Bicycle Friendly Summer Reading

I've been offline lately while I learn to be a reference librarian. One of my assignments was to create an annotated bibliography - a list of sources with descriptions.

Perfect opportunity for a bike-friendly bibliography! And here it is: 31 sources (web pages, federal, state, and local documents, and studies in peer-reviewed journals) to help Newton become more bike-friendly.

Most of the resources are available online: all you have to do is cut and paste the url from the bibliographic entry. Not quite as straightforward as just clicking on a link, I know, but we'll get there this fall.

Enjoy, and pass along to anyone who may find it relevant or interesting. It's tailored to Newton, but many of the resources would be just as relevant to any Massachusetts community trying to become Bicycle Friendly.

Zipcar at Lasell and Mt. Ida Colleges?

Colleges are great places to site car shares. Salem State has just added a zipcar hybrid and cargo truck on campus and offered students a discount on membership.

Meanwhile, Newton's Transporation Advisory Committee will be making a transporation map that includes zipcar location in town.

Building on the Salem State story, it seems Lasell College and Mt. Ida could be great places to site zipcars, allowing less cars on/around campus, improving town-gown relations, and serving as a resource for neighborhood residents.

More Asphalt, Anyone?

Newton has roughly 310 miles of paved roadway, occupying roughly 10% of Newton's land.

The city is talking about 8-laning Route 9 in Chestnut Hill, 4-laning Winchester/Needham Street, and letting the MBTA help itself to a massive parking garage at Riverside.

Meanwhile, other forward-thinking communities (like Charlotte, NC) are embracing Complete Streets.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts pioneered a pedestrian- and bike-friendly design guide in 2006, the Healthy Transportation Compact was signed into law in 2009, MassDOT has just launched GreenDOT and Boston has been installing bike lanes left right and center.

But Newton is driving pell-mell backward into the era of King Car.

Why?

Do people really want this?

If you want Complete Streets in Newton, one venue to make yourself heard is the Access Subcommittee meeting of the Mixed Use Task Force next Thursday (July 29th), 7:15pm at the Senior Center.

Biker Down on Beacon St. near Cold Spring Park

A young woman biker (with helmet) was being stablized with a neck brace this morning around 10AM. She was sitting up, conscious, in tears. It looks like she had been heading eastbound on Beacon St. just east of Cold Spring Park, and collided with a car at/near the driveway to a new office building there.

Intercity travel without a car

My wife and son are in New Jersey. We all went down together in our one car on Friday, and caught the fireworks in my mother-in-law's home town. On Sunday, fetching bagels for a brunch, wishing I had a bike stored there so I could bike to and from the bagelry, I reflected on all the driving around we do that's so unnecessary and happens only because there's no good alternative. The next day, we all drove into the city together to MOMA, where I saw Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel."

It's a Dada-ist ready-made that stands there like a punch-line waiting for a joke, or like a Zen koan rebuke to our utilitarian, humdrum concerns.

If I'd had a working bike, I could have biked to and from the bagelry on a pleasant Sunday morning. If public transit to that northern New Jersey town were anything but a joke, we could have had a convivial train or bus ride. (As it was, we were 5 in a car, so it was pretty convivial anyway; and what a treat to park for free on the street half a block from the museum! Holiday parking.)

But I improved on the situation. I had to be back in Newton for the week, so after tea at Moma's terrace cafe and tearful goodbyes (OK, so I've invented the tears), I grabbed my little backpack, scooted off on foot to a subway station a few blocks away, caught the D local to Grand Street, and walked a few block through Chinatown's funky storefronts to the Lucky Star bus counter, where I dropped my $15, stood on line for 5 minutes, and clambered aboard a clean, quiet bus for a 4 hour ride (with a stop at a fast-food joint in Sturbridge) to South Station, typing all the way on my tiny little laptop. Red line to Green line to Newton. Hooray, public transportation and enterprising cut-rate bus lines! On Friday, I'll head back to the big apple on a Bolt Bus, and we'll see how they compare.

In the meantime, since we're a one-car family, I'm having my own bike-week. To the garden, to groceries, to the library, to the T... . For me, a vacation from a car is a vacation, indeed!

A request to BH Normandy Riverside LLC

Dear BH Normandy Riverside LLC,

Please draw up plans - just for kicks - that retain the existing number of parking spaces at Riverside (960), but no new ones. Then please estimate how much this design would shift commuting to the site by the T rather than the estimated 8,230 additional vehicle trips per day estimated to come via I-95. Feel free to comment on whether you are skeptical that a sufficient urban workforce exists to staff the new development from the D line corridor and associated public transit links. Also, feel free to estimate how much money would be saved by not having to create new roadway infrastructure - ramps, roundabouts - for all that non-existent parking.

Parking at Riverside is the Single Largest Allocation of Space

Total area of Proposed Riverside Development: 1,091,162 square feet.

Retail: 14,800 square feet
Residential: 260,000 square feet
Office Space: 595,000 square feet
PARKING*: 748,000 SQUARE FEET

*2,720 parking spaces at ca. 275 square feet per parking space

**area estimates from http://www.riversidestation.info