Dot Bike

Go Green!
Walk, ride a bike, bus or train, telecommute, carpool this Friday October 31st for the monthly Ride/Walk Day sponsored by the Green Streets Initiative

Wear Green (and Orange for Halloween) - socks, hats, gloves, stickers, whatever and Celebrate!

You can sign up to show support for this free monthly event and get more info at the Green Streets Initiative site.

On a slightly overcast but very clement Saturday morning a bakers dozen of bicyclists gathered at the Great Hall in Codman Square to enjoy a ride around Dorchester to have a look at a bunch of public outdoor art.  We headed north and saw a number of large murals on our way to Upham’s corner.  At Upham’s corner we had an unscheduled stop in the 2nd oldest cemetery in the country, it is the Halloween season after all.  We then went on to Nonquit Street where there was a dragon waiting for us.

Leaving the park we ran into the ‘Tour de Grave’ bicycle ride as they toured several historic grave yards in the city.  We continued south on to the giant Clapp pear and the Baker House.

Heading east through Savin Hill to UMass Boston for the great view of the Harbor and took in a couple of sculptures and the Corita Kent work on the Gas tank.

We then headed back to our starting point in time for people to enjoy the open studios and all the great art on display.

You can check out the route and some info on the art here.

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Enjoy!

The weather is definitely getting cooler but tomorrow looks to be a lovely fall day.  This weekend is the Dorchester Open Studios where over 100 artists display their work at locations around the neighborhood.  But before visiting these indoor venues come along with DotBike for a ride of outdoor public art in the neighborhood.

We’ll be meeting at 10 a.m. in the parking lot of the Codman Square Health Center at 637 Washington St. in Dorchester.    We’ll take you on a little more than 9 mile tour of the neighborhood where we’ll point out various examples of the historical, modern and community art along the way.  The studios don’t open until noon but we will be riding past or near several of the venues and we will be sure to point them out so you can hit them after the ride.

Here is a map of the route:

View Larger Map

8th Annual Halloween Bike Ride - Friday, October 31st

Green Street T Station (Orange Line), Jamaica Plain
8:00 pm Gather
8:30 pm Ride starts

Hear the amazing Stereo Bike with its fully danceable soundtrack!
Ride in costume!  Dress up your bike!  Be creative!
Everyone welcome!
All ages!  Free!
Helmets, lights, and noisemakers encouraged.

*Rain date Saturday, November 1st.

Go to www.halloweenbikeride.net for more info.

Here’s a great story of a DotBike member helping out some neighborhood teens get ready to ride.

DotBike has been working in fits and starts to help the St. Peters Teen Center launch get their bike club up and rolling.  We provided them with some sponsored entries to the Hub on Wheels Ride, passed on some donated helmets and a bicycle.

We knew that they had been working hard on fund raising so they could send a handful of riders to the ‘Rodman Ride for Kids‘.  However, they had been so focused on the fund raising and other preparations for the ride, along with the start of school and all the other stuff that happens in the early fall that they had not realized that of the bikes they had on hand none were really up to the task of carrying their riders 50 miles in a single day.

They contacted Vivian, who they had met at the DotBike table at the Rep. Marie St.-Fleur community night held earlier this summer at the center, to see if he might help.  Vivian, a DotBiker and a accomplished bike fixer offered to have a look and see what he could do.  The trick was that the call for help came only one day before the ride.  Vivian went over to the teen center late Friday afternoon to see what was what.  Over the course of two hours he was able to get three of the bikes that the group had into a state where he felt that the riders would be safe to attempt the 50 mile ride.   Unfortunately, they had planned and fund raised to have five teens do the ride.  That left them two bikes short.  Very generously Vivian again came to the rescue by letting two riders borrow two of his personal bikes to use for the ride.

I’m happy to report that all five of the St. Peter’s teen riders completed the 50 mile ride.  Way to go!  And way to go Vivian for helping out people in our neighborhood get out on bikes and have a good time for a good cause.

A new bike group is being started to work on improving conditions for bicycling in southwest Boston. The first meeting of RozzieBikes, centered on Roslindale, on Wednesday, October 22, at 7:00 pm at 28 Sheffield Road #1, just off Walter Street near the intersection of South Street. Refreshments will be provided. People from West Roxbury and Hyde Park are welcome, too.

For further information, contact Doug Mink, dmink@masspaths.net

Meeting at the AGGASIZ school, 20 Child St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130) at 7:00PM SHARP!

Please bring snacks, a pen, a notebook, and an open mind as we will be brainstorming, planning and acquiescing on some crucial topics facing Jamaica Plain bicyclists (of which we number some 900!!).  We’re looking for people to head a steering committee to get things in order, so if you know a friend or relative who has the fortitude to help lead us into the next year, please bring them.  We will keep the duration of the meeting reasonable and keep the things moving.

If you need more information, you can reach Rajen Bhatt at this email address: FORKSES@GMAIL.COM.

Yesterday I attended this years Moving Together conference.  This conference has been apparently happening annually for some number of years and is put together by the ‘Baystate Roads Program‘.  It brings together people and organizations interested in creating and improving bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the state.   There were a number of interesting workshops and exhibitors.  I’ll just highlight a couple of things I heard that I think are of most direct interest to Dorchester cyclists.

Nicole Freedman gave a nice presentation on plans and progress in bicycle improvements in Boston.

• Of note, there is a google map that tracks the status of the city bike racks that are being installed throughout the city including several in Dorchester.  (I’ll add a link to this map on our DotBike maps page as well)

The cities plan is to install 250 racks each year for the next three years.  According to the map as of today there have been 182 rack requests made for the first year (and some of the requested locations have been declared ‘dead’) which suggests that there are at least 70 additional requests that can be made right now for these city racks.

Here is a link to a form to submit a rack request to Nicole and her staff so when you identify a spot where you would like to see a rack let the city know.

• The short term strategy in terms of creating bike lanes, sharrows etc. has been to go after ‘low hanging fruit’.  In other words, jump into ongoing projects that provide an opportunity to add bike accommodations as part of an ongoing process.  This is how the Commonwealth Ave. and American Legion Highway (as yet unmarked) bike lanes were created.   Dorchester Ave. was included as a piece of that fruit going forward.  No specifics were offered in the presentation but it was good to hear that it is definitely on the bike program radar as they embark on the Dot Ave. improvement project.

Peter Furth, an engineering proffessor at Northeastern University, whose students recently gave some interesting presentations at a DotBike event last month, himself gave a very interesting presentation on creating a network of greenways through the city.

While there are currently three stretches of continous greenway longer than two miles in the city, the Charles River Paths, the Southwest Corridor and the Harbor Trail  to UMass Boton, none of these are connected to each other.

In addition, there are other shorter sections of greenway that contain gaps for which there are plans and proposals to connect the gap that will extend the greenways.  These include the gap in the Neponset Greenway/Harbor Trail that is one of our priority efforts.

However, Dr. Furth suggests that there are a two ‘magical’ paths, one between ruggles station and the fenway, the other connecting the Southend to the Harbor Trail via Southampton St. in Dorchester that would dramatically increase the number of point to point connections accessible via off road paths.

We’ll be keeping eyes and ears tuned for proposals on the Southhampton Street link.

Cathy Lewis, the chief transportation planner of the Central Transportation Planning Staff, presented work they have been coordinating in conjunction with ‘Friends’ groups on path usage.  The Harbor Trail and Southwest Corridor are not currently included in their counts but may be added in the spring.  Not only CTPS but also the city will be looking for volunteers to do counts on these paths so stay tuned for requests for volunteers.

In my opinion an interesting conference with lots of good ideas and perspective.

The next DotBike meeting will happen on Tuesday October 14th at 6:00 p.m. at the Dot2Dot cafe address 1739 Dorchester Ave.

Please note the slightly earlier than usual time.

Tasty food will be available for purchase.  We’ll go over a couple of upcoming October rides, discuss some advocacy efforts including Franklin Park and the Gap in the Harbor Trail and get a report on the ‘Moving Together: 2008′ conference happening earlier that day.

Dot2Dot is close to both Shawmut and Ashmont T-stations and with 2 new city bike racks located right nearby.

All are welcome and looking forward to seeing you.