Last month, Cambridge City Council voted to postpone implementation of an ambitious bike lane plan on three major city streets. City Councilors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and Joan Pickett join Radio Boston to discuss.
this is radio Boston I’m tisana Dearing it lasted into the middle of the night hundreds stayed to be heard it was a Cambridge City council meeting at issue whether to delay the deadline for part of a 2020 plan to section off miles of New Street spaces for bicycles so why did it cost so much passion and division Jen sabrino Wheeler helped write the bike plan Joan picket is the former leader of a group that opposes it they are both on Cambridge City Council now when they joined us in studio 2 a few days ago to help explain the situation I clarified the vote did not overturn the bike plan right that’s right yes yes okay and what has happened is that the ultimate date when they have to be done by has now moved yes yes that sounded like yes but yes but um for three sections of the bike Lanes on three separate streets that moved the other deadlines are still in place okay Jen we agree on that yeah we’ve the recent 54 vote delays the uh completion of the cycling safety ordinance on three streets three important streets in my opinion by uh two years MH the three streets are Jen Cambridge Street Broadway Main Street okay and it was important to you Joan to make sure we understood that distinction because because we were not changing the entire ordinance we were just giving more time time for these particular streets they’re each unique and have unique characteristics and the the extension if you will gives the business owners and the homeowners more time to be prepared for what is going to be happening ultimately and that’s why it’s important so now I’m going to act like a facilitator for a minute here um and I understand how deeply important issues inside a community are right we are a local local news show I love and believe in local for listeners outside of Cambridge given that the ordinance still applies given that the bike Lanes still will happen um this has also been a genuinely hard and painful thing for a wide range of people in Cambridge and I’d like to understand from each of you as people who represent your community from your perspectives why you think that is Jen why do you think that is yeah I think it goes back to why are bike protected bike Lanes important uh for so many folks in Cambridge and the number one issue is safety uh we’ve seen people killed or severely injured every single year in Cambridge uh and dozens of people injured or hospitalized I myself was in a bike crash in Cambridge and lost part of my two front teeth um Cambridge is also a city of 120,000 people in 6 and a half square miles it’s physically impossible for everyone to have a car 120,000 people and 6 miles you’re just not that’s not going to work and so you have people uh who are getting around by bike the tea has been a mess for years you need people to get from from their home to their job where relatively flat density biking is a is a great way to do that okay so that’s the case for the ordinance but why is it’s still going to happen but the city has longer to get it done on three streets such a painful thing because we know these streets have crashes we know each year there are 30 crashes on Cambridge Street Main Street Broadway the vast majority of those crashes lead to injuries two more years of delay are 30 more crashes per year that are going to lead to more broken teeth more broken bones more Hospital rise more potential fatalities these are are potential lives that are on the line here okay and Joan picket uh why for the from your perspective is this a painful thing I think it’s painful for the community because they don’t feel they had enough input at the very beginning so when the cycling safety ordinance was first presented to city council it was in March of 20 20 so let’s think back to what was happening in March of 2020 it was pandemic this is the beginning of the shutdown very beginning of the pandemic and people businesses were not paying attention to what was happening so let me just give you a comparison so when the cycling safety ordinance was being drafted four 40 minutes of public comic took place only 40 minutes during that entire process of going from starting to end of an ordinance on the most recent city council meeting 400 people showed up for public comment and I think that’s a real distinction between and that’s part of the upset many people didn’t feel they had sufficient time to fully understand uh what was happening on the city streets and now as things come up they feel they need to speak up and speak out and I think that’s why it’s still so painful it was never really litigated if you will appropriately when the ordinance was being developed okay so over the period of this conversation we’re going to bring two postcards forward that our producer Rob Lane went out and got by talking to people on the streets in Cambridge so we’ve got two of these I’m going to do the first now uh Rob talked to a Cambridge small business owner on a street where the city has already built a separated bike lane my name is Christine Perkins and I’m the owner at ppan salon right now we’re standing outside of the salon on Massachusetts Avenue where putam Street kind of hits Mount Auburn and massav I genuinely love this area because of the eclectic group of people that are here you have the locals that have been here forever you have the you know educated interesting Dynamic of Cambridge itself you have every Walk of Life that walks in our salon and I love that about it the bike lane itself when they put it in they took out the on street parking in either direction from us so from our location all the way to Central Square was parking and now it is not from our location all the way down massab and Mount Auburn was also on street parking and there is none there anymore I always look at it as how does a financial decision or a decision affect the finances of the area in which we are and by taking out the parking you’ve affected the businesses there’s three if you look to the right there’s three open large storefronts there from businesses that have gone out in the last little bit of time down to the left there’s a bunch of open businesses as well and the businesses around here are dropping like flies I was a single mom for a long time and I could not get my kids out when they were both like 5 and one to go grab milk at the grocery store if this was the parking situation my own mother can’t come to the salon because the accessibility parking is gone so to me not only is it kind of a thing for middle-aged white men and I say this with my husband is a biker and I am as well but it’s a something for people who don’t have kids they don’t have disabilities or they have the luxury of getting around on a bike instead of trying to to kind of get everything done and I think that it’s really honestly kind of insulting to all of the groups that have found so much strides in the last few decades just kind of shut it down and turned it back into the white guys so there’s a lot in what Christine said I am going to ask each of you one question and then I’ve got a different postcard and I’m going to ask each of you one question so so Jen in this one um when one says listen this is about bodies it’s about injury and death it kind of shuts down everything else or it can right and I I get that but what about the concerns that we hear from a business owner like Christine is there a uh is there work to be done to address those things and given that this is not a delay it’s just an extension of when things have to be done on three streets is there is there good work that could be done to address Christine’s concerns yeah I’ve talk a number of local business owners about this and the first thing I always do is just try to listen to the specific concerns on there because there’s a bunch of different pieces that get sort of get lumped into parking issues do you need a loading zone uh which side of the street are we talking about are folks coming in from the east or the West um we put in a bus lane on part of massav and uh we’re able to keep parking in the off peak hours there so what are the solutions we can try to find the city does this kind of Outreach with folks I think we can always do a better job the city just hired a a community outreach director who who’s job that is um and but then I think the other piece of you know you asked why not do this delay and I think is the delay actually going to solve these issues um the stated reason for for doing this delay was to make zoning changes and changes to our parking and transportation demand man management ordinance to open up some other parking spaces there are are private Lots right now that can’t be used by local businesses to open those up I voted for that change we asked for that change to be done by October so if we’re getting that you know do we need this two-year delay um I think the other thing you could say uh is you know we have streets now that have had protected bike lanes for years we can go and walk on those streets and see what the changes look like you don’t see rows of empty businesses we have studies from Cambridge we just had a study from the vulp center National Transportation Center looking at the data we did not find you know damage to to local businesses massive pieces there um you can look at other cities Denver Washington DC London you know all the the cities there did have not found a massive negative effect on on local businesses you you go on in Cambridge that have protected bike lanes and you see vibrant local businesses okay so actually here’s what I’m going to do so so that’s Point Counterpoint so now let me play the second postcard and then I’ll then I’ll come to you Joan picket and we’ll do the same thing I think this is the effective way to kind of pull all of this apart because my goal here is just understanding right all right so now Rob Lane our producer also met up with a Cambridge bicyclist at a street corner where under the bicycle safety ordinance a separate bike lane will eventually be installed here we go I’m Christopher cassa and I’m a volunteer with Cambridge bike safety so we’re at the intersection of Windsor Street and Cambridge Street in Cambridge Massachusetts and uh this is the site where I was hit by a [Music] car so I was traveling straight Eastbound and a car was traveling in the other direction and turned left across me and when they turned they turned really aggressively and it was very unexpected so I wasn’t able to move out of the way in time but the car hit my uh rear tire and I fell off my bike I I felt so confident biking and there is that moment when you know that you’re going to be hit and there’s nothing you can do about it and even if it’s your fault or not there’s really your life flashes before your eyes and it’s really um it’s just super stressful and I did my best to move out of the way as much as I could I you know I don’t want to be right in terms of being right in having the right of way in an accident um you know it’s just really tough to to go through that and I think what what hit me the most was how um like for weeks after I was in pain and I had to have x-rays this is the type of thing that can happen that keeps people from doing this for a decade and I’ve talked to a bunch of people that really they just end up not going back on their bikes or not going back on their bikes for a while after a close call or a [Music] crash my window was open and I heard you interviewing this gentleman and I thought I’m gonna go down and beg the authorities to listen to do something about this corner it’s not safe for bicyclists pedestrians probably not even for cars trying to turn left or right I’m uh Lisa thorough and my office is on the second floor and I get to hear the screaming crashing and uh cursing almost uh we hear more in the Summer with the windows open of course but it’s it’s frequent and we’ve mentioned it to officers and they say they know because they’re getting called here all the time too they’re frustrated I don’t know how much longer we have to wait what is the city waiting for to do something a real drastic deathly incident or something I I don’t understand the hesitation to take action by the way that’s crazy so we’re watching a car make a very illegal left turn going in the wrong direction and almost hitting a cyclist and then waiting for pedestrians to go through this is behavior that is really dangerous and and could absolutely be prevented by better infrastructure that was the kind of turn that hit me so City councelor Joan picket um in reality often a vote for an extension is a vote to delay and we hear the urgency of that moment there so what could be accomplished by what will likely be a delay in implementation in those three streets that is worth it given the urgency of what we just heard I want to make sure every everyone’s clear that I support bicycle safety I also want to give a statistic 70% of the accidents on Cambridge Street happen at intersections and that means the bike cyclist is no longer in a protected bike lane so as they come out of the bike lane you’ve got the Turning motion either left or right and that’s where 70% of the accidents are happening they’re not necessarily happening in the straight of way if you will so recogniz izing that intersections are the most dangerous part of the street what can be done in those intersections now the intersection that Chris Kasa mentioned um Windsor and Cambridge Street has been previously identified by the state as being a dangerous intersection so during this time period when we are not moving forward with those bike Lanes on those particular streets what other safety issues can be addressed is it signals is it making sure the markings is clear is it saying no left turns at this intersection because we know that a lot of accidents happen when there’s a left turn so I think we need to focus on where most of the incidents are taking place in this time period again 70% at intersections what can be done to improve the safety of those intersections so we’re here with Joan picket and Jen sabrino Wheeler who are City councilors in Cambridge we have been looking at tensions over a vote that the city council took uh in a split vote to extend a deadline to implement bike Lanes uh in a plan uh and and it’s three streets where the there’s a there’s an extension in the deadline here here’s sort of my last question and and I’m just going to ask you to bear with me while I sort of vomit it out to you right because it’s a little bit complicated we have been watching communities in Massachusetts angry with each other over local policy in a lot of different ways uh over the last couple of years as I have talked to public leader after public leader who has said two things one our national anger at each other is coming home um and we have nationalized our local politics and two our local relationships are what can save us um it it was pretty heated in the city council meeting where this this decision got taken and there were hours of conversation and debate does this have to be this way and how can other cities and towns what can Cambridge do to make this okay in Cambridge and how can other cities and towns learn from what the two of you as City counselors could do to make a healthy step forward do do you understand and this is not me saying can’t we all just get along this is me saying what’s the work to do and and I’m going to ask for an answer from each of you Jen uh first yeah I would say look I’m obviously disappointed that this amendment passed on a 54 vote that’s going to delay uh protected bike lane infrastructure and create safer streets in Cambridge I do um appreciate the conversation and though I think the cycling safety ordinance has changed the nature of the way we have these conversations and improved it in Cambridge I think before we had the cycling safety or before I was on the council we were having debates almost every year about stretches of streets one of the first conversations I remember is around are we going to ADD protected Blake Lane infrastructure to just this small segment of Cambridge Street and it was really contentious and there were hundreds of people who showed up to the public library now we’re not talking about you know if we’re going to have uh safer streets we’re talking about how we’re going to do it we have a network a bicycle Network plan we have a timeline for it and we’re debating the the details about implementation that’s really improved this conversation we should have that debate about you know how do you do implementation what’s the right way to do it how do we do Mi mitigation how do we create streets that work for everyone but now the the tone of the conversation has changed because it’s not a question of uh if it’s a question of of how and I think that’s a good conversation to have so Joan as I turn to you I think it’s fair to note you were part of a group that did Sue to overturn the ordinance but but now it’s here so you’re part of that answer sure the reason for the lawsuit was not to overturn but rather to have a conversation that had not taken place if you recall what I said at the beginning this happened during covid and there really wasn’t a lot of opportunity at all for any um businesses or residents to meet with cyclists and have a conversation about how to do this in a way that was going to provide safety for cyclists and not be totally disruptive for business and resident so it is a conversation that I think a lot of people feel did not take place that should have take place now as we move forward with the separated bike Lanes I think the process has gotten better there are more opportunities for Community dialogue before something happens I think the other thing is collaborating with the cyclists and the business owners to really look at the street layout the the extension gives more time for that type of work to take place instead of trying to meet a deadline where you’ve got to do it and this is the approach we’re going to take I think the extension allows for more thoughtful conversation as Jen has said where should we be putting um loading zones should we have 15minute pullovers for people to run into a store and pick up their dinner and move um along so I think the extension allows for more thoughtful planning of how how the streets are going to be laid out rather than having to just move forward with a one-size fits-all and hit a timeline is it genuinely possible that November 1st 2027 which is the new deadline uh just in in a sentence because then I got to wrap us in a sentence that on November 1st 2027 Cambridge is a holer more collaborative community at the end of this J absolutely I think we I wish it were sooner but I I think this is is going to make stronger a stronger community in a lot of ways Joan and I’m going to say I hope so because I still think that the process that was initiated has left some deep wounds for some of the residents and some of the businesses but I’m very hopeful particularly working with my colleagues that we can move the conversation into a different place and have the type of collegiality amongst the entire community and I think the opportunity for this extension allows us to move in that direction Cambridge City councilors Joan picket and Jen sabrino Wheeler joined us last week