Monday really was quite the day in the regional paper of record when it comes to safety on this city’s streets:
To begin with, the Boston Globe’s editorial board took formal notice of what has definitely been apparent for some time – the entire street safety agenda in the city of Boston was put on hold over a year ago and, despite some highly isolated movement (on Rutherford Avenue, for example and for very specific reasons), there is no indication on the ground that that hold is being lifted: Wu backed off bike lanes last year. Now what?
And then, the Globe’s deputy editor Alan Wirzbicki drove the point home and actually openly solicited direct email feedback to alan.wirzbicki@globe.com on whether the mayor “overcorrected” on the deep freeze of the last year: Wu isn’t the bike lane mayor anymore, but what about the rest of the safe streets agenda?
Far be it from us to nod our heads with the Globe too often, but they have put their finger on a real concern about what is, or more plainly, isn’t happening in this city to make our streets safer for everyone who needs or wants to use them. We accordingly encourage our supporters to reach out to Alan and give him your feedback. It should of course surprise no one, but your correspondent is firmly in the “overcorrected” camp and hopes fervently that the freeze thaws quickly this spring. The best time to make our streets safer and more welcoming to everyone was yesterday; the next best time is today, and to answer Alan briefly here, I would absolutely expect speed humps to be first on the list of what starts up again. I too want one speed hump (two really) on my short block in Roslindale and know that many, many of my neighbors feel the same. I mean, in all candor, what’s the substantive issue on speed humps? They’re inexpensive, easily installed, don’t remove any parking spaces, and are simply very, very effective at getting drivers to avoid dangerous speeding, which is the absolute key to safety for everyone outside a motor vehicle, as you can see from the above chart – slow the vehicles down, and everybody has a much higher chance of survival no matter what happens. Speaking only for myself, I’d really like my city to take demonstrably effective steps to improve everyone’s chances of getting around and getting home every day safely. If we can’t find a way to implement speed humps again, one has to wonder how we can expect to get anything done.