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.