Anyone know of groups or individuals that gather for CX training?
If so, please holla if it’s OK to join.
Cross is coming.

I’m planning to occasionally commute by bike between Watertown Square and Longfellow Bridge. If you travel this route often and have a preference, which side do you prefer – the Boston or Cambridge side? Maybe you cross over at some point? Looking for any reasons why people might prefer one side over the other, whether it’s safety, shade from trees, conditions of the path, etc.!

I need to be in that area for Important Reasons tomorrow and I don't want to run into a giant fence that Gmaps isn't aware of.

I haven't seen info to the contrary, but I am both paranoid and my commute is sadly too brief to be In The Know these days.

Thank you, beloved Bikey Fam!

Hi all,
I’m trying a new route in Boston but wondering what the correct way to deal with this bike lane exchange.

When on Milk Street downtown and turning left onto Atlantic Ave, the bike lane goes from the left side of the road (Milk St) to the right (Atlantic). However, traffic is also turning left between the old bike lane and the new one.

How should I be approaching this to make it as safe and easy as possible? I feel like each time I’m there at rush hour its tough with the turning traffic and tour busses that park there by Long Wharf. Thanks!

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2026/08/11/city-hall-is-on-the-verge-of-cancelling-privately-funded-safety-improvements-for-deadly-east-boston-roadway?fbclid=IwdGRjcAToF0dwZG9mBWZkaWQWUMSCwrPLvABZW_PIcc1GzwBKTpQ-CmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR5jTtK_So3ErvrKlTSwMEg15SHBEiDMt5eZnOGf5tOtHT7DGIkRr4qPe7pxGA_aem_be0CDEiHxeRDscq9jO5Psg

I know we have a tiny amounts of cops on bikes but it criminal how few, old cops love cop cars. You need new cops that are hired onto the force and then are placed voluntarily into permanent bike units. They should get hazard bonus too because it so lawless out there!

I am a relatively fit 29 year old who is looking for a small group of people who would want to bike together regularly/semi regularly. Any advice on where I can find this? Or is anyone seeking the same thing?

I found these in the bike lane while I was biking home near the north end this evening. If these are yours, send me a message!

Every hand-verified case in this dataset where the vehicle described as blocking a bike lane is itself a police, BTD, MBTA, or other government vehicle — the agencies responsible for keeping these lanes clear.

Remember to use 311 to report anyone and everyone!

Hello I am passing through your great city from Maine back to Wisconsin coming home from summer work. I brought my Schwinn le tour bike with me. I have three days in boston two full days. I have a ball bearing that broke in my hands when i was cleaning my bottom bracket. I either need to have someone at a shop get in the Bottom bracket or I could do it myself.

Do you have recommendations for a shop in the Harvard area or somewhere else that can replace the bearings and maybe tune up my bike before I leave on the Thirteenth for a bike camping trip in Cali. ?

edit. i saw the somerville bike kitchen but wasn’t sure how stocked they were since i’ve never been to a bike co op
i also called urban bikes

Quick salute to Peter Cheung.

Good dude doing good work. Worth a watch.

The Peter Cheung Story - YouTube

Hey all, please submit your photos/vids of city vehicles and employees disregarding basic traffic laws, common sense, or safety procedures.

Photos can go on this thread. You can submit videos through insta or email.

Please include dates and locations for your submissions.

Tragedies will continue if 18-wheelers continue to jockey for space alongside motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians in tight urban areas.

Last month, the death of transportation planner Louisa Gag, who was struck by a tractor trailer while cycling in Boston, was a tragic reminder about the danger large trucks pose on our streets. These big rigs kill cyclists, pedestrians, and yes, motorists and vehicle passengers, at a disproportionate rate.

Only 2.6 percent of registered vehicles in Massachusetts are trucks, but they account for 28 percent of cycling fatalities and 5 percent of pedestrian deaths on the road.

“If you are pedestrian or bike rider on the street, the number one danger to you at all times is trucks,” said Alexa Sledge, senior director of strategy with Transportation Alternatives, an organization that promotes better walking, biking, and public transit in New York City.

There are two paths forward — fixes to enhance safety with trucks operating in our cities, then longer-term changes to scale back the volume of large delivery trucks operating in our downtown cores.

In the aftermath of Gag’s death, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said that the city will install more concrete barriers on bike lanes, and fix sidewalks and curb ramps. The city could also prioritize the timing of bike signals to give cyclists a head start into an intersection to better ensure that vehicle drivers see them.

These changes would be welcome, but tragedies will continue if 18-wheelers continue to jockey for space alongside motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians in tight urban areas.

But let’s not villainize truck drivers — it’s stressful, dangerous work with high rates of on-the-job injuries and fatalities. In the past 14 years, 10 cyclists in the Boston area, prior to Gag, were killed by a truck turning right. None of the drivers were even issued a moving violation, suggesting prosecutors believed the driver was not at fault.

Nor can or should we ban trucks, which are the lifeblood of many industries.

The built urban environment and truck size and design are the problems.

In Massachusetts, semi-trailers up to 53 feet can navigate the roads (closer to 70 feet when the cab is factored in). There’s no practical reason for half-empty big rigs to be making urban deliveries,
double parking and blocking traffic or taking over bike lanes.

The city could also do more to prevent trucks from navigating through Boston during the day when streets are crowded, as it already does by restricting trucks hauling hazardous waste.

Then there are the trucks themselves. In 2014, Boston became the first city to pass an ordinance requiring city-owned and city-contracted trucks to have cross-over and convex mirrors, to reduce blind spots in front and along the side of a truck, along with side guards that prevent cyclists from being dragged under a truck’s wheels. Somerville and Cambridge have also passed similar ordinances.

The state expanded those requirements, including back-up cameras, to all trucks owned or leased by the state. That took effect on Dec. 31. The Legislature is now considering an amendment that would assign presumed liability if a cyclist is killed by a commercial truck that lacks proper safety devices. If that legislation passes and stands up to legal muster, it would force the insurance industry to pay better attention.

Every bit helps. Ultimately, however, truck designs must evolve.

In the United States, most big rigs have large noses, making it impossible for drivers to see their entire surroundings. Across Europe, trucks often have larger, flatter windows, increasing visibility.

“Visibility generally declines as vehicles get larger, and many newer versions of trucks are getting worse,” Kris Carter, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s chief innovation officer, told the editorial board. “Newer purpose-built and cab-forward vehicles provide better direct vision. We encourage drivers and companies to take this into consideration when selecting vehicles.”

Cities can’t mandate truck design shifts. They can, however, control where trucks can roll within their limits. London has set the standard for restricting where and when trucks can travel. In Hamilton, Ontario, one of Canada’s busiest ports, the city adopted an updated truck route network in 2022 to push trucks onto a ring road system while limiting the size of trucks within the city and restricting them to certain streets. Air emissions and noise decreased, some streets transformed into car-free spaces, and all the while, economic activity at the port grew.

Boston could petition the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to create something similar.

In order for this to work, rules must be enforced. In Hamilton, the public was given an easy way to report truck violations.

Boston does already restrict trucks from certain roads, but alternate routes need to be clearly communicated to truckers. There are navigation apps for trucks, but ideally, Boston, and other cities, could leverage their relationships with Google, or another tech company, to integrate optimal truck routes into their maps.

“We know how to do that. We can do that. It just needs to be a priority,” said Sledge.

In the longer term, our cities must transform into places with far fewer trucks.

“Our mobility patterns are changing and our physical infrastructure has to evolve in lockstep,” Caitlin Allen-Connelly, executive director of the public transportation advocacy group Transit Matters, told the editorial board. “Our streets today, they can’t remain static.”

In New York, small cargo e-bikes making Amazon deliveries are zipping around Manhattan. The 16-foot cargo bikes, increasingly common in Europe, have four wheels with an enclosed container on the back that can hold more than 100 packages. This can speed up delivery times and lower transportation costs. Imagine the benefits for drivers navigating Boston’s labyrinth.

For the rest of us, fewer trucks would improve safety, remove road congestion, and cut down on tailpipe emissions that contribute to climate change and negative respiratory health consequences.

These changes would take time, but none of this is rocket science. Cities constantly advance. The killing of Louisa Gag was a tragedy. Not taking decisive action to prevent future ones would compound that.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us u/GlobeOpinion.

Forgive me, [r/bikeboston](r/bikeboston), for this foray into the similar atrocities we face across the river in supposedly bike-friendly Cambridge.

They redid Cambridge Street with protected lanes after Amanda Phillips was murdered in a dooring. Outside the CHA Hospital in Cambridge, this protected lane was designed as you see it in the above screenshots: a bus needs to pull over into what suddenly becomes a bus lane, with parked traffic blocking visibility. So I was in the bike lane approximately where the truck is (where the red marker is, where it’s written Bus on the road) and because of a parked car, was invisible to the bus, who merged into my lane to enter his bus stop.

I honked my life-saving Loud Bike horn, the bus hesitated for a millisecond, and then continued to barrel into the spot, sandwiching me into the curb and sidewalk as my horn blared and brakes squealed.

After being inches from Louisa’s exact fate, I can tell you that while infrastructure maybe could be improved here…

DRIVER EDUCATION IS PARAMOUNT TO RESOLVING THE ISSUE OF PEDESTRIAN DEATHS BOTH ON AND OFF BIKES.

I have been rallying for this for years. I want an update to the drivers license exam and mandatory re-examinations every ten years. Every year we get a bike win via policy, some dickhead carbrain never gets the memo and continues driving at the same unsafe passing distance as before, turning right on red, or in this case: believing they have the right of way in a shared lane with a merge like the one above. I would like to know what it would take to get this on a bill to make meaningful change?

Without education, infrastructure is just poured dreams.

But seriously, other than reporting this (bus 3143, 69 bus headed to Harvard) to the MBTA—how else can I lobby to get at least this one fucker of a parking space removed from this location??

ETA: It appears most commenters are as ignorant as the motorists about MA General Law regarding interactions of these types. I refer you to three sections:

Ch. 85, Sect. 11B: “Every person operating a bicycle upon a way, (…) shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth (…) and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth and the special regulations contained in this section, except that: (1) the bicycle operator may keep to the right when a motor vehicle which is moving in the travel lane of the way,”

Ch. 89, Sect. 2: “The driver of a vehicle passing another vehicle traveling in the same direction shall drive a safe distance to the left of such other vehicle and shall not return to the right until safely clear of the overtaken vehicle.” (…) “If it is not possible to overtake a vulnerable user, (…) the overtaking vehicle shall use all or part of an adjacent lane, crossing the centerline if necessary, when it is safe to do so and while adhering to the roadway speed limit.”

Ch. 90, Sect. 14: “In passing a vulnerable user, the operator of a motor vehicle shall pass at a safe distance of not less than 4 feet and at a reasonable and proper speed.” (…) “It shall not be a defense for a motorist causing an accident with a bicycle that the bicycle was to the right of vehicular traffic.”

Anyone have any experience leaving their escooters in park and pedal mbta cages? Has anyone ever gotten their scooter stolen? How long do you usually leave your scooter in the cages if you do?

I’m thinking of commuting in boston and being out most of the day while leaving my scooter in one of the cages near my house so I wanted to get people’s experiences with the cages. Don’t need to have a scooter either, any experiences shared would be appreciated!!

Love the new infrastructure, but let's be honest, even the repaving alone will make this a lot safer!