Work to add bike, bus lanes to Boylston Street in the Back Bay could start soon

Be serious John

You've got a point about the 18 wheelers.

Everyone screams about not enough parking in new Condo buildings, but one of the biggest culprits of clogging our streets is that businesses in Boston do not plan for loading zones, alleys, docks or anything to receive goods. They export all of that hassle on to city streets and on to drivers, pedestrians, residents, and bikers. I sometimes feel bad for tractor trailer drivers delivering in the city, because there literally are not place for them to pull in or even pull over at most businesses.

Other than requiring new businesses to plan for loading zones, the city needs to start taxing businesses/delivery services that deliver to local businesses with large, "18 wheeler" or many multiple axel trucks. This is so that there is financial incentives to use smaller vehicles for local delivery. It's unacceptable the number of huge trucks blocking lanes on major thoroughfares such as Mass Ave, Dot Ave, etc, during MORNING RUSH HOUR on a daily basis. And most of the time they're unloading only a small number of pallets out of a nearly empty trailer. Sheer laziness due to complete lack of incentives to do things any differently.

All the problems/crimes you mention are caused by drivers. Bike lanes exist to protect cyclists from dangerous drivers and to promote cycling as a method of transportation. More bike lanes equal less drivers which benefits everyone.

Nice set of straw men you have there, John.

--The bus lane is not on the side filled with uber eats pickups.
--Parking still allowed between Dartmouth and Clarendon, including a specific area for moped parking right where they tend to congregate now.
--The bike lane crosses sides just before Hynes so there is plenty of non-bike lane space for Uber/Lyft to drop off at Hynes and the Pru and the bus lane doesn't start until after Ring Road.

CVS will have to figure something out, possibly by working with the city to designate some of that parking for unloading only during certain hours. Or using smaller delivery trucks in the alley behind.

I'll take my cookie now.

I wouldn’t want to ride a bike on that stretch of Boylston. I have and there’s no way it’s not going to be nerve wracking no matter what you do. Why not add some barriers and improve the bike lanes on Comm Ave, only two blocks away? Better yet how about bike lanes on an otherwise pedestrianized Newbury Street?

This is the Internet, after all. That's not allowed here.

When the Harvard Bridge was reduced from four lanes to two there were some people (surprisingly, though, not that many) who predicted it would be a traffic apocalypse. And it has been fine. Ditto with the Longfellow during construction a few years ago (for those of us old enough to remember).

If you look at a highly-utilized bicycle facility like on Hampshire Street in Cambridge or Mass Ave crossing the river, there are often as many bicyclists as there are cars, but while cars take up a lot more room and clear through intersections much more slowly.

Oversimplifying: cars going 20 mph are separated by about 40 feet, so 60 feet per vehicle. At slower speeds there's less separation, at faster speeds, more. So, about 60 feet per vehicle, at 20 mph that's 29 feet per second, so a car every 2 seconds or so. So a 30 second light phase can accommodate about 15 vehicles.

Bicycles are about 5 feet long and separated by about as much, so about 10 feet, if no one is biking two abreast or half-wheeling. But they only move at about 12 mph = 18 fps. Still, that means about two bikes per second, so that same 30 second signal phase is enough for about 60 bicycles to pass through. (See, for instance, this.) With two queues of 20 vehicles, bikes would clear the queue in a few seconds and then the lane would appear "empty", while cars would take the entire cycle and have some left over backed up waiting for the next one.

Others have posted on 53' trucks delivering to CVS, and I'd say the worst offender is Dunks, where they bring trucks into the city which are several times larger than the footprint of the stores they are delivering to. (I mean, other than food delivery, which, in the Back Bay, should be made by foot or bicycle or not at all.)

Oh, and, I know the T is a mess, especially this week, but Boylston Street in Back Bay is one of those places that it really isn't that hard to get to by bus, subway, Commuter Rail or bicycle from across the region, and the time you'll spend to find a parking space (leave aside the cost) will make up for the extra time you'll spend on the way there (unless you come at rush hour, when you'll wind up stuck in traffic somewhere else, probably). Which is not an excuse not to fix the T, lord knows it needs help.

With your illegal in MA Idaho stop.

https://www.theonion.com/congested-values-1819590506

Or this classic:
https://www.theonion.com/bum-rush-hour-1846606314