Needless to say, keeping ourselves, our families, and our neighbors safe is top of mind for all of us right now. We’d like to provide a few pointers for those people still riding their bikes during this time of social distancing. Check out this article for more information.

• Ride alone, or with members of your household. While cycling can be a great way to get exercise without coming into close contact with others, riding your bike is only as safe as you make it. Avoid riding with groups of people who do not live with you, and maintain a wide distance between yourself and other cyclists at stop lights or stop signs.

• Where possible, use scarves, bandanas, or other face coverings. Coronavirus can be transmitted through droplets, and as many of us know, it’s all too easy to get a runny nose or a cough while you’re exercising! While masks should be prioritized for health care professionals and other essential workers in high-risk jobs, it’s still a good idea to use a handmade mask, scarf, Buff, or other fabric covering while you’re riding.
  • We hate to be graphic, but it bears specifying: don’t spit or shoot mucus from your nose while you’re riding anywhere near other people. The six-foot recommendation for social distancing only applies when you (and your bodily fluids) are staying put. Be courteous—and don’t be gross!
  • That said, if you’re far from others, it’s okay to bring your mask down if you need some extra air, like when you’re climbing a steep hill. While coronavirus can be transmitted outside, it’s safer for everyone outdoors than indoors. Don’t worry—germs don’t just hang in the air!

• Bring hand sanitizer or wear gloves, and wash your hands as soon as you get off your bike. It’s hard to find hand sanitizer right now, but if you’ve got it, use it! If you can’t access any at the moment, wearing gloves and washing your hands are great ways to protect yourself and those around you. 

Ride more cautiously than usual. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial to avoid preventable injuries so that our healthcare system can be maximally focused on those sick with coronavirus or chronic conditions. If you break your arm because you’re riding recklessly, you’ll end up taking resources away from those who truly need them. Accidents happen, and you definitely shouldn’t feel guilty if something happens to you outside your control. But please take extra precautions while you’re riding in the next few weeks: avoid riding the wrong way up one-way streets, be particularly mindful of stop lights and stop signs, and resist the urge to pop a wheelie.

• Because many riders haven’t been on their bikes in a few months, it’s a good time to take your bike to a shop for a check-up or tune-up. Bike shops are essential businesses in Boston, which means you can still get service! You can find a full list of open Massachusetts bike shops here, sorted by city. Ashmont Cycles is open in Dorchester!
• Make sure to bring a spare inner tube and a hand pump when you go riding alone. Never fixed a flat before? Check out this video, and practice at home on a rainy day! (Don’t be intimidated by this guy’s fancy gear—it’s the same practice no matter what kind of bike you’ve got.)

Don’t let this crazy beautiful week go to waste. Get out and ride!

Need some ideas for bike routes around Dorchester? We’ll have a post for you soon.

How can we preserve these trends after social isolation is over and the state’s economy starts to revive? What are your ideas? Here are mine to provoke yours.

State and city policies?

1. Massive incentives for telework.
2. State-corporate collaboration to limit work traffic. Could companies require employees to come in only on certain days of the week, and stagger those days?
3. Congestion pricing downtown or tolling on all routes into Boston. (Three-quarters of transportation emissions in Boston are generated by trips that start or end outside the city.)ⁱ
4. Bus rapid transit lines on all high-volume routes.
5. Much, much more bike infrastructure, installed quickly.
6. “Ride-sharing” fees that users pay.
7. Speedy adoption of the Transportation Climate Initiative to help pay for these. (The state budget is going to need help for the next several years.)

What about the negative trends?

Along with the positive current trends, some negative ones are being established and they won’t be easy to overcome.

• Catastrophic drop in public transit ridership. Could the MBTA offer free fares to get people back onto the T?
• Driving alone in your car. People with cars are going solo now to avoid virus transmission, and they’ll probably continue to for a long time. Should we discourage driving generally? Or discourage solo trips somehow?
• Light traffic. Right now there’s so little traffic, car trips are fast. (Hasn’t stopped drivers from honking.) That may continue if the transition out of virus-land is gradual.

Culture changes?

Policy creates transportation options for us, but culture (and necessity) drives the choices we make. I hope you have more ideas about changing our culture than I have. My only idea is: behaviorally, our culture is radically changed right now. There have to be ways to work off that starting point.

One obvious first step: pull our advocacy groups together and start brainstorming.

PS: Here are some good national-level recommendations from the Smart Growth Alliance, and some more good ideas from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

i^ Carbon Free Boston Summary Report 2019, p. 52.

DotBike was started over a decade ago by a handful of Dorchester residents with the goal of making our neighborhood more bike friendly. This consisted of organized group rides, bike repair events, and promoting and lobbying for better and safer biking routes.  Thanks to a few dedicated volunteers, DotBike had a few good active years, but once the main organizers moved on to other things, the group went dormant.

In the end of 2019 though, we met a number of recent and long-time Dorchester residents who expressed an interest in seeing DotBike become active again, and we hosted a large, energetic crowd at homestead café on January 15th, discussing the possibility of making DotBike an active chapter of the Boston Cyclist’s Union (BCU). After another meeting on February 27th, we voted to officially become a chapter of BCU!

Being a chapter of BCU means that DotBike will

• Take collective action and organize for cyclist’s rights
• Work to build an inclusive, diverse, multi-racial base of members. Efforts in a diversity working group have already started, and more updates on that will be posted soon.
• Have at least 1 chapter leader in regular communication with BCU
• Have at least 5 active chapter members
• Actively participate in Annual Boston Bike Budget campaigns

In return, BCU provides us with valuable organizational support and networks in the Boston cycling community and in city hall.

COVID-19 has affected all of us, both as members and as an organization. However, we are still going to be active, virtually and individually, capitalizing on this pivotal moment for our city. More to come, so stay tuned.

You can follow us on Twitter at @BikeDorchester, on Facebook, on through our RSS feed!

DotBike represents over two hundred bicycle commuters, enthusiasts, and supporters in Dorchester. As safe streets are a vital concern for our group, we would like to make some observations and comments with respect to the recent hearing on Docket #0509: “Order regarding traffic calming measures and the Vision Zero Boston Program” held on May 16th, 2016. 

First, thank you to all the councilors for being engaged with this issue, in particular Councilors Wu and Pressley for pressing the representatives from City of Boston on the timeline for implementing Vision Zero and how traffic injuries and fatalities can be addressed more quickly. Our main concern, with regards to the testimony, is with the apparent lack of vigorous action from the Department of Transportation on Vision Zero issues to date. Since the announcement of Vision Zero for the City of Boston by Mayor Walsh on March 24, 2015, it appears that the following list exhausts the tangible steps that the city has taken to improve the safety of cyclists and pedestrians:

1. Rapid response teams formed to investigate (and occasionally make street changes) following serious crashes.
2. Fifteen radar speed signs installed.
3. Crashes are discussed in BPD COMPSTAT meetings.
4. Hi-vis bracelets given out to seniors and people with disabilities.
   
   While #1 in the above list has led to some welcome changes (most notably, the flexposts along one block of Mass Ave where a cyclist was killed in a crash with a truck), the totality of measures appears to be grossly insufficient for a year’s worth of effort. We are aware that planning for Slow Streets and Priority Corridors is proceeding, however it appears that very little else is being done citywide. The officials from the BTD (notably Charlotte Fleetwood,  Project Manager for Vision Zero) seemed to imply that the reason we are seeing very few changes is
5. “engineering”: every change and safety solution must be “engineered”. This is curious in light of Commissioner Fiandacca’s suggestion that BTD has all the funds they need to proceed with Vision Zero implementation for City of Boston. Either engineering is a bottleneck (a problem that can be solved with proper application of funding) or it is not. We would like to see more from the city or understand better why relatively little is being done.
   
   We are also concerned that while Commissioner Fiandacca and Project Manager Fleetwood claimed that they listen to concern about traffic safety, there has not been a single street modification (as far as we know) in response to anything but a fatality. Issues raised with BOS311 are unanswered, and areas highlighted on the Boston Vision Zero Safety Concerns Map go unaddressed, creating an unwelcome impression that while the city is happy to solicit feedback, it remains disinterested in acting on the community input it solicits.
   
   Finally, we would like to respectfully disagree with the enforcement focus put forward by our esteemed colleague, Richard Fries of Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition. While it is true that we would also prefer more enforcement with respect to bicycle lane violations, we ultimately believe the city needs to focus its energy on building safe and sustainable bicycling infrastructure.

To address the aforementioned concerns, we urge the councilors to take the following actions in the near future:

• Pass a measure calling for the installation of speed and red light cameras citywide. This is a measure that the Boston Police Department supports, and would generate revenue for the city while reducing speeds and freeing officers to perform other law enforcement tasks.
• Continue to push City Officials on clear identification of bottlenecks to implementation of traffic safety measures and traffic calming, and strategic steps for how those these impediments can be overcome. Saying “engineering” should not be taken as a sufficient answer as to why no action is taking place.

If we can be of any assistance in these efforts, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our members will be present at the Vision Zero Community Forum in Dorchester on June 9th, and will welcome an opportunity to speak with you about the issues.

Sincerely, 
Kirill Shklovsky, DotBike Executive Committee
(on behalf of DotBike)

Explore streets, historic sites and scenic shoreline while getting to know your neighbors who bike!

Collect 1 or all 4 of the 2016 Inter-neighborhood Rides this summer!
#NeighborhoodRideSeries

MAY 21st, MATTAPAN
https://www.facebook.com/events/218186235227242/
JUNE 11th, QUINCY
https://www.facebook.com/events/211408385909012/
JULY 9th, DORCHESTER
https://www.facebook.com/events/1520464844927769/
AUGUST 13th, ROXBURY
​https://www.facebook.com/events/1748946085374662/

MARCH 2016, WBUR: 
“There’s no one, contiguous, safe off-road path that’s going to take you from Dorchester to downtown, to your doctor’s appointment or your job, or any of the other things that you need to stay healthy, stay alive and stay paid.” – Noah Hicks, DotBike member and owner of Bowdoin Bike School

SEPTEMBER 2015, Boston Globe:
“I went to Home Depot, bought the mums that were on sale for $6, and then just put them down and walked away.” – Jonathan Fertig, DotBike member. Fertig said his act of tactical urbanism — a term used to describe a temporary measure that improves or transforms a city — was driven by motorists using the existing bike lane as a traffic turn lane, and the city’s sluggish efforts to erect plastic posts near the intersection as previously promised.

SEPTEMBER 2015, WBUR: 
“We need more infrastructure to show both where to ride and to tell cars that bikes have actual permission to ride on the roads.” – Phil Lindsay, DotBike member

AUGUST 2014, Dorchester Reporter: 
“Seeing people and families go on biking events together gives me hope and reassurance for the future in cycling. This is possible, this is easy, this is accessible, and this should be taken to its full advantage…I’d like to see Bowdoin-Geneva become a hub of family biking or subsistence biking with folks who are biking to survive like I was. That’s the kind of world I want to see.” – Noah Hicks, DotBike member and owner of Bowdoin Bike School

AUGUST 2014, Boston Magazine: 
“We want more people to bike in Dorchester. Having free access to tools to fix a flat tire or adjust your brakes will help remove some barriers to biking.” – Dotbike

JULY 2013, Dorchester Reporter:
Philip Lindsay, an advocate for DotBike and long-time Boston bicyclist, said that Dorchester’s heavy use of public transportation would make it a perfect candidate for an extensive bike-sharing system. “Dorchester deserves what the rest of the city has,” he said. “We might be riding the wrong way down the street with no helmets,” he said, laughing. “But people here [in Dorchester] are interested in biking.”