Ride Island Speaker Series: Free and Open to the Public
Tuesday, April 30, 2024 6-7:30pm
Innovate Newport | Conference Hall
513 Broadway, Newport, RI
Free and Open to the Public
Register at Eventbrite.
Today, the City of Cambridge is far ahead of the curve with many streets reflecting current day best practices for traffic calming, pedestrian safety, separated bicycle lanes, and transit priority.
How did all this come about? It started in the 1970’s with the cancellation of a massive 8-lane highway that would have gone through the center of the city, repurposing those federal funds into a critical subway expansion program. The 1992 “Vehicle Trip Reduction Ordinance” led to the launch of the bicycle and pedestrian program and the first bike lanes. The 1998 “Parking and Transportation Demand Management” ordinance put a cap on drive to work trips for new developments.
Widespread deployment of traffic calming measures in the early 2000’s was followed by a systematic effort to repurpose excess roadway space for wider sidewalks and bike lanes as well as the first separated bike lane built since the one in Davis, CA in 1967. A subsequent next-generation protected bike lane was awarded “best new bike lane in the US” in 2015.
A spate of deaths motivated the 2019 “Cycling Safety Ordinance” which mandated implementation of the Cambridge Bicycle Network Plan on an aggressive timeline. Simultaneously, the newly formed Transit Team started rolling out bus priority lanes. These two efforts require travel lane reductions and removal of parking causing political pushback over the past several years.
As a former City of Cambridge employee, speaker Jeff Rosenblum will address the nuances of how this all happened.
Guest Speaker Jeff Rosenblum is Principal Planner at Toole Design. Jeff co-founded the Boston-based non-profit Livable Streets Aliance , worked as a planner and engineer for the City of Cambridge, and co-teaches a Sustainable Transportation summer course in the Netherlands for Northeastern University students.
Register at Eventbrite.
Bike Newport