Somerville releases final plan for new citywide bike network

by Estelle Anderson News Editor

Somerville released its first-ever Bicycle Network Plan on April 11 to build an 88-mile system of connected bike lanes throughout the city. The network, which will be completed within the next few decades, would make Somerville the only municipality in Massachusetts besides Cambridge to establish a citywide bicycle network.

“There’s quite a lot to be excited about here,” Tom Lamar, chair of the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee, said. “There’s a lot of detail that went into this plan after some pretty thorough outreach. … I’m really excited that this network plan lays out a pretty thorough network of streets and has … put a lot of thought into what routes make the most sense everywhere.”

As early as 2014, Somerville ranked No. 1 in the Northeast and No. 5 in the nation for bike commuting, according to the League of American Cyclists. Despite the popularity of biking, however, Somerville’s current 30.1 miles of bike lanes is a fragmented network deemed by many locals to be unsafe. When asked in a city survey how comfortable they felt biking on a scale of 1–10, the average response from Somerville residents was 5.5.

“I’d say maybe half of [the current bike network is] very pleasant,” Lamar said. “But there are also a lot of very stressful sections along busier roads or roads without any dedicated bike infrastructure and dangerous intersections. … Biking is pretty great, it’s pretty useful, … but it’s clear that it could be so much better than it currently is.”

According to George Schneeloch, co-founder of Somerville Bike Safety, an improved bike network could play a significant role in reducing these safety concerns.

“People who may not be super comfortable riding on many of the roads in Somerville today may choose to do so if there’s infrastructure in place which either slows down traffic … or provides protected bike lanes in order to separate … bikes and motor vehicles,” Schneeloch added.

Previously, Lamar said, Somerville’s efforts to build new bicycling infrastructure were largely opportunistic, with city planners adding new bike lanes if a street was due for regular repaving, for example. According to Lamar, the inefficiency of this approach prevented a complete network from coming together.

“[Street by street] is not the most productive way to fight this out,” he said. “You need to be looking at this more holistically and be [thinking], ‘We need a safe route to get from this neighborhood to this school or to this square. What streets are the possible options for that? What are the most direct routes or the flattest routes?’”

The city’s new Bicycle Network Plan was developed with these questions in mind. A combination of one-way protected bike lanes, off-street paths and walk-and-bikefriendly streets called neighborways, the network includes some form of bikeway on 54% of Somerville streets. It aims to make biking a safer, less stressful endeavor for residents by connecting places of