Bike paths crossing the streets are a huge safety issue. There are bike paths that have bushes and other vegetation that block the view of people approaching the street. As careful as drivers can be, there are in many cases people on bikes that do not disembark to cross and sometime don’t even slow down. Trimming the vegetation back at these intersections would improve safety at these locations.

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6 Comments

  1. I agree with Frank Silipigni’s observation on bike path intersections. Much to the irritation of drivers behind me, I more often than not come to a full stop at these crossings. I have witnessed cyclists going through their red lights at the Bedford St. crossing. The rule should be that cyclists have right-of-way only when they walk their bikes through the crossings’ crosswalks and only after looking both ways as any pedestrian who values their life and limb does. This is common sense.

  2. Please write to the DPW about the particular intersection crossings that are the problem — they have responded to requests to cut back vegetation along the bike path, but I agree the intersections remain a problem. For me, it’s Camillia Place, Fottler Ave., Revere Street, where the sightlines need to be improved for bikeway users seeing and being seen by cars. (This summer, sightlines all over town are a problem — so much growth of trees and bushes at alot of street intersections, not just along the bike path.)

  3. The reality of the situation is that a large percentage of drivers moving through these intersections are Speeding, looking at their cell phones or otherwise distracted. It’s disingenuous to place the blame for this safety issue on cyclists. I ride the length of the Minuteman bike path every day and I’ve seen this hundreds of times. Is it your general impression that drivers are conscientious and safety oriented? That is certainly not my experience.

    1. I’ve ridden somewhere around 65,000 miles on bicycles in my lifetime, including one ride from Seattle to Boston. I estimate that I covered 36,000 miles during the 1980s, most of that as basic transportation in or near Washington, DC, where I lived at the time. After moving to Lexington in 1999, I loved being able to take the Minuteman Trail to various destinations in Cambridge. But I’ve always worried about safety, and was an early adopter of hard-shelled bicycle helmets, having purchased Bell helmet serial # 7022 just prior to my cross-country trip, and I’ve twice published articles on bicycle safety. I quit using my bicycle for basic transportation around 2010, due to fear of distracted drivers.
      https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/09/21/bicycle-accidents-helmet-fit

  4. I also agree that the bike path intersections are a serious problem. The bikers do not stop at the stop signs, even if you are approaching in a car. The intersections should be reconfigured in a way that blocks the bikers from going through without stopping. One biker was going right through the intersection on Woburn St, near the Dunkin Donuts. He never stopped and never looked either way and I could have hit him easily if I wasn’t careful. Stop signs need to be placed in the middle.

    1. Another way to think of the solution — reconfigure the roads so that the drivers have to slow down especially at bike path intersections.

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