Description

Tried biking through Porter Square this morning and taking the "Bike Left Turn Jughandle". I like the green paint, it's far more visible. Unfortunately, it's 100% ineffective because traffic blocks the bike lane whenever the light is green for cyclists.

This morning while I'm waiting at the light a 77 bus pulled up, behind another bus, with the rear passenger door opening up right in front of my front wheel. A bus rider gets off and starts admonishing me for "blocking her way". I'm riding a 100lbs cargo bike, it's not something that's easily moved, and even if it were, I'm not going to move out of the way from where I'm supposed to be waiting, the bus driver shouldn't have stopped here if they couldn't clear the intersection. While all the passengers filter off the bus the bike signal turns green, yellow, and red. Now I'm stuck waiting for an entire extra cycle, which at this intersection is several minutes long, which kind of sucks on a cold, below freezing morning, particularly when I'm trying to do everything correctly.

The premise here is sound, give cyclists a safe way to make a left turn onto Somerville Ave. I love the basic implementation, but it's not helpful if traffic just blocks your way. Please consider retiming the lights and reaching out to the MBTA (the most frequent offender) to train their bus drivers *not* to block the crosswalk/bike lane here.