Constant wrong way biking on Shepard St

Submitted by jimpaulmitsi t3_118h2nq in CambridgeMA

This is such a specific post so I’m not sure if this will reach the right people (I think mainly students living at the Harvard Radcliffe Quad). People are constantly biking/scootering up Shepard St in the wrong direction and then turning into the Radcliffe quad. These are all people who are originally in the bikelane on Garden and then turn right onto Shepard. The problem is is that when they do this, they are going the wrong way and causing near collisions with bikers and drivers who are going the right direction on Shepard.

There is a stupidly easy solution and I don’t get why people don’t do this since it’s safe. Take a turn down Walker, THEN turn left onto Shepard and get to the quad that way. Adds barely any time and is much safer. And legal.

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itamarst t1_j9h2au5 wrote

Seems difficult to convince college students to change how they do things, especially since there's a new batch every year (and they have extra-high risk tolerance). Similarly, near the high school you will get lots of high school students biking the wrong way on Trowbridge.

EDIT: But, the city has put up signage in some places directing people to particular streets, so you can ask them for that, might help.

Another alternative is to talk to the city about putting up a contraflow bike lane on Shepard if it's a desire line.

Either way: https://seeclickfix.com or email tpt@cambridgema.gov (Traffic department).

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SensitiveOrcBrbrn t1_j9hf0j8 wrote

If there is that much demand, then maybe you should petition the City to find a way to add a counterflow bikelane to Shepard St or petition Harvard to add an off street bike path parallel to Shepard St to accomidate those cyclists.

Knowing what I do of the area and looking at some streetview references, I'm pretty sure I would be much more comfortable riding against the flow of traffic on Shepard than I would riding with the flow on Walker St (especially with the travel lane being fenced in on both sides by parking lanes)

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jimpaulmitsi OP t1_j9hfmb4 wrote

Thanks for the input! What you can’t see on streetview though is that Walker has barely any traffic. Shepard is much busier and people speed given the lack of turns. Pretty dangerous

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SensitiveOrcBrbrn t1_j9hg8o8 wrote

Fair enough about the amount of traffic on each street, but drivers speeding is also a problem that needs to be addressed. And it sounds like those cyclists need to be accommodated, not excluded

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noob_tube03 t1_j9jv0vl wrote

Why? They could just go down Linnaean, or walker. Not every street needs to have parking removed for counter traffic bikers, especially when there are viable alternatives. Hell, Harvard could just add a cutout onto the property for bikes from garden if that's really what the issue is. Why should city tax dollars fix Harvard's student issues?

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SensitiveOrcBrbrn t1_j9mpeg0 wrote

(a) One of my suggestions was to petition "Harvard to add an off street bike path parallel to Shepard St to accommodate those cyclists" which wouldn't require city tax dollars.

(b) To be a little Socratic and re-frame your question back to you, (b.1) why should motor vehicles have so much road space? (b.2) And why should so much of that road space be designated for the storage of privately owned vehicles? I.e., why is parking needed there? Cambridge is a city with transit and all those houses on that street have driveways (aka off-street parking).

(c) Why are my city tax dollars going to subsidize motor vehicle users so they can drive around threatening the lives of pedestrians and cyclists and generally be entitled?

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NJS_Stamp t1_j9h3szh wrote

I’m no role-model when it comes to traffic laws while cycling, so take this with a grain of salt, but the amount of Harvard kids I see coming down the wrong way on N. Harvard street by the bridge is nuts.

I can understand doing it in the slower traffic area/neighborhoods, but cars legit go 40mph there and they wanna play chicken in the bike lane.

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kiwi-cucumber t1_j9jfo02 wrote

Agree 100%. I saw a see click fix post requesting a do not enter sign for bikes - but honestly I doubt signage will make a difference. I assume people don’t use walker because it’s a fraction of a second more time to get to the quad - but it feels way safer since there’s no traffic there - I don’t understand why it isn’t used.

I walk on Shepard a lot with my dogs and it’s either escooters on the sidewalk forcing you off (at least it’s a wide sidewalk) or the students turning the wrong way into the opposite direction bike lane who forget they also have to yield in the crosswalk at Shepard. A cluster all around imo

While that setup isn’t great - I think the config where garden and Chauncy meet is much worse. The students going from Radcliffe to the square don’t cross to use the proper direction bike lane. They use the other one. For people turning left down Chauncy, they’ll look for oncoming bikers traveling in the correct direction, and could left-hook the ones coming the wrong way. In my mind, this seems like only a matter of time before it happens

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clex_ace t1_j9jy8wf wrote

I've found that Harvard students have very little common sense when it comes to pedestrian etiquette and skills. They're constantly biking the wrong way or stepping out into the street while looking down at their phone. Might be a trade off for being academically gifted

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eitanormand t1_ja1gjn4 wrote

This was obvious to me since the protected bike lanes on Garden were in design. I think the best solution is to petition Harvard to get rid of the shrubs between the brick wall and the sidewalk and pave a contraflow bike lane / shared use space, maybe combined with the city sidewalk from the intersection to the first driveway.

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