False and misleading statements
To the Editor,
I’m writing in response to the un-bylined editorial titled “Mayhem in the Bike Lane” from the June 6, 2025 edition of the Beacon Hill Times. There are a few false and misleading statements that I’d like to respond to.
To begin, the cited increase in bicycle fatalities in New York in 2023; “the most since 1999” claims the editorial. However, this obscures the fact that bicycle ridership has quadrupled in the past 15 years and as such the rate of bike fatalities is much lower. Certainly, everyone’s goal is no fatalities, but the increase in protected bike lanes in New York is making this mode of transit safer for bicyclists, such that more people are choosing to ride bikes.
Next, the editorial insinuates that John Corcoran was killed in the roadway in front of the BU boathouse, but Mr. Cocoran was killed when an SUV, driving too fast on Memorial Drive, hopped onto the sidewalk and hit him head on. This is not an instance of a poorly designed bike lane forcing cars and cyclist into conflict. In fact, protected bike lanes and cycle tracks can be powerful traffic calming measures which signal to drivers that this is an area to drive slowly, safely and not a street to be treated as a freeway.
The editorial also makes claims about the bike lanes being “seldomly used”, however, Bluebikes reports over 13,000 daily trips on average. And that doesn’t even include those of us who ride our own bikes. I’d also suggest that the author check out the city’s “Everyone Deserves Safe Streets” report, which outlines the existing plan to connect the existing bicycle infrastructure into a more cohesive bike network.
Finally, while I am glad that the author has experienced the joy of bicycling in triathlons, there are many of us who use bikes as an actual mode of transportation. We ride bicycles to work, school, doctor’s appointments, soccer practices, and the grocery store. We are out there every day getting around the city. We need improvements to our streets now, and we need them to be streets that serve all parts of the city. Anyone who watched the lengthy community input process that preceded the West Roxbury Centre Street improvements could not claim that it was rushed or lacked input from residents. City streets are a shared resource and their number one priority should be that they are safe for all users, from the kids biking to school, to the tourists walking around and taking in the sights, to the trucks carrying supplies, and people commuting to work.Kalli Catcott