@bikepedantic We need to make it more affordable for people to move to Cambridge. We also need to build many more Cambridges around the country, so everyone can benefit, not just those who can afford to live in the handful of places like this.

@db @bikepedantic The AHO (and it's expansion) and parking min elimination plus the MBTA communities law are excellent compliments to the CSO

@DemonHusky definitely on both counts. a more ambitious Alewife Quadrangle plan than what i've heard snippets of would be my biggest unmet desire. @db

@bikepedantic @db Mass Ave with buildings only 1 story is the biggest lack of ambition in the city. Serious ability to increase car-light housing, lowering the cost of living here

@DemonHusky this resident less than 200' from a one-story vacant building fronting onto Mass will be ranting in favor of skyscrapers when teh N Mass Ave plan ever kicks off @db

@bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db In practice, there is just no desire to really think of Cambridge as a city. Councillor Mallon today was speaking against tall buildings for affordable housing. While I have long been a supporter of hers, if she can't wrap her head around the value of enabling affordable housing via height and density, the chance of success more broadly is just so low that I lose hope.

Porter Square should look like North Station, and the surrounding area should mirror that.

@crschmidt yes to all. That is really really disappointing to hear about Mallon. @DemonHusky @db

@crschmidt @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db Porter should look like Union.

@Ofsevit @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db Union right now is not a thing I would aspire to. But maybe it will be good in a decade or two.

@crschmidt @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db it's certainly tall!

@Ofsevit @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db Not one of these buildings is even 2/3rds of the height of Avalon North Station.

And while one of them can reasonably be called tall, the other two aren't even that.

@crschmidt @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @db yeah but taller than 9 STORIES OMG YOU WILL KILL MASS AVE

@db @bikepedantic Somerville and Boston are following Cambridge's lead with bike infra, Belmont and Arlington are even making some progress. A true regional upgrade is a work in process

@bikepedantic I only ever take the lane around here when an unprotected lane is blocked by a car.

@Kevin and then you can look at a calendar, and see when that unprotected lane is getting its required-by-law upgrade

@bikepedantic yeah it’s pretty fantastic

@bikepedantic @Kevin I want to be happy for you, but we're supposed to be getting 50 miles per year *by law* and our meathead cop mayor is just like "what are you gonna do, write me a mean letter?" 😭

@Andres4NY a sketch--comedy show with a cast entirely made up of NYC mayors would be such a big hit, just such a parade of awful @Kevin

@bikepedantic @Kevin Or a sitcom. de Blasio as Kramer, Bloomberg as Jerry or Elaine, and I can't decide if Adams or Giuliani should be George.

@adamfishercox otoh, de Blasio's tall and wears goofy outfits and dropped a groundhog like some kind of furry Junior Mint.

@DemonHusky I’m a big apologist for city staff, I think they’re moving at light speed. More people means many good things though, including a really ambitious answer to the question, “What comes after CSO?”

@bikepedantic I agree that they are moving super fast, but more support does help minimize distraction from opponents and makes community process more valuable

@bikepedantic @DemonHusky Personally I think the long-term goal is "10-year-olds can bike to school on their own." Not sure what that translates into street-wise post-CSO, but we'll see.

@itamarst @bikepedantic @DemonHusky Cambridge does provide some unique challenges in this area because of the lack of geographic preference; in many areas, "low traffic neighborhoods" can enable this, while in Cambridge, my 10 year old who lived in South Cambridgeport went to school in Observatory Hill or whatever Neighborhood Nine is called, and that's a lot further than I had to go to get to school as a kid.

Doesn't make the goal bad. Just more challenging than average.

@crschmidt @bikepedantic @DemonHusky My assumption, to be clear, is that this is a 20-year project, so a couple more CSO-scale iterations before we could start on that. I don't really know how fast modeshift might happen, though.

@itamarst @bikepedantic I was allowed to bike on my own to school in 3rd grade, so I'd aim for 7-8 y/o. Did have cul-de-sac neighborhood to off-street path for the whole trip though. Will need some major traffic calming on residential streets to get there.

@DemonHusky @itamarst @bikepedantic I was walking on my own in first grade, so I expect biking was "as soon as I could reliably ride a bike" but elementary school was .4 miles and middle school was 1 mile, and effectively a similar "neighborhood" level streets (ie, no high-traffic crossings) to staying within Cambridgeport or North Cambridge. Involving high-traffic volume roads is a totally different story (and most school routes probably cross or at least take Mass Ave).

@crschmidt radically rethinking Harvard Square has the potential to reduce driving on the entire Mass corridor, unlocking all-ages potential for most of the city. Freshened local street design and operations citywide is a good complement. @DemonHusky @itamarst

@bikepedantic @crschmidt @itamarst Unfortunately, between the MassAve4 and Kiosk projects, radical rethinking is just not happening there. Both are major rebuilds, so wouldn't expect being able to do something radical as a follow-on.

@DemonHusky @bikepedantic @crschmidt HSBA at least is pushing for pedestrianization.

@itamarst @bikepedantic @crschmidt the WIP plan for the MassAve4 bus stop section does make it only 1 general travel lane, which should make the area much nicer. Haven't seen the kiosk plan, but even getting the whole area down to a single travel lane would make the square much nicer.

@DemonHusky @itamarst @bikepedantic @crschmidt I’d like to see Somerville be even half as bold as Cambridge in this vein, but our bike plan is hobbled by our revenue 😭

@jeffbyrnes @DemonHusky @bikepedantic @crschmidt The final Somerville bike plan is much improved! There's a 2030 goal of bike lanes on a bunch of major streets (though sadly Beacon St. isn't on the 2030 list).

@itamarst @DemonHusky @bikepedantic @crschmidt oh for sure! But 2030 is a ways away 😭

@jeffbyrnes @itamarst @bikepedantic @crschmidt To reach that goal, Somerville is going to need to start building towards it rapidly immediately, so if they are serious, will see lots of great stuff happening soon

@jeffbyrnes @itamarst @bikepedantic @crschmidt And the effect of both Cambridge and Somerville making big upgrades will really enhance both cities' efforts

@DemonHusky @itamarst @bikepedantic @crschmidt oh for sure! It’s really great, even if it’s a long timeline. But progress! Looking forward to my 12 week old son walking & biking himself to elementary school 🎉

@DemonHusky i haven't looked at the new plan yet, but i hope there's some really good north-south routes, esp connections between Cambridge and Somerville, proposed. @jeffbyrnes @itamarst @crschmidt

@bikepedantic @DemonHusky @itamarst @crschmidt “This accelerated timeline suggests Somerville will be building out our bike network at roughly the same rate Cambridge has building building theirs.”

Damn, I guess we have more roads in Somerville?!

Looks like Willow, Cedar, & Lowell are all getting a “one way protected bike lane”, which is protecting one direction of travel. Better than we have today for sure!

@jeffbyrnes @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @itamarst @crschmidt Based on city meetings, Somerville has about 100 miles of roads (wandrer.earth puts this at 125, including private and paths). Cambridge definitely has more, 187 per wandrer, but not sure how much is private or otherwise uncounted

@max_in_somer @jeffbyrnes @bikepedantic @DemonHusky @crschmidt The state actually has a summary: https://dlsgateway.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Socioeconomic.RoadMIles

Omitting state roads and (private?) unaccepted roads:

* Cambridge: 120 miles
* Somerville: 90 miles

In some cases city staff will talk about one-way miles (relevant to bike infrastructure, for example) so need to be careful with definitions.

@itamarst @max_in_somer @jeffbyrnes @bikepedantic @crschmidt That's super cool, been looking for a source like that for a little while now

@jeffbyrnes @itamarst @DemonHusky @bikepedantic @crschmidt Jeff, it’s 4+ miles of SBLs a year. That’s a ton of lanes, and quickly

@sofio @itamarst @DemonHusky @bikepedantic @crschmidt hahaha ok ok! I guess I was somehow thinking Cambridge was going way faster 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m glad to see it, and glad to be wrong that it’s not slow.

@crschmidt @itamarst @bikepedantic ~0.7 miles to elementary school, depending on which jr. high, 7.8, 2.7, 6.8 miles, but only the middle one would be plausibly safe. Started to take the bus for those.

@LilahTovMoon @bikepedantic That transit score could use some work tho

@Etherealcolburn @bikepedantic Yea, Boston's transit score is only 72 so not much better. Looking at their map of the Boston area, it looks like Downtown to Fenway does really well and then it starts dropping off and I think objectively that corridor has denser transit access being the main corridor of Boston.

It's also possible that their transit score stuff needs some updates. Their Somerville score has declined from 64 in 2020 to 62 today despite Somerville now being served by a bunch of new Green Line stops. Between Union, East Somerville, Gilman, Magoun, Ball, and Even Medford/Tufts, Somerville has way better transit access today.

@LilahTovMoon @bikepedantic Yeah, I don’t know about the comparisons, but in general it’s very convenient for me to do stuff by bike or on foot, but whenever I try to use transit it’s a bit of a time consuming hassle, and I feel like this is reflected in my house’s scores: