This past Thursday, November 5th, Dot Bike members, along with Boston Cafe Bikers, the Boston Cyclists Union, and fellow concerned cyclists delivered public testimony to the Boston City Council Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation in regards to the status of a connected bike network in Boston. Thank you to the City Councilors who filed, chaired, and sponsored this hearing. It was much needed and we hope it serves to accelerate progress in Boston towards safer streets. The Committee and panelists discussed the lack of previously approved infrastructure not being built, Somerville’s incredible street safety accomplishments and how we can mirror them in Boston, truck safety, and many specific roads and intersections requiring immediate safety upgrades.
In DotBike’s testimony, delivered by Fabio Salvioni, we specifically brought up the extreme gaps in safe connections for cyclists in Dorchester. We highlighted how Dorchester residents have no safe connections to get to both Franklin Park and the Neponset River Trail on a bike and how any cyclist looking to commute to or from Dorchester would be forced to take multiple high stress roads and problem intersections to arrive to their destination. We highlighted the lack of pedestrian priority lights anywhere in Dorchester and also brought up the amount of cut-through traffic using Dorchester as their highway, introducing unpredictable, fast, and reckless driving all throughout our residential streets.
We do hope to encourage our own City Councilors, Worrell and Fitzgerald, to be more vocal about the need for connected bicycle infrastructure. We learned that Councilor Fitzgerald is a cyclist himself that does not feel safe on Dorchester roads, ideally we can get him to some events and plugged into the community to change that!
Roads in Dorchester are dangerous for everyone, not just cyclists, and we are committed to changing that for the better. The Committee Chair, Councilor Durkan said it best, “Human lives must be prioritized over the convenience of drivers.”
You can email your own testimony to the Committee at ccc.plandev@boston.gov. You can also watch the entire hearing on the City Council’s Youtube channel and specifically, here’s DotBike’s testimony.
Stay tuned to Dotbike’s Activism calendar for upcoming opportunities to add your voice!