Good things must end to make space for new ones

This year is almost over - there are only a few hours of 2018 left. But before that will happen, I had a chance to go for one more quick bike ride. I somehow don't enjoy winter riding that much, especially not when winter is this warm, rainy and free of snow. It might be the gloomy weather, cloudy skies, muddy trails or perhaps just all of it together.

Nevertheless, I wanted to revisit an old place nearby - Wharton Plantation in Groton. I always had lots of fun riding there in summer mostly because the trails were not just some ordinary sandy paths in the forest, but at least a part of them are a bit challenging with some steep and rocky sections.

Anyway, once I got to the trailhead I didn't even recognize the place. It turns out that my favorite trail area underwent a massive timber harvesting operation earlier this year and the trail I wanted to use looks now like a muddy battleground.

I had no choice but to keep going hoping that not everything got permanently destroyed by lumberjacks. A bit further down the Dan Parker Rd the situation didn't look any better so I decided to turn right onto a more remote path leading east. This proved to be a good choice, not counting a couple of severely flooded spots. I guess the advantage of winter riding is that most of these places were still frozen solid. Crossing these places in summer could be much more difficult.

Next I reached Blood Rd (Geez, what a name!) and then Whispering Brook Rd (That sounds way better). I continued south along the former railway (Red Line Path) to then turn right and go back west coming back to Old Dunstable Rd.

It was a very short ride since it was getting dark so I decided to head back. I felt sad that some of my favorite hidden gems like Wharton Plantation are disappearing. I have never seen anyone on a bike over there and now I don't even know if I bother to visit this place again. The muddy, wide service road certainly doesn't have the same feeling as the old, narrow, rocky Dan Parker Rd had.

I guess some good things must end to make space for new ones. Hopefully, 2019 will take me to new, unexplored places.

Boring news

Finally, the future of transportation is here! At least that's what Elon Musk claimed earlier this week. He unveiled his first tunnel under Los Angeles area that apparently will take you across the city at high speed:

Capable of traveling safely at over 150mph. At that speed, it will feel like teleporting within a city.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2018

Sounds like the future? Sure! The only question remains - who is this future for? Because the more I learn about Musk's idea the more I realize this isn't the future for most of us.

But let's start from the beginning.

Elon Musk made some big claims years earlier when working on his project and when he started The Boring Company, with the aim to bring cost of drilling tunnels significantly down. And he did just that - building the 6000-ft tunnel in 18 months for just $10 million. That may look inexpensive compared to the cost of other tunnels until you realize that a lot of development cost isn't included in that price and his tunnel is only 12 feet wide, fits a single traffic lane and doesn't have any emergency exits. Looks more like a sewer than a true tunnel to me.

Then there's a problem of capacity. Musk claims his tunnels would be better than existing solutions such as subway, because he will move 4000 cars per hour at 155mph (250kmh). This however, means that a car would need to enter the tunnel every second. Since he's planning on using elevators to bring cars underground directly from parking street level, this doesn't seem probable.

How the fuck would you get a car down into the tunnel every second??? https://t.co/Qa5ZyMd1jw

— Market Urbanism (@MarketUrbanism) December 19, 2018

As many quickly pointed out, a single subway train can hold about 2000 passengers and as such has much higher capacity than Musk's solution. This doesn't seem to discourage Elon Musk. He thinks he's building "something better":

Actually way more capacity, way faster & way more convenient. Subways are fine, but it’s time to upgrade to something better.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2018

But the most criticism came pointing out that Musk's idea "totally misses the point". And the point is obviously to move people, not cars, through the city.

Elon Musk misses the point: the goal isn’t to move cars, it is to move people. A tunnel for cars just creates traffic chaos at the point of exit and entry - just like expressways. A subway, on the other hand, is a beacon of efficiency in terms of moving *people.* https://t.co/xqsTSYd66x

— Jennifer Keesmaat (@jen_keesmaat) December 19, 2018

Considering the amount of space they require, cars are just very inefficient vehicles. On top of that, they do have a significant impact on climate and are #1 cause of death of young Americans (with SUVs being particularly deadly).

As such, it seems that Musk just didn't do his homework. Or did he? His company sells cars, not subway trains after all, which makes me think that maybe it's all of us who miss the point. Maybe Musk's plan is not to give us the future of mass public transport, but to create a future... for himself (and few wealthy friends). Only then it makes sense to drill tunnels that will take several electric Teslas across the city.

You can't have a change without making changes

And just like that it's nearly mid-December. Where did that year go? I've been reflecting on what happened in 2018, recent events in the world and here in the United States. Today I want to write about something a bit different. So, no bike content this time. Instead, I want to discuss global environmental changes we are facing, better known as global warming.

First, please keep in mind that I'm not an expert on this topic. I try to educate myself the best I can, but still, this is just my opinion - the way I see things. And the way I see the climate change problem is sadly somewhat pessimistic. I'm usually an optimist but with a firm connection to reality. However, when it comes to climate change, there's just too little to be happy about.

Let's start with saying that you can't believe or not that climate change is real. It's simply not a matter of faith! Essentially, the same way you can't believe that Earth is flat or Sun doesn't exist. If you do - you're just an ignorant - someone who chose to ignore science and scientifically proven facts. In other words, yes, climate change is real, water is wet and Earth is round. Period.

Scientist Runs Over Man With Truck. pic.twitter.com/5yogPTP8E6

— Dave Anthony - The Blaine Capatch Nemesis (@daveanthony) November 22, 2018

Since we have established that this phenomenon is real and we know it's threatening our future. Apparently, we need to cut down our CO2 emissions by half within about a decade, or we are all doomed. So what can we do about it?

If you look at majority of related information in media, it seems that we primarily focus on two topics: renewable energy sources and electric cars. Now I have bad news for you - it's not enough. Being green is not just about electric cars and renewable energy, even though it would be nice if the solution was that simple. At least that's what our politicians seem to believe. They are happy to propose a future with "clean coal" (whatever the heck that is) or "Green New Deal".

But it's not enough.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that in order to severely reduce CO2 emissions, we would need to do more. Much, much more. At the same time I just can't see this happening within the next 50 years and the reason is, simply put - money.

Let me explain.

The problem we have now has started back in the end of XIX century with the arrival of Industrial Revolution. Industrialization was the process that allowed countries such as United Kingdom, France, Germany or United States to leap forward and manufacture more in shorter time. The process continued through early XX century, accelerated by two world wars. Then, in the 1950's we started building our modern capitalism and corporate culture.

Now imagine it would all have to end.

Basically, in order to reduce pollution and "fix the planet", we all would need to drastically change our lifestyle. Driving electric car to work is not going to change much just as riding a bicycle won't help much either (sigh). Instead, we would need to revolutionize many more areas such as:

Energy sources

Coal is dead. Close coal and oil power plants. Shut down coal mines. Switch to renewable energy sources as much as possible. We may have to keep some nuclear power plants for critical industrial consumers but otherwise those would be phased out as well. In general - use less energy whenever possible. This means energy-efficient vehicles and devices but it also means to account for amount of energy required to manufacture such goods.

Transportation

Ideally - no private cars. No matter electric or not. We would need to travel less. Family vacation? Sure, but probably more like camping in a local state park than flying across the world to stay on a beach. No more flying for executive business meetings to the other side of the continent. We would need to work remotely or live much closer to work. Use public transport as much as possible. Use bicycles.

Housing

Single family houses in suburbs would be mostly gone. They are largely unsustainable as they require us to travel a lot and consume too many resources in the process. People would need to live closer together in townhouses and apartment buildings. We won't be building cheap, poorly insulated homes for a quick profit but more expensive and longer lasting energy-efficient buildings. We won't have front lawns either but those most likely won't be missed - we don't use them anyway.

Goods manufacturing

To reduce waste we would need to cut down on manufacturing, distribution, packaging and recycle essentially everything. This means no more junk we really don't need. No more buying stuff made on the other side of the world (shipping stuff across ocean is very polluting). Less plastic (ocean are full of it already), more reusable items. We would have to repair everything as much as possible and not throw out something just because it's not fashionable anymore. Planned obsolescence would be absolutely illegal.

Food production

Less meat (its production requires lots of resources). More locally grown food. Simpler menus. Less waste in general.

As you can see this type of future is characterized by words like no, less, decrease, lower, etc. This is in stark contrast with modern corporate world that is defined by words like growth, more, increase, profit and such.

Now you probably see why I said I can't see us being successful in fighting global warming. We are simply too used to our lifestyles and we created a world that worships wealth and monetary profits over anything else.

Try to tell Americans that they have to vacate their suburban homes and move to apartments in the city, they can't drive their cars, can't fly to their timeshare in Hawaii and can't have steak or burger for dinner anymore. Good luck with that.

The same way try to tell corporations that they have to now sell less, manufacture less, make less money, produce less waste, and be responsible for recycling of all old products and packaging they made earlier. I just can't see that happening either.

Of course, this doesn't just apply to Americans (Yes, I'm as guilty as anyone else.) or the Western World. China is now the leading producer of trash and one of larger world polluters (although not per capita). Try telling them now that they have to stop buying stuff, using disposable items and recycle everything. Easy?

But maybe I'm too pessimistic. Maybe it won't be that bad. Yet somehow, I feel that no matter what we decide, our grandchildren will live in a very different world than the one we live in now.

E-scooters - saving cities or ruining them?

E-scooters. These little buggers started filling streets of our cities in a rapid pace. For some, they are godsent, letting people move around quickly and efficiently, avoiding heavy car traffic. For others, they are a disgrace, clogging city streets and cluttering cityscape. Some US cities started regulating scooters, essentially trying to figure out where to place them among cars and bicycles.

Cars registered in San Francisco: 500,000+ Scooters allowed in SF: 1,250 with potential to go to 2,500 at some point in the future after they understand the impact of scooters on safety and where to park them. Meanwhile, this happened in SF today pic.twitter.com/ftC1Yphown

— James Gross (@James_Gross) November 27, 2018

Interestingly, bicycle advocates quickly realized that scooter companies could be potential allies. The advocates have been asking for a better cycling infrastructure for years, often to be left with some bits and pieces of randomly disconnected bike lanes. But then came the scooters and their companies started pushing for more space to ride or for a less-restrictive helmet laws. Sometimes it worked - New York finally decided to move towards legalizing e-bikes and e-scooters:

Live from New York, it’s a press conference introducing a bill that would legalize e-scooters and throttle e-bikes pic.twitter.com/lI1j1ubAIQ

— Good Idea Dave (@DaveCoIon) November 28, 2018

Following such news, I would expect most bike-lovers to like scooters as well. Then, to my surprise, I bumped into this tweet from Mikael Colville-Andersen, a well-know advocate for cycling for transport and building livable cities:

I'll take 10,000 #scooters over 10,000 cars in the city anytime.

— bostonbybike (@bostonbybike) November 24, 2018

As you can tell, my response was straightforward - scooters over cars! To which he replied:

Excellent! We'll send our cars to Copenhagen then. 😀

— bostonbybike (@bostonbybike) November 30, 2018

I admit I didn't fully understand his hostility towards this simple, alternative way of transportation, but now I think that he's against scooters in the city because he sees them as a threat to bicycles, not cars.

You see, Mikael is a Dane, living in Copenhagen - a city where bicycles are a normal mode of transport. Actually, in the downtown of Copenhagen bicycles are likely the dominant mode!

This is in stark contrast to all American cities where most people drive, some take public transport and very few travel by bikes. As such, the arrival of scooters in US cities was mostly well-received by many bike advocates as these small, simple electric vehicles could help reducing our dependency on cars and eventually move people onto bicycles as well.

But not in Copenhagen. There, bikes are prevalent and few people would prefer to drive into the downtown. As such, electrically-powered scooters present a threat to bicycles and have to compete with them for space on city streets. That explains why Mikael would rather see people to use their bikes instead of switching to scooters.

Whether e-scooters are just a temporary fashion or they stay here for longer, they may persuade some people to leave their cars in the driveway. It won't be easy though. The struggle for prying American butts off driver seats is going to be a difficult one.

Your commute sucks and you love it that way

How was your commute last night? If you live in New England or at least on northern East Coast, it was probably miserable. We were getting first snow of this season, which meant "full panic mode on" for most drivers. And since most people in America drive to work, we are stuck with the inefficient system that fails us in such "panic mode" situations.

Or, as Doug Gordon put it - the system is working as designed:

The system is working as designed. pic.twitter.com/9ZI81lDZzS

— Doug Gordon (@BrooklynSpoke) November 15, 2018

Exactly. The system is designed for drivers and drivers only. Public transport in suburbs is nearly nonexistent and even in city centers it lacks severely in reliability.

The situation around New York City last night was particularly bad, but even here in Boston it looked much worse than usual. It seemed that nearly everyone decided to leave work at the exactly same time and as such, on my way back home, pretty much every intersection was gridlocked and cars barely moved.

It didn't bother me at all. I was on my bike and I actually liked that heavy traffic. You see, there are only 2 situations where roads with no protected bike lanes are very safe for cyclists:

1. When roads are completely empty and there is no traffic at all.
2. When roads are completely gridlocked and cars can't move.

In both these cases speed of cars equals zero. In all other situations cyclists and pedestrians are in danger. Therefore, we should build separated infrastructure for those road users: sidewalks for pedestrians and protected bike lanes for cyclists.

We should, but we rarely do. America loves to drive... and getting stuck in traffic, just like the last night in New York. In the recent commuting study done by esurance.com New York ended up as one of the worst states (#47) rated by the overall commuting experience. Massachusetts was about in the middle of the pack (#36), while among the best states we find Alaska (#1), Montana (#3) and Wyoming (#5). That's probably not surprising. All of these 3 states have more bears than people and as far as I know, bears don't drive to work.

What's more surprising is how bad those few drivers in Wyoming and Montana are. They scored #41 and #43 respectively. Maybe there are bears driving cars over there after all?

Florida scored last, which is not surprising given that the average driver's age in Florida must be around 75 ;)

Here in Massachusetts on the other hand, we can be proud to lead the country (#2, next to Hawaii being #1) in "alternative transportation" options. Yes, this means riding bikes to work. You see, it's 2018 but the idea of riding a bicycle to office is still so bizarre in America that we call it "alternative". Still, it's great seeing Massachusetts being #2. If they can do it in sunny Hawaii, we can do it here, where we "enjoy" likely the lousiest weather in the United States (freezing and snowy winters and hot and humid summers anyone?).

So you see, my fellow Americans, if you don't want to be stuck in traffic anymore, something must be done. And that something means - we need to give up our cars. Now, before your blood boils and head explodes - let me clarify that. I don't mean we have to give up our cars completely (that's a bit too Utopian for now), but we really need to reduce our dependence on them. Fortunately, more and more people seem to understand that. Unfortunately, these people are not our politicians (at least not many of them).

We had election last week and according to media we witnessed a "blue wave" - many Democrats retaking positions in the government. You would think, these progressive politicians, who understand risks of climate change and necessity of efficient public transportation would propose solutions such as congestion pricing or market-driven parking fees. But no. I didn't hear any Democrats proposing this. While it's entirely possible that I simply missed that, I think that these ideas are still too radical (and thus unacceptable) even for the most progressive Americans.

The change may come however, from another direction. It turns out that younger generations are less excited about owning a car and driving it. Millenials seem to have different life goals than their parents and buying an suburban house with large driveway is just not one of them.

Now you can die while staying "comfortable and stylish"!

When you ask average Americans if they feel safe riding bicycles in our cities, they would likely say no. But unfortunately, if you ask them how to make it safer for cyclists, they will still tell you - make them use helmets!

It's 2018. This topic has been beaten to death. More and more people already realize that helmets are not going to save us. Yet still, there is a large percentage of population who thinks that these styrofoam hats are THE solution.

Take this newest offering from Park & Diamond - a collapsible helmet that looks like a hat:

According to the inventors, the biggest problem with bicycle helmets is that they are difficult to transport and ugly, which is why not many cyclists want to use them. Their offering is superior because it will keep you "safe, comfortable and stylish". Riiight...

Somehow, I can't picture this (or any other) helmet keeping me safe in this situation:

No matter how stylish your helmet is, it's nearly useless when you're being flattened by a large SUV. Of course, if you want to wear pretty helmets I won't be stopping you. Get one! Just please don't fall for the usual BS in Park & Diamond's business pitch:

• "wearing a helmet reduces the risk of traumatic brain injury by 87%"
• "97% cycling fatalities occur when the rider is not wearing a helmet'
• "more than 90% of bike commuters don't wear helmets"

The first two completely false claims have been already widely discussed. The last one is difficult to agree with for someone who rides to work everyday and sees fellow commuters on the way. By my take, overwhelming majority of them wear helmets and it is evidenced in data:

As you can tell, United States is a country with one of the highest helmet wearing rates in the world. If helmets were the miracle cure, cycling in USA should be much safer than anywhere else. Unfortunately, data shows exactly the opposite. We have the highest deaths/km cycled ratio.

Even worse, our death rates are so high despite fewer trips done by bicycle compared to other countries. Notably, only Australia scores even worse and that's a country where wearing helmets is mandatory! 
 
By now it should be pretty obvious that Australian model is useless - giving people helmets (or actually forcing to wear them) doesn't lower number of fatalities. Instead, we should be doing what they did in Denmark or Holland - build safe infrastructure.

Unfortunately, this would be a very difficult proposition here in the United States. Most Americans can't picture anything else than driving everywhere, because they've never experienced anything else. And they are ready to defend this status quo - to the point when a very modest tax increase on gasoline could help properly maintain our roads (which, I think, is what every driver wants), it is met with fierce opposition:

Something from this morning's #YesOn6 rally stuck out to me: the open disdain for policies that encourage climate-friendly transportation. State Senator Pat Bates: "We will be forced to walk, ride our bikes or maybe catch that once in a while bus that comes our way." pic.twitter.com/KIU8N8p8PF

— 👻ndrew B🎃wen (@acbowen) October 17, 2018

But no. "Cars must stay" - we say, even though we suck at driving, especially around our own kids. If a bad crash happens, we blame it on others - pedestrians, sun glare or those damn cyclists who refuse to wear helmets (Isn't that right, Park & Diamond?). Some would really want to follow Australia's example and make styro-hats mandatory quoting that it's worth it, even "if it only saves one life". As MBTom pointed out - that just doesn't add up: 

It's funny. A cycle helmet is essential "if it only saves one life". Air pollution kills 40,000 a year but any plans to restrict motor traffic are an assault on personal liberty.

— MBTom (@MBTom_co_uk) October 28, 2018

I do not wear a helmet on my daily commute but you may want to. When you do - at least pick a "comfortable and stylish" one.

Townsend-Milton Quick(er) Loop

Don't you think this fall season's weather has been lousy so far? The whole September was very humid and then when the true fall finally came, we didn't really have a chance to enjoy those warm days with cool, crisp air. It got very chilly pretty quickly.

Last Friday was one of those rare, warm, sunny days. I decided to visit some of my favorite places nearby (i.e. within 1hr drive from Rt128). I visited this place before - in May, but it looks quite a bit different now in the fall.

As the last time, I started at a parking lot just south of Townsend State Forest from where I took Dudley Rd to Barker Hill Rd. The unpaved section starts when you take left onto Morse Rd and then continues on Mason Railroad Trail.

The nice thing about Mason Railroad Trail is that whenever I go there I don't see anyone else. It's empty. And it takes you through forest across a couple of bridges.

Once you get to the edge of Pratt Pond, it's time to turn right onto Pratt Pond Rd and then continue east until you turn onto Mitchell Hill Rd. You will notice a sign "no outlet" right at the intersection but that obviously applies only to cars. There's always "an outlet" for someone on a bike - the question is only how difficult it's going to be.

At some point along Mitchell Hill Rd you will notice a simple steel bar gate, which you can safely ignore since this is where all the fun really starts. The first few hundred of feet are a steep downhill on a rocky forest road, so pay attention where you land your front wheel. Then you'll get to a brook crossing, which is usually flooded. Fortunately, it's perfectly possible to ride right through it. No need to wet your feet.

Eventually, the trail ends at a grassy parking lot, just off Mile Slip Rd. Following Mile Slip Rd south can be... interesting. When I visited this place in May I wouldn't even consider this place a road. It looked more like a riverbed - full of large rocks, it would be more appropriate to ride it on a full-suspension bike.

Mile Slip Rd last May

Not this time. I returned a few months later and to my surprise all rocks were gone, the road was graded and rebuilt. In some way it's too bad they fixed it - I kind of liked the challenge. On the other hand, now it's easier and much, much faster to ride. I just hope there is no plan to pave it.

I continued south, crossing some rough sections with very chunky gravel, then a few ATV-like trails.

The unpaved road ended once I reached Mason Rd, but then there's a trail just off Campbell Mill Rd that continues south through the forest. With my luck, it was of course unavoidable to get messy. Because of many rainy days in the past weeks, soil on the trails was very soft in places and my tires picked up a fair amount of mud.

The last part of the ride is a straight road running through Townsend State Forest, between West Hill Rd and Fessenden Hill Rd. It's fun - all downhill on a wide, rocky road makes you fly and finish your ride in no time.

The ride ends at Brookline Rd (Rt13), which is usually busy, with lots of traffic. I actually hoped to stay on the trail for longer and take another path through the forest but it ended up being completely flooded (like a large pond right in the middle of the trail) so I had no choice but to bail our early.

That area is always fun to ride and even though it's not that close to Boston it's worth visiting. Now I wonder if there's a way to ride this route in winter...

The German way

A couple of weeks ago I had to spend  some time in Germany, travelling for business. Even though I used to live in there many years ago, visiting European cities often comes as a minor cultural shock for someone who lives in United States.

One of the striking differences is how much more space in very centers of German cities is designated only for pedestrians and bicycles. Obviously, this is very normal in historical, medieval downtowns, which were not designed for cars and cars wouldn't even fit there anyway. But even in modern urban setting, having entire street just for people, not cars, is something Germans, unlike Americans, are apparently very comfortable with.

The next two pictures are from Frankfurt am Main. This is Zeil - one of the main streets in the city and a major part of it is closed for car traffic.

Zeil - Frankfurt's shopping street and pedestrian heaven.

Actually, it's cyclists' heaven too.

Now, keep in mind that we are not talking about closing some narrow, side road for cars. The width of Zeil can be easily compared with New York's 5th Ave. Can you imagine having 5th Ave closed for cars between Central Park and Bryant Park? Or having Boston's Boylston St closed for thru traffic from Mass Ave to Public Garden? I can already see those riots in the streets if both cities proposed anything like that...

Another difference that became immediately obvious was that many Germans in the middle of Frankfurt on their way to work or school early in the morning don't drive. In fact, most of them seemed to either walk or use bicycles:

Some guys in their usual business attire - on bikes.

Women too.

This one stopped briefly to look at the river.

The river banks in Frankfurt are used for walking and cycling. There's no major highway taking that precious real estate - unlike our Storrow Drive here in Boston.

Bikes in front of a school building. Makes me wonder how many German parents actually drop of their kids at school by car?

A small-footprint, high-capacity bike parking in Frankfurt.

It's pretty clear that bicycles are a normal mode of transportation in Germany, but what's very interesting is how much more popular electric bikes are. Over a decade and a half ago, when I lived there, electric bikes didn't exist. Now, they are practically everywhere. A good sign of e-bikes popularity is presence of dedicated charge stations scattered around the city.

While I doubt we will reach this level of car-free living here in the US anytime soon, it can be eye-opening witnessing how pleasant, quiet, and calm a large city like Frankfurt can be.

Local news - Arlington introduces BRT system

If you have even wondered why public transport is so bad in your city, you may want to read this:

I have touched this topic here before. Basically, Americans worked very hard to destroy pretty decent public transport system (streetcars) they already had at the beginning of XX century, in order to replace them with highways and cars. That might have worked very early on, when few people owned cars, but after WWII, when everyone wanted a dream suburban house with a garage, everyone started to drive into the city - and this was the beginning of the end.

It's really quite simple. Cities are not made out of rubber and you can't stretch valuable real estate forever to make space for more and more cars. Turning vast surfaces in downtown into parking lots is clearly a very bad investment for the city (free parking lots don't pay city taxes), which took us way too long to understand (and some of us still don't get it).

But there is hope. More and more city governors and planners notice that situation is not improving, despite opening new roads, bridges, parking garages, etc. They finally started turning their focus to what they destroyed 80 years ago - public transport.

One good example how a city can quickly improve the situation without spending massive amounts of money (Because let's be clear - building a new streetcar line from scratch wouldn't be exactly inexpensive.) is BRT - bus rapid transport. In short, it's about giving buses dedicated lanes whenever possible, adjusting signals to prioritize buses over the rest of traffic and moving bus stops to avoid buses leaving and merging with the flow of traffic.

My town of Arlington played with this idea for a while and this October we will see the introduction of a pilot BRT program on our main street - Massachusetts Avenue. I'm really happy such initiatives turn into solutions - hopefully permanent, but there are a few bugs in this early design that I'd like to point out.

First of all, this BRT program has a very limited range, running only between Lake St and Alewife Brook Parkway - that's only 10 blocks/intersections, but since it's just a pilot, I can live with that.

Then, there are some major issues in the design of BRT bus route and I seriously hope that this is only temporary and should Arlington decide to keep the BRT forever (and they should!), these bugs will get fixed before we make anything permanent.

Just take a look at this route design near Henderson St. The third, bus-only lane is placed where some parking spots used to be. Unfortunately, the city decided to place bike lane on the wrong side of these parking spots and now, since BRT lane replaces those spots, cyclists will get squeezed between moving buses to the right and speeding cars to the left. Honestly, who would want to ride a bike in a lane like this? Obviously the right way to handle this is to move the bike lane all the way to the right - next to the curb, and place buses next to car traffic.

This is what we have - with bike lanes painted on the wrong side of parking lanes.

 This is what are getting for now - bicyclists will be squeezed into a space between buses and cars.

And that's what we should have - move bike lane behind bus stops. No need to for buses to move into/out of their BRT lane and safer for cyclists.

Similar problem is shown in the second picture from city's presentation. It looks like buses will have to cross the bike lane in order to reach bus stops, then cross it again to merge with the BRT lane. Again, this makes no sense. The correct way is to swap bike lane and BRT lane, placing bike lane closer to the sidewalk, ideally running it behind the bus stops. That makes it easier for everyone - car drivers don't need to worry about buses and bikes, bus drivers stay in their BRT lane all the time and cyclists are physically separated from all heavy car/bus traffic.

Let's wait until October to see BRT in action and then hopefully we will have a chance to address these problems and make it right before anything becomes permanent. For now, I'm being optimistic.