By Marc Larocque
Throughout the spring semester, senior civil engineering students at Northeastern have been deployed throughout the city to survey streets and take measurements of sidewalks. Two dozen students were split into six groups by a Northeastern professor to count cars at well-trafficked intersections, sketch potential bridges, reconsider rotaries and develop plans for reconfigured traffic signals to alleviate stress on the streets.
Their mission: to make Boston safer for bikes.
Four groups are creating plans for bike lanes that would connect to existing ones on city streets.
The other two groups are developing plans to connect Emerald Necklace parks with the Charles River greenway. This includes a bikeway from the Southwest Corridor to the Back Bay Fens, which bisects Northeastern in what they call “the World Series Path.”
The four projects focusing on the street bike lanes will span from the Esplanade to Copley Square on Dartmouth Street going through the Back Bay; from Summer and L streets where it continues past South Station into South Boston; from Kenmore Square to the Public Garden near Arlington Street; and from the Boston University Bridge to Warren Street in Allston on Commonwealth Avenue.
“We are designing bike lanes for reduced stress travel for cyclists without changing the geometry of the road, but just adding an extra lane for cyclists,” said Zachary Wassmouth, who is working with three other civil engineering students. “We’ve gone out to the streets to measure the road. We want to add bike lanes without trying to affect the roads too much.”
Instead of altering sidewalks, the bike lane plans call for the road markings to be repainted to allow for about five feet of space for bikes, Wassmouth said.
Wassmouth’s group is focusing on the Commonwealth Avenue stretch starting at Kenmore Square. His portion of the group work is unique because it calls for left-side bike lanes and “bike boxes.”
“Since Commonwealth has the median in the middle,” Wassmouth,” and one side goes one way and the other side goes another, this would make it so that bikes don’t have to worry about double-parked cars, or if a car parked on the right opens up his door in front of the bike.”
T bike boxes are an advanced stop line for bikes, etched in blue for visibility.
“It’s just painted on the pavement so, in the case of Comm. Ave., if people are going to take a left turn, they might not be expecting a bike to be on their left … bikes will have a stop line in front of the cars so they will be seen at the red light. It also gives the cyclist a chance to get a head start out of the drivers way so the bicyclist can take a left turn.”
The work is for the civil engineering students’ capstone projects. They are instructed by professor Peter Furth, who has led civil engineering students in capstone bikeway design projects since 2004. But this year is different, he said, because Mayor Thomas Menino had “his magical turnaround” and developed goals for the city to become more bike friendly.
Furth spoke at a public meeting for the Boston Transportation Department at Fenway High School Feb. 28 to unveil the students’ overarching plans to the public.
The Solomon Foundation, a family charity fund, is acting as an advocate for the Northeastern project, meaning they would be willing to pay for a professional company to finish where the students stop, tying up loose ends in the design and making estimates on the cost of construction.
President Joseph Aoun heard about the capstone projects and sent a last-minute invitation for a student leadership reception to the Northeastern seniors involved.
The plans also caught the attention of Nicole Freedman, the city of Boston’s first-ever bicycle coordinator, who was hired to direct the mayor’s Boston Bikes project.
“It’s wonderful because they are taking a look at some areas with some real potential to make good projects,” said Freedman, who first discussed the plans with Furth at the Boston Bike Summit this fall. “Their creativity is wonderful. The best part in general I saw is the connectivity. It’s one of the most important pieces. It would obviously attract a substantial amount of riders.”
The implementation of the plans are contingent upon the mayor’s new budget, which will be released in August, Freedman said.
“We won’t neccesarily [use the capstone projects]. It’s always looking at which projects are going to have an impact and which are feasible,” Freedman said. “If somewhere down the line, if DCR (Department of Conservation and Recreation) or the city wants to pursue those projects, what the students are doing will speed up the process and save on design costs.”
Professor Furth estimates the students’ plans could save the city tens of thousands of dollars should they choose to pursue them. Some of the bike paths could be implemented as early as October, he said.
The students hope their hard work will come to fruition.
“The project itself can be very intense at times,” said Christopher Longenbacker, who is working in a group with Wassmouth. “I’d be really happy if the city decides to implement any or all of the plans. Boston has the potential to become a very bike-friendly city and I’m happy – and honored – to be a part of getting things rolling.”
Longenbaker handed in his inch-thick draft report on Monday. Final presentations for the groups will take place Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. at 108 Snell and will be open to the public. The presentations are co-sponsored by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Mass Bike, Walk Boston, the Fenway Alliance and the Livable Streets Alliance.
