The City of Somerville will install protected bike lanes on Route 28 across the Wellington Bridge thanks to a MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces Program grant award.
This new statewide funding program supports public health by facilitating quick-build projects that provide new or repurposed space for socially-distanced walking, bicycling, dining, retail, and bus travel during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Wellington Bridge has long represented a gap in the regional network of walking and biking routes along the Mystic River. A narrow 4-foot sidewalk prevents social distancing for people walking, jogging, rolling, and biking across the bridge. Local and regional policy plans identify this crossing as a priority for upgrades to better connect the riverside parklands, employment centers, and transit hubs of Somerville, Medford, Everett, and Boston. Although the City of Somerville will perform the work, the project was planned in partnership with the City of Medford and with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Installation is expected to take place in late fall 2020.
The grant-funded project will reconfigure pavement markings on the bridge, reducing the width of the motor vehicle lanes and using the reclaimed space to establish a physically-separated bike lane in each direction that connects to existing pathways in Assembly Square, Station Landing, MacDonald Park, and Blessing of the Bay Park. The separated bike lanes will reduce crowding on the sidewalks, improving comfort and safety for people on foot or on wheels. Narrower lane widths for motor vehicles are intended to reduce speeding, improving safety for all road users.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Somerville has prepared and implemented strategies for safe and equitable mobility. A citywide Shared Streets network was established to better connect residents to essential services and destinations. A major outdoor dining initiative transformed streets into restaurant seating spaces to support the economic recovery. And to reduce crowding on MBTA buses, the City will build new on-street transit lanes, including a dedicated bus lane and protected bike lane along Washington Street in East Somerville.
For more information and regular COVID-19 updates, visit somervillema.gov/covid19 and sign up for City alerts at http://www.somervillema.gov/Alerts. We urge you to sign up for every alert method you are able to receive: phone call, text, email. Also follow FB.com/SomervilleCity and @SomervilleCity.
The damn grant is funded by owners of cars who pay excise tax. Its not by the wingnut bicyclist who think they own the roads, sidewalks, bus lanes and pedestrian cut throughs
I cant wait until december when they are riding in the cold, snow and unclear passage ways.
Are you people kidding? Next you will be on rte 93 dodging tractor trailers, buses, and cars for the express lane.
The political establishment continues to cowar to the whack job’s. That’s no too bad as the election progresses that’s what l will really put them over the deep end. When none of the get to go to DC. Hopefully their mask will hide their sadness and the bike lanes will be defunded for road equality.
Another bright idea to mess things up before Winter. I have biked over the years to Medford using the bridge or going by way of the boat house. Not a problem. Looking at the bridge several times day as I drive by it is not generating enough foot and bike traffic to warrant this yet. As for the dining the mayor has held things back so much as to set a record for being the only city in the state to hold things up for longest time. Doing more to cripple the chances of recovery than any other mayor or town leader in MA. Faster bus lanes, big joke. Less people riding, will be less service as now the T is cutting back on service. More people using cars now due to covid. So bus lanes will just add more congestion and air pollution to vehicle now having to sit in traffic while bus lanes sit there unused and empty. Any more dumb ideas from the city about to come??? City is on a roll in these difficult times doing the opposite of helping with the problems of today. Somebody please run for office and help save Somerville.