This May, MassBike teamed up with the Museum of Science on a column in their Earthshift newsletter from the Museum of Science Center for the Environment. These bicycling-themed updates covered everything from bicycling history to biking for climate. Thanks to the Museum of Science for being a 2024 Bronze-level Bay State Bike Month Sponsor and collaborating on this series! Below is the second column, "All biking is local", a look into bicycling infrastructure and how to advocate for safer roadways.

"All biking is local"

Bike lanes are regional and local infrastructure, helping our roads become not only safer for bikers but also calm and slow traffic.  

Looking around the landscape of Greater Boston today, you shouldn’t be surprised to see a variety of bike lanes, green paint, striped lines, flexible bollards, and curb-separated paths for riders to safely navigate the urban core on two-wheels. Yet few folks may remember that the City of Boston had a total of zero miles of bike lanes until 2008 when the first lane was installed from the BU Bridge to Kenmore Square. Nowadays, bike lanes are on almost every major corridor, and you’ll find a growing network providing direct connectivity to key destinations like workplaces, schools, parks, shopping centers, and health care providers. 

The development of Greater Boston’s bicycle network has evolved over the past 15 years. Initial work focused on “low hanging fruit” where lanes could be installed without changing traffic patterns, removing parking, or narrowing corridors for vehicles, but these appealed generally to the few cyclists already comfortable riding in automobile traffic. However, as more people are encouraged to take to two wheels, cities and towns are responding by building comfortable and accessible bike routes as a method to calm and slow traffic, helping our roads become safer for everyone. With more protections, the goal now is for the most vulnerable riders to be prioritized for their safety. This is what we like to call the “Ice Cream Test:” Can a grandparent ride with their grandchild to the store to buy ice cream and return home before it melts? 

But working in New England can be tricky due to two key challenges. One is that our streets are not a grid, so each modification to the roads requires a contextual analysis to fit complex traffic flows. The second is transportation is a regional concern since people don’t just bike to the town line and stop, so municipal leaders need to coordinate with their neighbors to achieve success. At MassBike, we like to paraphrase the great Massachusetts congressman Tip O’Neill with “All Biking Is Local,” meaning that most decisions about infrastructure, and the pressure to act, happen on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level. 

And that’s where you come in. We hope you’ll get involved in local conversations and help your street, neighborhood, city, and region become safer, more welcoming, and more connected so you and your neighbors can get out on bikes and enjoy life from behind the handlebars. 

Stay tuned for two additional columns from this bicycling series and you can read the first installment "Biking on the Wheels of Change". For more from the Museum of Science make sure to sign up for their Earthshift newsletter.