Another Bike Move, More bike lane fail.
Posted by greg in Opinion, utility cycling, tags: bike lane, bike move, cargo biking, Comm Ave, utility cyclingIt’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?
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