Thread by @MbtaJae

Here at Haggerty School to advocate for bike/ped infrastructure in @CambMA
Here's the agenda:

Glad to see members of @cambbikesafety and @jandev here as well! Not glad to see that all the DCR reps are old white men :/ More livetweets to come, watch this space

Out of the say 60 people here there are only 2 PoC and one appears to be working for the DCR presenters

Lol Jeff Parenti has zero presence or ability to speak to a crowd

Oh and @Ammallon is here too! Good to know the city cares

If the DCR is a parks agency as Jeff claims why the fuck are they managing roads, which they admit is not their expertise and not related to their mission

Can the DCR PLEASE train their employees how to speak into a microphone

Using WikiMaps tech is only useful if you actually listen to it 🙄

Accommodating funeral processions shouldn't take precedence over actual living and breathing peds/cyclists that need to be protected

For reference "accommodating funeral processions' was listed as a flexibility priority

Also these ppt slides are terrible...

Going over the successes of the MT Auburn bus priority pilot

"We have more people than cars" on the Mount Auburn corridor 👏👏👏

Also ADA improvements done at Coolidge Ave! Good 👍

Time for next steps with Jeff Parenti

Long term project = TIP funding for construction from MassDOT

This corridor is a top 200 crash intersection, which they are planning to leverage for more funding. Grim. 💀

"As funding allows make LT improvements in measured increments to ensure successful transit improvements are held harmless"

Lol literally nothing of content in the presentations. Now up: engaging with officials in front of large mockups

Dcr official explaining current design issues

Highlights: people run yellows so they have long reds. Long ped xing. Lots of empty pavement in the middle purple

Solutions: cures that tell people where to be when. New bike infra

Lady: the cyclists will be killed in 2 seconds!
Dcr: uh we hope not
Great plan!

Website and plans are different and people are clamoring for a slip lane. "We NEED it" uh lady no you dont. You want it. Cyclists need their lives protected.

Q:"could you characterize the nature of the crashes?"
A:"oh boy"

3rd lane on gerrys landing would not be implemented because there's too much to do elsewhere....yikes

Another old white lady concerned abt gridlock

Unfixed potholes make people do dumb things driving says old white lady. Shes not wrong.

"But the CHILDREN!" cries old white lady worries about traffic

This DCR has the hardest job in the world listening to these entitled old white ladies complain about how long it takes them to get through the intersection in their portable living rooms

There is shouting about the "missing" slip lane now. What the fuck

This is so anxiety inducing. My cuticles are suffering.

Ppl here acting as if omitting a slip lane will destroy their lives

"Remember this is Cambridge so many of us have children that need to get to school" uh what

Oh now she is saying the DCR bus pilot study was "deceptive"

I'm biting my tongue SO HARD RIGHT NOW

I just got in a shouting match with a drivist. Oops. I need to shut the fuck up.

DCR guy says they cant just hand over the road to Cambridge. My response: why not?

"We can't remove 300 yr old trees for a bike lane bc they block the noise from the st" you mean the noise from the cars...which would go away if there were more bikes in the bike lane

Good suggestion: bump out curb along bike path thru intersection

DCR guy says we shouldn't "soak" the drivers on FPP. why not?

Talked to Bob Stathopoulos the timing and signals guy one on one and he was really knowledgeable and receptive to my ideas namely:

1) adding a bollard or planter in the ped island on Gerrys landing for improved ped experience
2) bumping the bike box on IB mt auburn further out into the intersection to give bikes lead time on the cars when crossing the intersection to continue down mt auburn

3) adding addtl wayfinding signs to the bike box in front of the left turn from Gerrys Ld to Mt Auburn to indicate there is an upcoming bike lane on IB mt auburn

Talking to the technical guy Bob (of Howard Stein Hudson not DCR) was much more informative and helpful than taking to the PR manager. Now i know.

I had a shouting match with some drivists when they insisted that 56% of ppl in buses does not constitute a majority. What. Even.

One of the tenets of democracy is that majority rules. 56% is the literal definition of a majority. 56% bus riders + change for cyclists indicates that the best use of the road is to invest in bus priority, bus only lanes and cycle paths but these drivists won't hear it

One of the recurring themes tonight was officials bending over backwards to assure old white ladies they wouldn't be taking away any lanes. Fuck that. Why is there a six lane highway through Cambridge, that's the real fucking question.

Got a lot of concern trolling boomers asking me "what about the elderly, people with kids, people carrying heavy instruments" (yes that last one is real). They got REAL mad when I told them to just ride the bus & i see moms w/ strollers on the bus all the time.

What about the elderly, people with kids, the kids themselves, people w disabilities, and people with heavy instruments on buses and bikes and their own feet? Don't THEY matter too?

Being surrounded by 2 tons of metal shouldn't be the only way your kids can get to school at BB&N in the heart of Cambridge and people who are hurt or injured by cars (remember: top 200 dangerous intersection) matter SO much more than your 15 minute wait at a red light

I'm actually quite concerned about this plan because of the high volume high speed high confusing nature of the intersection. Painted but not protected bike lanes have been shown to be more dangerous.

Combining that with an intersection that is already dangerous for motorists is a recipe for disaster. You have to do things right the first time or people will die.

This is yet another example of a mediocre meet-in-the-middle road plan, which, in an attempt to appease drivers,actually appeases no one and yet gives the illusion of progress

Despite otherwise informative and congenial chatting with Bob, I was stunned when he said the light timing was giving cyclists and drivers the same amount of time to cross GL/FPP. THEN he said he didn't know how long it took to actually bike the intersection.

Car speed = bike speed is a dangerous assumption. How can you not have this critical piece of info when designing signal timings?? @cambbikesafety someone who's biked this stretch really needs to weigh in here & tell Bob what's what (in fact he asked)

if another consultant presents his amazing road design plan without actually experiencing the modes he is designing is2g I am gonna lose my shit big-time. It's called RESEARCH, BOB!

The biggest irony of this whole meeting is that the 72/75 doesn't run frequent enough at night, so I have to walk all the way home

Oh also I had a guy try to mansplain to me that my lived experience of the 71/73 AND THE DATA COLLECTED BY THE STUDY was incorrect so that wad cool

Pretty sure that i was the only person in the entire room who actually takes the 71/73 on my daily commute

One lady had an idea to change the bus lanes into "bus lanes if there's a bus but regular lanes if there's not a bus" whiiich is essentially the same as taking away the bus lane. According to her they do this in Amsterdam(?) And then we got into a fight about why we cant do that

Lady. Even if that technology DID exist (which I'm not sure it does) it's not as easy as switching on a bluetooth device (which is what she said) and that takes time and $ we don't have 🙄🙄

If we're gonna have DCR impose a top down street redesign anyway, why bother with the public input process??? Let experts make expert decisions without being harassed by selfish and uninformed members of the community (myself included)