Bike Jam
Not to long ago, there weren’t that many people riding bicycles around Boston and surrounding areas. The few who did were pretty badass. Badass and lonely.
Now the lone cyclist is not alone. Roads are changing, more people are riding bicycles…
…and people are learning how to ride around other people who ride bicycles.
While bicyclists are still a small minority of commuters, there is visible growth and growing pains. I’ve started taking a new commute route through Kendall Square each day. Each day I get stuck in a bike jam.
Which is really cool. Except many still operate like they’re a lone cyclist. But hopefully with time, experience, and better infrastructure we’ll find a way to smooth things out.
I actually dread on the day Boston has bicycle traffic jams.
Ah yes, the Beacon Street Highway. I know it well. 🙂
I always try to find the route with low traffic (low auto and low bike traffic) and no buses. Bikes and buses bug me because they have the nerve to want to use the same lane I’m in! (And buses are giant road-hogging monsters you can’t see around). Cars stay ‘over there’ away from me, unless there’s a stoplight, then it’s all block block block my path.
So you have to try alternate routes, but I found a few in Chicago that gets me to work with very few problems (and no bike traffic jams, thank God).
There’s a no such thing as single file ‘bike etiquette’ at stoplights, or even road etiquette (cars follow laws because they’re dangerous and will get a ticket for violations). Bike riders, pedestrians, even cars, will fill up whatever space is available on the road. It’s human nature. Someone ‘jumping the line’ is simply biking ahead. He/she couldn’t do it if the space wasn’t available to occupy. The concept of a ‘single file line’ is all in your head. It doesn’t exist on the road. The road is not a bank ATM machine (one example someone cited). That only has one access point – hence, a line to use it. The road has multiple access points (empty spaces at a light waiting for someone to fill it). Is there a single file line to use a bike rack? Is there a single line for a six-dispenser fast food soda machine? Hell no, just reach over. Bike riders in the Netherlands line up two across at a bike light because that’s all the bikes that can fit in that small bike lane/road space. Our roads are much wider. And someone invariably bikes on the sidewalk even in the Netherlands (watch the Youtube videos). Pedestrians don’t ‘line up’ at a light – not even in queue-happy Great Britain – they fill whatever space is next to the curb (including that spot next to the newspaper box down aways), and then even spill into the street.