People-Protected Bike Lane In Porter Square For A Night

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Thursday night dozens of people formed a people-protected bike lane, standing between traffic and the bicycle lane in Porter Square as a way to draw attention to the need for better bicycle and pedestrian safety infrastructure.

The activists were unhappy about the decision by the Middlesex district attorney’s office to not charge the driver of a semi-truck that collided with a cyclist and ended up killing him in the area in 2016.

But that only highlighted an ongoing problem, said activists from Cambridge Bicycle Safety, Livable Streets Alliance and Boston Cyclists Union. A pedestrian, Marcie Mitler, was also killed by a car in the area that same year and although the city has promised improvements for pedestrians and cyclists. They're slow in coming.

"Unfortunately, planned safety improvements have been delayed and are inadequate," reads the social media call to action ahead of Thursday's rally. "Porter, Inman, Harvard and Central Squares are dangerous by design and it’s long past time that it be redesigned to prioritize safety for people walking and biking. While the city deserves credit for including protected bike lanes in the design for Inman Square, Porter Square’s proposed changes include no protection whatsover."

The group says at least seven bicyclists and pedestrians have been killed in crashes on streets in Cambridge since 2015.

In the past four months, a high school teacher crossing Mass Ave in Central Square was struck and killed, and a high school student riding on the street was injured in a hit and run crash.

"The city has missed multiple opportunities during street reconstructions to create safe routes for people riding, even though those streets were slated for separated bicycle infrastructure in the Bicycle Plan. Examples include Huron Ave, Garden St, Concord Ave, Mt Auburn St, North Mass Ave.

The activists some who bike and some who just support cyclists are calling for the installation of a city-wide network of protected bike lanes to hasten. As it is, they say, only one of three called for by the Vision Zero Plan is in the works to be completed by 2020, and that stalled in the planning stages.

Arlington resident Steve Petrarca showed up said because he rides on many of the Cambridge streets for leisure and knows many who ride them on their way to work.

"I've also had a few close calls while on the road that could be easily avoided with better infrastructure," he told Patch in a message.

Between 70 and more than 100 people gathered, some with signs and with a police officer standing nearby as well as a band. The group created a “people protected bike lane” along Somerville and Massachusetts avenues and cheered as cyclists drove through.

On April 2, Ryan’s office announced that the results of an investigation into the crash that killed Joe Lavins, 60, of Lexington, on Oct. 5, 2016, indicated that the cause of the crash was the blind spot in front of the tractor-trailer.

"It was very likely that the driver of the truck could not perceive the cyclist as the cyclist entered the lane of the travel without signaling,” prosecutors said in a statement.

PREVIOUSLY: Victim Identified in Fatal Porter Square Bicycle Crash

Fatal Bike, Truck Crash In Porter Square: No Charges Says DA

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Photos courtesy Steve Petrarca