of Lane

She was on the right side of the bike lane, trying to avoid the fast-moving traffic to her left, which pushed her closer to the cars parked to the right of the bike lane. Traveling around 17 miles per hour, a parked car opened its door, and “I hit my brakes as the door hit my face,” Sheehan says.

Many cyclists, to claw back some of control, ride on the sidewalk in the most dangerous areas of the Square. Nicole S. Kendall ’24 tells me that a few weeks ago, a cyclist hit her on the sidewalk by Johnston Gate, one of the most congested intersections in the Square, as she was talking to a friend. The collision caused lacerations and bruising on her hip.

She says she understands why fear would drive bikers to the sidewalk, but doesn’t understand why they can’t just slow down and walk their bike. “If you are not comfortable,” she says, “you can’t just break the law, because you will hurt someone.”

Much of the conflict between cyclists, pedestrians, cars, and buses is avoidable. Dedicated bike paths can reduce collisions between bikers and vehicles; people are unpredictable, which makes sharing space tricky — so don’t make them share space.

These moments of entanglement in the bike lane are scary, an unfortunate addition to many Cambridge residents’ daily commutes, but in many respects, they are also the bike lane’s central feature — defined not by what is meant to be there, but by what is not.