I get a ton of ‘state of the bike lane’ type emails outlining just how great the biking community is doing, and how much progress is being made toward creating a culture of tolerance and equality on the roads of Boston. And then I go outside and get on my bike, and as I roll around the streets, I wonder just what Spandex Sally and Fixed Gear Fred (who apparently won’t approve my comments any more, because it’s great to be idiotically optimistic, but not ok to be appalled and cynical) are fucking talking about. It’s all very well that more bike lanes are being put down, but what does that matter if they’re still being used as personal jogging lanes, loading zones, taxi lanes, and dropoff areas for Grandma and the Special Snowflakes?

Here’s an example of what I do every day while the rest of the spandex crew are strapping on their clip shoes and patting themselves on the back:

N. Harvard Lane Patrol

After about a half hour, the police finally show up (after I called three times) and ask the vans to move. Success? Not so much. The vans  just re-parked completely on the sidewalk. I called the police again, but didn’t really have the heart to continue waiting. At least the bike lane was clear.

N. Harvard Lane Patrol, Conclusion

In the 30-40 minutes I was there, 30-40 cyclists rode through. Not one of them gave any grief to the vehicles parked in the bike lane on this extremely busy causeway.  I  know that going to bike related events in your little spandex pants and caps is super fun, and you feel like you’re part of a something important. However, unless you’re actually helping to change the on-street,  every day culture of cyclist victimization, you’re essentially only throwing money at the problem. Bike lanes don’t make streets safer unless motorists respect them. If I had a dollar for every time a car, truck or bus swerved into the bike lane and hit me or came close enough to make me scream, I could actually afford one of those chic chrome bags all the cool kids wear. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Anyway, fucking do something, guys. And I don’t mean milling about drinking beer and chowing on pulled pork. Call the cops. Videotape some shit. File a report. Support not only bike lanes but RED LIGHT CAMERAS, and bike boxes, and more traps for cars. We are a long way from getting the respect we deserve.

On a lighter note, here’s a picture of Crash eating a lobster.

Memorial Day Weekend

In an effort to rid the city of disease-ridden, vicious cyclists, Cambridge has installed a number of these innovative new traps. As the vermin try to pass over the trap, the thumb-sized bits of gravel draws their wheels into the sharply sloping pit, allowing passing motorists to conveniently mash their heads, rendering them harmless. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE CYCLIST YOURSELF! Once the pit trap is full, local authorities will send out a maintenance crew to remove the bodies.

Pit Trap

In Michigan, 60 students were suspended because they did nothing more than ride their bikes to school. Talk about Anti Bike Culture. And all this rot about Mass being #3 on the ‘nicest places to bike’ list by the League of American Bicyclists. Hmm, I wonder how much we paid donated to get that ranking? Does that mean that if I attempt to bike in any other state, I will end  up not only emotionally scarred, but possibly maimed beyond recognition and likely killed, no matter how safely I bike? How much do you want to bet that the ‘League of American Bicyclists’ owns a lot of spandex and only take their bikes out on sunny weekends?

The Goondock’s debut Porchfest featured Music for Terraforming and Big Blue Octopus.  Our humble spacedock was graced by their presence once again this year, and Poor Everybody also made a high-energy appearance, drawing a crowd full of hoopers, dancing babies, wandering normals and their puppies, and even a dude with a trampoline. Seth slung delicious vittles again, and people consumed more beer than I ever thought possible. All in all it was a great success, but you don’t have to take MY word for it:

This used to be my bike lane…

204-209 N. Harvard St. Allston MA, Facing North

204-209 N. Harvard St. Allston MA, Facing South

There  used to be a full bike lane here, aligning perfectly with the one further north on N. Harvard. It was  a bit treacherous because all kinds of vehicles would park in it anyway to visit the Dunken Donuts lurking behind the UPS truck in pic 2, but I was vigilant and tried to clear them out every time. Sadly, the three or four times I came across a fire engine or ambulance there, they just laughed at me when I asked them to move from the bike lane.

And then, they paved the road. The bike lane has reappeared on the opposite side of the street, but I guess the Infrastructure Gurus think that our safety is less important than the public’s need for hot coffee and glazed donuts.

Thanks again, guys!

I just saw a cop in uniform take a swift and badly executed left on very red while in a civilian car with civilian plates. He had also cut me off. When I barked, “Thanks!” into his open window, he retorted with “FUCK YOU!”.

If that isn’t exemplary of the entire bloody situation, I really don’t know what is.

I’m so sick of holier-than-thou cyclists applauding the recent attention we have been getting from the po-po. Oh, really? This means we have arrived? You don’t say? So what you’re saying is that if I call the police today and tell them I’ve been hit by an MBTA bus, and that I’m on a bicycle and not harmed physically, they won’t respond with, “What do you want us to do about it?”. And if I am knocked over by a car making an unannounced right turn and I phone the Allston police, I  won’t hear, “Sorry, there is nothing we can do unless you’re injured.”

That would be great! Unfortunately for all of us, it’s a pile of shiny crap. If I am in a motor vehicle of any kind, and I am hit by another motor vehicle, or hell, even a cyclist, the cops will respond within minutes. I’ve tested this and so have you, as do hundreds of drivers every month here in good ole’ Beantown. Try it if you’re on a bike, however, and the tune changes completely. Unless the cops are called by a startled bystander who just watched your head go through the windshield of an SUV, or as they watch your crumpled, broken body bleed out onto the pavement in the wake of an MBTA bus that made a quick and unannounced stop right through  you, you are going to be left high and dry by the same establishment that wants you to believe that you are ‘recognized and accepted’.

I hear a lot of bullshit every day, but rarely does such a whiffy grade of dook affect me so intimately.  Let me reminisce…

Do you remember not so long ago when I was hit by MBTA buses making sharp turns into their stops, while I was in the bike lane  not one or two but THREE times in two months? If you ride, you know exactly what I mean: you’re tooling along happily in your lane, and suddenly you hear a roar from  your left as a bus passes you at about 25mph. Just as it gets exactly half it’s length past you, it brakes and pulls sharply to the right, knocking you over, pinching you to the curb or sometimes knocking you fully over the curb. Each time this happened, I called the police and was told, “that’s not our jurisdiction”. Interesting. I called the MBTA police and was forced to leave a message. I never got a response. I left complaint after complaint on the MBTA website.  I never got a response.  After that I started chasing these buses myself trying to retrieve the identity of the  driver. “Give me your name, you just HIT ME!”, I hollered through the closed door. “I DON’T HAVE TO!” the portly bus driver lady hollered back. She had hit me intentionally, after a threat that she’d do so. I’m sorry, but if you are in your car and another car rams you intentionally, I daresay that is ASSAULT WITH A DANGEROUS WEAPON.

Or how about the call after call after call, and television spot, and email complaints, etc that I’ve sent to everyone from the Allston police to the Mayor, regarding the intersection of Cambridge St. and Harvard St.  At every single round of lights, all day and night, all year long, vehicles run this red at a rate of between 3-10 vehicles each time. This includes police vehicles, fire engines, schoolbuses full of children, MBTA buses, you name it. What has been done about this known issue that endangers the lives of hundreds of people, including myself, every day? DICK. SQUAT.

And then there was the time when, during a rainy, dank monday, a BMW driver taking a sharp right onto Waterhouse ST. from Mass Ave hit my wheel, stopped, and rolled down the window to shriek, “I oughta run you off the fucking road!!” and peeled away as I picked up my bike, retorting weakly, “…you just did.”  I called the police and they told me I could ride over to the station, with my taco’d wheel, if I wanted to give a statement, but that in all likelihood they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

I feel so accepted! XD

(FYI, every single time I have been hit, I was following the law to the letter. Go figure.)

As far as I can see, cyclists are really a type of untouchable caste, undeserved of the same protection and attention as their ‘betters’ in cars or on foot. If I’m going to be untouchable, I’m taking all the perks, thank you very much.  As an invisible two-wheeled peasant, I am happy to look after myself, as long as I don’t have to kowtow to the same institutional bullshit as the vehicular vaisyas and the bureaucratic brahmins.

The cops’ methods of enforcement are similarly insulting. They will wait at particular ‘trouble intersections’ (read: wherever it’s easiest to park and reasonably close to a cafe) and hide behind a vehicle, watching for cyclist that run lights, who the cops will then grab bodily as the cyclist rides by.  I’ve only ever seen them at intersections through which it is completely safe for bikes to proceed through a red – great visibility, long pedestrian lights. I also only see them on bright, sunny days. It must be really swell to be able to avoid the streets during days like today, with the constant downpour and the foot-deep road lakes. Color me envious.

How about putting a patrol in Harvard Square Southbound, where I can flag you down and indicate the taxis parked in the bike lane, or the bus that just ran me off the road during the curve in front of the COOP? Oh right, it ‘s because you’d end up giving more tickets to motorists than cyclists. Man, life is hard for the long arm of the law.

The situation is like a heavy-handed after-school special on Lifetime. The protagonist is a delinquent teenager (la cyclistas, obvs), disobedient and destructive. We want them to shape up and we wonder why they act out so ferociously.  And then we’re treated to a snapshot of their home life. GovernMom is preoccupied and removed, preferring to buy the child’s love with gifts and privilege, while the Police Dadpartment is abusive, dismissive and hypocritical. Who will steer this kid through the confusing and traumatic journey through adolescence? Will Cindy the Cyclist give up her coke habit, dump her bad news boyfriend and finally apply to her college of choice?

I wouldn’t keep your fingers crossed.