Cambridge City Council To Vote On Requiring Protected Bike Lanes

CAMBRIDGE, MA — The Cambridge City Council is expected to vote Monday on the Cycling Safety Ordinance, which would require the City of Cambridge to install permanent, protected bike lanes whenever reconstructing streets included in the city’s bicycle plan.

If passed, the ordinance would be the first in the country to require protected bike lanes on key roads, and create a network of more than 20 miles of protected bike lanes, according to advocates. Once completed the lanes would provide access to all major origins and destinations in the city.

"What happens now is that, more often than not, when a street is reconstructed, even if the bike plan calls for it to have permanent protected bike lanes (think Western Ave bike lane), the city decides not to build them because a noisy minority of voices object. If it passes, the ordinance will prevent that from happening," said Sam Feigenbaum who is a volunteer with Cambridge Bike Safety, a group advocating for better bike safety and which helped put the proposal together.

Feigenbaum said advocates look at the ordinance as a long-term solution.

"In the short term, the bike community will continue to push for the city to build out a network of quick-build projects (think Cambridge St bike lanes) as quickly as possible," he told Patch in an email.

And it wouldn't cost much, according to officials.

"Since these are major capital projects that generally involve significant reconstruction of the street, the incremental/marginal cost of adding the separated bicycle facilities is not that large, within the context of how much a street reconstruction costs," said Director of Traffic, Parking, and Transportation Joe Barr. "So although there will be some additional costs associated with designing and building the facilities, we expect those additional costs to be limited."

The proposed ordinance also has a provision that would allow the city manager to decide not to implement a specific segment of separated bicycle lane if the cost is prohibitive, although officials said they expect that provision would only be used rarely, if at all.

The Ordinance Committee unanimously endorsed the ordinance last month, and the full council unanimously passed it through a second reading to this final vote.

The ordinance does not apply to streets that are not up for reconstruction, even if they're in the plan. If a protected lane is not possible in a particular project, the ordinance asks the city to provide a written analysis of why and how connectivity can otherwise be achieved.

It also stipulates that new bicycle lanes should not interfere with accessible parking, crosswalks, public transportation, curb cuts or intersections.

Cambridge Bike Safety, the office of Cambridge City Manager Louis DePasquale, and the office of Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern put the proposal together.

On the 2018 bi-annual survey of resident satisfaction with city services, the city asked 400 people on the phone and 2,587 residents online if they'd like to see the city install more protected bike lanes. Most said yes: Some 64 percent of online respondents and 60 percent of phone respondents said they were in agreement. Only 26 percent of those polled were opposed.

More info about the ordinance can be found here.