Dot Bike

Finally! After what has seemed a long wait since the start of the process the city has actually installed some of the promised racks in the neighborhood.  I had heard rumors that some racks were starting to appear so Debbie and I did a bit of reconaissance on our ride home last evening.

Of the 9 rack requests that had made it through all the bureaucratic steps of the process and been submitted to the contractor for installation we were able to confirm with our own eyes that at least 5 of them have been installed.

On Dorchester Ave. racks have been installed in front of the Dot2Dot cafe (1739), the Plaster Place (1730),  JJ’s Irish Pub (1130) and the Banshee (934).

Here’s a picture of the one near the Banshee and look it’s being used!

A rack has also been installed in front of the Dorchester YMCA at 776 Washington.

Not sure if the one planned at COB Inspectional Services 1010 Dot. Ave. is there as we couldn’t locate  the address and we didn’t check out the one slotted for the Strand Theatre in Upham’s corner.

The racks planned for 1452 Dot Ave. in Fields corner and the Ashmont Grill don’t appear to be installed as of yesterday.

It’s a start.  Thanks to Nicole and the City for getting this going and I am hoping to see more of the over 30 requested racks installed over the coming weeks.

Bike parking issues have recently been in the local news and have been keeping DotBike busy but not in the way that we would wish.  A couple of local business owners have been complaining and have prevented requested city post racks from being installed in Lower Mills near the Ice Cream Smith and Flat Black Coffee and jeopardized a rack on MBTA property at the Savin Hill station.  Not Good!  But the appearance of the new city racks in our neighborhood is all to the good.

DotBike members have been attending quite a few events lately to learn about and advocate for bike improvements in our neighborhoods. Here is a quick wrap up of some things that have been going on.

• We had a great time at the C-11 Bike rodeo and helped get the word out on safety to kids and families. Check out the previous post on the rodeo.
• This weekend DotBike will have a presence at at least 2 events; the ACORN Dorchester Energy Fair and the ACE EJ-in-the-hood festival.

Some other things that have been happening behind the scenes:

• We had a productive meeting with Erik Scheier of the MBTA on bike parking at Dorchester Red Line stations with a particular focus on improved rack locations at Ashmont and Fields Corner stations.
• We attended the Move Mass presentation by Professor Peter Furth on improving bike path interconnectivity in Boston.  Dr. Furth is planning a project with his students to develop specific proposals for Dorchester bike improvements and he was interested in getting our group involved.
• We took input from several of our members and created an annotated google map of Franklin Park, high lighting points of access, routes used by bicyclists and problem areas in the park.  This was then submitted to the Franklin Park Coalition to be used as input to the Transportation study that is being done to improve all types of access and use of the park.

We’ll let you know how these efforts pan out in the coming months and keep you updated on more efforts that are underway.