BU Bikes

Today fall semester here at BU kicked off, and boy what a kickoff.

Heading to my first class of the semester had me biking through Kenmore Square, where I was extremely pleased to observe Boston’s finest doing a stellar job enforcing that new bike lane ordinance:

So i whipped out my phone to call the…oh. Unfortunately I didn’t have any fake parking tickets to offer.

After reviewing the course syllabus, class let out at 10:30, which left me thirty minutes to wander before my 11:00 class, and wander I did, to check up on our friends the bike racks. You may remember last year bike parking outside CAS was insufficient for the sheer quantity of bikes parked there during the day, so the trees, tree rails and fencing became the everyone’s go-to bike rack. So what’s changed? Well, on the east wing of CAS near the corner of Comm Ave. and Granby St, another “hanger” style bike rack has been added to accommodate 14 more bikes:

It appears that this rack may have been just enough to keep the tree rails completely bike-free at this end:

As I headed toward the Tsai Center, where no new bike parking has been added, bikes were parked to the clock fence:

And then at the other end of CAS nearest to Marsh Plaza, where the only bike parking were three “bike loops” to accommodate six bikes, things were looking pretty grim for the beautiful paint jobs on those poor tree rails:

Of course, people still parked their bikes on the Marsh Plaza railings:

Swinging around to the back of CAS, the hanger style rack was full,

and one brave man was locking his bike to the gold mine of bike racks in the CAS parking lot he found.

Needless to say, it’s time to start parking your bike in these racks and stop using the tree/hand railings. Remember, CAS has almost as many entrances in the rear as there are in the front. As a matter of safety, please don’t bike the wrong way down Granby or hit an pedestrians as you walk your bike through Marsh Plaza or the GSU.

I was happy to see people using the new bike rack bars in the GCB garage:

though with these racks people are putting their front wheels over the tops. The wide spaces in between the vertical bars are supposed to allow you to roll your entire wheel in, but my bike, for one, didn’t fit in because my handlebars got in the way and my seat was too tall, so I joined the club and put my front wheel over too so I could lock my frame.

After class finished, I found myself amidst the Comm. Ave. evening rush hour I do love so much, where I ran into El Putnam of A-B Bikes, who told she had just witness a cyclist get doored while riding in the Comm. Ave. bike lane. Looking east at the bike lane to see what I could see, I saw a bus in the bike lane. Just then I looked to my right and Professor Nathan Phillips rode by and into the fiery pit of gridlock that is Comm. Ave. and University Drive, seen from the opposite perspective of the photo I put up a few days ago.

Traffic jams are nothing new. I’ve spent a lot of time in New York, but at least there the grid makes gridlock somewhat predictable. Here, you can’t really tell whether cars are jetting for Storrow Drive or the BU Bridge, which is problematic since both paths cross the bike lane, creating opportunities for a cyclist to be right hooked:

So how do you safely navigate this mess, you ask? Here’s what I do: Ignore the green painted bike lane at this intersection and instead pretend I’m a car. Before approaching the intersection, change lanes into the car lane by signaling with my left arm when the coast is clear, so that by the time I’m waiting at the light my bike and I are planted right where that silver Toyota Highlander shown above is. This way, when the light turns green, I’m in front of the Toyota and it can’t right-hook me when it turns to either University Rd or BU Bridge. (diagram of this maneuver coming soon) Once I’m clear of being right hooked, I’ll switch back to the bike lane.

I only checked out one part of the campus today, but as I’ve mentioned, new bikes racks are being deployed all around campus; the GSU has some new racks as well. As a courtesy, keep the railings (except the GCB garage bike railing) free of bikes. If you’re biking to a class in CAS, check out those spacious bike racks around back. I’m sure you’ll find them and walking through the BU beach just lovely.

As for those cars in the bike lanes, I was pleasantly surprised to find these cards at every table in the dining hall.

I, for one, will be putting this number in my phone. Maybe it’ll come in handy. Just remember, a car parked in a bike lane is against the law, as the BPD were so kind to demonstrate today, and for cyclists, a definite safety concern. School just started and I’ve already heard of a dooring incident on Comm Ave. Even in the bike lanes, you need to stay alert and watch out for doors. I hope BUPD is serious enough about bike safety to respond to complaints about cars illegally parked in bike lanes because it would really be great to see more of what I saw last April:

a BUPD officer writing a ticket for a car parked in a bike lane, a beautiful sight indeed.

At least I know this BUPD officer is ready to set the example for safe bike lane use:

In other news, my slow but steady bike move out of Allston is going well, as I was able to fit my entire laundry hamper in my homebuilt trashcan pannier:

It’s that time of year: College Move In. This past May I moved out all my belongings from my Myles Standish dorm room in Kenmore Square into my summer apartment in Allston using only my bike. Here’s what that looked like:

This is my homebuilt Xtracycle longtail cargo bike, whose inadequate axle actually broke after carrying the load seen below:

So I used my mountain bike outfitted with wald rear baskets to tow my crippled longtail to my apartment which in turn carried my snowboard:

From then on I used my rear baskets and a baby stroller turned makeshift bike trailer to carry more of my junk:

And here’s my bike carrying my office chair:

It took a total of thirteen trips to move all my belongings out of my dorm and a bit of creativity to affix some irregularly sized items to my bike.

As you can tell I am a huge fan of cargo biking, but less obvious is my fanaticism for the video game Katamari Damacy, so I was less than thrilled to miss last weekend’s Katamari-cat, a Katamari Damacy Themed Alleycat bike race/scavenger hunt that required riders to carry irregularly sized items with them on their bike. Needless to say, that Alleycat would have been right up my alley

Since the BU semester starts in a few days, I’ve decided to bike-move again back into my new dorm room in Myles Standish. What’s a senior doing in a predominately underclassmen dorm, you ask? Why, enjoying the luxury of a spacious single to house me and all my bikes, of course. So for the past few weeks I’ve been borrowing and using an electric powered bike since my knees have been giving me trouble. After attaching my Wald baskets to the rear rack, I began round one of my slow but steady bike move back to the dorm today using my camping dry bags and some bungee cords:

Unfortunately, I almost forgot that college move-in day meant a nightmare of traffic and illegally parked vehicles. While I didn’t see cars parked in the bike lane outside Warren Towers, there were two moving trucks hogging the lane:

It only got worse when I got to Kenmore Square, where the outbound bike lane, the only place I’ve personally ever been doored, was lined with parked cars:

But the real nightmare was the intersection of Comm. Ave and University Rd, where during rush hour even with a green light the bike lane and the green linewas blocked by cars coming off the Carlton St. Bridge trying to get onto the BU bridge and Storrow Drive. Over the summer this was less of a problem since less people were in town, but seeing this intersection today as the new school year takes off was a stark reminder of what I am likely to see on a daily basis all year unless something changes:

As you can see, the cyclist above is not very happy about dangerous mess she has just waded through. And as school will soon be in full swing and swarms of bicyclists and pedestrians pass through bu BU bridge intersection, we can only hope to see something done about it soon, especially when actual BU Bridge renovation begins.

Farther down Comm. Ave at Agganis Arena, Cirque Du Soleil was scheduled to perform, and Boston Police detail was making sure traffic was running smoothly. Giant electronic traffic alert displays were also displaying messages to drivers to expect delays. What if those displays also said to watch out for cyclists? Wouldn’t that be nice?

All winter, biking on the esplanade was quiet and serene; all the usual river wildlife was absent and the joggers and bike commuters were few. So with the return of warm weather it has taken some getting used to the influx of joggers and the sight of returning wildlife and foliage. Biking to work on the esplanade today, I stopped to take my windbreaker off when a loon spreading its wings on a man-made float caught my eye. Just then, the BU rowing team gracefully rowed by:

The loon, the weathered conductor, returns home to its symphony orchestra, the Charles river. The rowing team the stealthy, prominent, often overlooked, yet necessary bass drum.

Earlier today I was walking to class when sidewalk pamphleteers from Sovereign Bank handed me a booklet advertising free checking accounts coupled with a fridge magnet. Realizing I needed neither a free checking account nor a fridge magnet, I chucked them both into the next trash can I passed. Later on I stopped by BU’s bike safety day at the Sargent parking lot where I was handed a free bike headlight, taillight, patch kit, raffle entry to win a free bike, a Mountain Dew, and a bike registration sticker from BUPD, all things that I will use, and for that, I thank and applaud the BU bike committee for putting Bike Safety Day together.

Well some time after three-o-clock when bike safety day ended I was hanging out outside the GSU when I saw something beautiful happen. The BUPD officers were riding their bikes back to the station and blowing their whistles to drivers of cars parked in the bike lane. All the cars scurried off except one that was unattended, so a BUPD officer stopped to write up a ticket:

About a minute later the driver burst out of the GSU and over to his car. I was hoping the officer would finish writing the ticket, but alas, he let the driver go with a warning. Ah well, it was still great to see about six parked cars get kicked out of the bike lane. At least now six more drivers out there know not to park there.

Speaking of stuff in the bike lanes, it still looks like we have a long road ahead of us before people drivers start taking the bike lane seriously. Last week, in front of the science building I almost ran into the door of an unattended pickup truck, which was left wide open long enough for me to stop, take my camera out, take a photo, and proceed to carefully bike around the obstruction, resisting the temptation to slam it closed:

And today, BU facilities, in addition to beautifying the grass patches around SED, installed a BMX dirt ramp in the bike lane:

Well I forgive them because at least in addition to good looking grass they also added four new bike racks to that corner:

And speaking of racks, I was surprised to see an old friend of mine today, looking more dapper than ever: this K2 bike carcass that I first befriended months ago when I spotted it buried beneath the snow:

Stripped and abandoned of all traces of it’s bikely nature, except, of course, its in-tact frame and cranks, there stood this K2 bike, still holding onto that dear bike rack by its last best friend, the loyal U-Lock that has served it well for an entire fall, winter, and spring through windy rain, ice, snow, and sun. It’s only a matter of time before BU facilities, by natural force of season, separates the two.