyone is in town and weather hits, the entire system can grind to a halt. (The worst I know of was in December 2007 when a storm hit Boston around noontime. Snow fell heavily from the onset with temperatures in the mid-20s, so roads iced over. So many people left work early to beat the weather home that the roads filled up completely and plows couldn’t keep them clean. So the entire network ground to a halt until snow let up late in the evening.) But you can’t really plan for that. In the summer, Boston sees epic traffic jams headed out of the city to and from vacation spots, especially getting on and off of Cape Cod (the eight hour, 25-mile backup this July 4 this year was particularly bad), although other bottlenecks in New Hampshire and Western Mass can be painstakingly slow.
But the Friday before Columbus Day Weekend is the worst. Here’s why:
Dateline: July 30, 2012. Cambridge.
I bicycle across the Harvard (Mass Ave) Bridge towards MIT (westbound). I signal in to the traffic lane to overtake a slower cyclist and to avoid a particularly rough stretch of pavement. Upon stopping for a light at Memorial Drive, the State Trooper tasked with directing traffic walked over.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“You can’t leave the bike lane to pass other vehicles.”
“Officer, I am allowed to leave the bike lane if conditions warrant, and this includes when pavement conditions are dangerous, or to overtake another vehicle.”
“No, you must stay in the bike lane. You can only leave the bike lane where it is dashed, at intersections like this,” he said, pointing to where the bike lane crosses Memorial Drive.”
At this point, he asked me if I would like to discuss this further. I was glad to. So he proceeded to write me a citation.
Here is what I was cited for:
85.11B: Pass No Pass Zone
85.11B: Fail to Stay Within Marked Lanes
I asked the officer to explain the citations. He refused. (This may be a violation of MGL 90C.2 which states that “[a] Said police officer shall inform the violator of the violation and shall give a copy of the citation to the violator.”) I asked him to please give me his name. He refused, and pulled his reflective vest over his name badge. He then took out his handcuffs and called for backup, asking me if I was being disorderly. Not wanting to further escalate the situation (and, sadly, not having a witness there to video the situation) I asked if I was under arrest and, upon being told that I was not, left.
And filed a complaint with the State Police.
I don’t want to dwell on the intimidation by the State Police; that will be dealt with internally. However, I would like to deal with the fact that the Mass State Police apparently do not understand bicycle law. (According to the ticket code and internet, the officer works at SC5, which is the Sturbridge Barracks. So, a) he’s probably not going to show up in court in Middlesex and b) he probably doesn’t cite a lot of cyclists.) First of all, bicyclists do not have to stay within bike lanes.
First, passing in a no passing zone. This would appear to fall under MGL 89.2. Here is the pertinent text from the law:
If it is not possible to overtake a bicycle or other vehicle at a safe distance in the same lane, the overtaking vehicle shall use all or part of an adjacent lane if it is safe to do so or wait for a safe opportunity to overtake.
It is, therefore, legal to change lanes to pass in the same direction. Additionally, the Massachusetts driver manual states that it is legal to cross solid white lines in a vehicle (see this PDF, page 10). In other words, a white line does not constitute a no passing zone. And none of this is mentioned in the cited section, 85.11B
Second, failure to stay within marked lanes. This falls under MGL 89.4A and 89.4B. It states, amongst other things, that:
Upon all ways the driver of a vehicle shall drive in the lane nearest the right side of the way when such lane is available for travel, except when overtaking another vehicle or when preparing for a left turn.
Since I was overtaking another vehicle, I was subject to this exception (there is a separate exception in 85.11B for dangerous situations, and the poor pavement in the bike lane on the Harvard Bridge would obviously fit within this exception). Additionally, while I did signal my turn, I am not required to do so if I need to keep both hands on the handlebars. The officer said that my left hand was extended to “wave off traffic” which is an interesting interpretation of the law from someone whose job is to enforce it.
Had the officer wanted to charge me with these offenses, he probably should have referenced them based on the actual statute. 85.11B simply refers to these statutes.
But, of course, I wasn’t in violation of either.
I expect this case to be dismissed without a hearing; it is likely that whatever magistrate vets the citation will not deem it worth the court’s time. If, however, a hearing date is set, I will make sure that it is well publicized. You’re all invited.
Update 10/21: I asked a State Trooper today on detail at the Head of the Charles if it was legal to leave a bike lane to pass another cyclist. He said it was perfectly legal.
Update 11/19: A court date has yet to be filed. Apparently it should be within 30 days. If it’s much longer, I could probably move to dismiss based on the delay.
Update 2017: I received a court date and asked for the charges to be dismissed. The officer had written that “I had created a situation where there were many cars honking at me.” I asked the Trooper there (not the same one) to look at the pictures and I showed where he was standing and where I was cycling and asked “do you think it is reasonable to assume that, in a busy intersection in Boston, it would be possible to ascertain which of several dozen vehicles was honking?” The case was decided in my favor.
I never did hear from the State Police regarding my complaint.
