Bike lane construction deadline could be delayed
Some city councilors are looking to tap the brakes on construction of 25 miles of separated bike lanes across Cambridge by 2026 in order to fully understand whether businesses will thrive or falter.
In a city report released in February, officials said results from a survey on how the lanes will impact businesses were inconclusive as it lacked data relating to local sales taxes and other essential economic aspects.
Councilor Paul Toner is leading a push to delay the construction deadline along some of the city’s busiest roadways — Cambridge and Main streets and Broadway — to November 2027.
As it stands now, officials have until May 2026 to complete the robust network under the cycling safety ordinance. In commercial corridors where construction has already occurred, Toner said, businesses have seen metered parking be removed at a 40% to 50% clip.
In a survey of 300 local businesses, about half with bike lanes installed near their establishments reported a decrease in overall revenue, the Harvard Crimson reported.
“What I do hear from the businesses that have had bike lanes put in is that they have lost business,” Toner said during a council meeting. “I want to make sure our folks are safe and that we can keep these businesses.”
In most cities and towns across Greater Boston, bike lanes continue to grow as a divisive issue. Construction has sparked tension in Boston and suburbs like Malden.
Advocates argue bike lanes are needed to ensure the safety of cyclists and pedestrians and to better protect the environment against pollutants. Opponents counter that construction is a detriment to business as parking spaces are removed and traffic congestion runs rampant.
The Cambridge City Council received more than an hour and a half worth of public comment during its meeting this week and dozens of emails from residents around Toner’s request to pause installation until the later half of 2027.
Councilors in 2019 approved the cycling safety ordinance which binds the city to provide protected bike infrastructure for streets included in a master plan except in “rare” circumstances, which officials are required to justify, StreetsBlog USA reported at the time of passage. The next year, councilors increased the network from 20 miles to 25.
Harvard University student Clyve Lawrence, in an email to the council, highlighted the death of a 4-yearold girl, Gracie Gancheva, who was struck and killed by a truck driver at an intersection in the Fort Point neighborhood of South Boston near Boston Children’s Museum in late March.
Then, Fernando R. Pizzaro, a 57-year-old man in a wheelchair, was struck and killed by a cement truck driver in the area of Frontage Road and Traveler Street in South Boston last week, Lawrence pointed out.
“These aren’t just accidents, but policy failures harming innocent people,” Lawrence wrote in his email to the Cambridge City Council. “The City is complicit in every excess tragedy by pushing back needed bike lane projects.”
Some Cambridge residents and officials believe otherwise, that the lanes create safety risks themselves.
Nell Breyer, a mother of three children who lives with her parents, is calling on the council to do a “proper overview of the impact of these changes in the street design” and how it “negatively … and dangerously” impacts residents. She said she has personally seen “about 15 unintended accidents due to the very poor design.”
Last November’s election results have led to a murky forecast of bike lanes in Cambridge, WGBH reported. Councilor Joan Pickett, cosponsoring Toner’s request, is in her first term and was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn the cycling safety ordinance.
Middlesex Superior Court Judge Maureen Hogan dismissed the lawsuit in March 2023, ruling that the ordinance “does not prohibit individuals from visiting any businesses or residences, and the Plaintiffs have not plausibly suggested facts to the contrary.”
A 2022 project that installed bike lanes along a small strip around Porter Square and eliminated most metered parking spaces, sparked tensions between the city’s business owners, bikers, local officials and concerned citizens.
Officials built a separated bike lane and reduced travel lanes on Massachusetts Avenue on the curve between the Harvard Square Kiosk and Harvard Yard after a bicyclist was killed by a tractor-trailer driver in August 2020.
Mayor E. Denise Simmons said she believes the council has “skirted around concerns” over bike lanes and argues that more time is needed to look at all facets of implementation and mitigation strategies. She said that if the city continues on its current trajectory, “I think we will do damage that we cannot repair.”
Vice Mayor Marc McGovern is against delaying construction, saying safety of pedestrians and cyclists must be the top priority.
“Build the mitigation into the current planning cycle and do what you have to do to mitigate,” he said, “but let’s not pretend that a delay doesn’t cause risks to people.”