New bike plan aims to increase safety, encourage cycling

BIKE continued from page 18 interest across the city and reducing levels of traffic stress.

“The goals are primarily to increase biking as a main mode [of transportation]; to provide infrastructure that is safe and comfortable for people biking of all ages, abilities, genders and backgrounds; and to ensure that every resident in Somerville has access to bicycling,” Viola Augustin, a senior planner in Somerville’s Mobility Division, said.

The current Bicycle Network Plan is the result of an extensive public process that included community meetings, online surveys and group bike rides. After releasing a draft of the plan in November 2022, the city received feedback about its construction timeline, which was longer than many residents and advocates hoped for. In response, the new plan includes roughly 40 miles of a “priority network” to be completed by 2030.

“[The priority network] is reasonable, but there are a couple of omissions on there,” Lamar said, pointing to Beacon Street as an example of a vital area that was excluded from the priority plan. The street is the city’s most heavily trafficked corridor for biking, used by an estimated 500 cyclists during peak hours.

Schneeloch echoed this sentiment.

“Unfortunately, [regarding] the southern part of Beacon Street between Washington Street and Inman Square, … they’re not going to do any work on that in the next seven years according to their plan,” he said. “I hope that they reconsider that.”

Some Somerville residents have also raised concerns about the new bike network’s impact on parking spaces. Lamar said that creating bike lanes often requires reclaiming new parking spaces and repurposing existing ones, a challenge that the city is prepared to take on.

“We’re committed to — if at all possible — keeping parking on one side, but even that will be challenging for some people,” Augustin said.

“We are very aware of people that are older and also … accessible parking needs to be maintained. … Streets are complicated public spaces, and a lot of programming has to be accommodated. So, we will have to make compromises, and those compromises are always challenging.”

Construction on the network is slated to begin within the next year, according to Augustin. To accelerate the process, the city plans to use a method called Quick-Build, which uses low-cost, short-term materials that can be designed and installed relatively quickly.