Boston, an Urban Death Trap for Cyclists

The  report  found that the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed between 2017-2018 grew by 3.4% and 6.3%, respectively. This resulted in 208 more pedestrian fatalities and 51 more cyclist fatalities. On average, about 17 pedestrian and 2 cyclists were killed each day in 2018. The preliminary statistics from the NHTSA's 2019 report are not much better, with a harrowing 6,205 pedestrian and 846 cyclist fatalities.

Over the last decade, pedestrian deaths have remained nearly the same in rural areas, but have climbed by 69% in urban areas. Cyclist deaths in the same areas have increased by 48% from 2009 to 2018. These increases far outpace population growth in the US's urban areas, which the Census Bureau estimated to be at 13% from 2008 to 2017.

Since the City launched Boston Bikes, a program through the Boston Transportation Department that "helps plan and design streets for bicycling, [manages] the City's public bike share program, and add[s] bike parking," the number of people riding bikes in the City has grown tremendously. Ridership more than doubled from 2007 (when the program was founded) to 2015. In the summer of 2018, the program installed 70 new BlueBike stations in the City. As a  result , from 2018 to 2019, the number of trips taken by members with annual passes grew from 1.2 million to 1.6 million - a 30% increase!

But as more cyclists take to the streets, accidents are on the rise. Collisions involving bicycles in the Greater Boston suburban area increased by 9% from 2010 to 2012, according to a Boston Globe  analysis  of accident data from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Nearly 70% of the crashes in this period resulted in injuries. This data analysis does not even contain data from the City of Boston because the majority of pedestrian and cyclist accidents go unreported by the Boston police, according to the  Boston Globe . Unlike every other municipality in the state, Boston’s police department does not collect and submit standardised traffic crash data to state officials.

In 2015 the mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, announced a  plan  called Vision Zero with the goal of ending all traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by 2020. As of yet however, the commonwealth’s largest city is still not complying with basic data collection and reporting practices followed for years by other towns and cities across state, making the City of Boston appear safer than it really is for pedestrians and cyclists. The data used by Vision Zero is drawn from emergency medical response reports instead of police reports. The data does not capture crashes in which EMS was not called, nor is it reported to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Despite the Mayor's plans, 36 pedestrians and 8 cyclists have already been killed in motor-vehicle related accidents in 2020 according to  WalkBoston , a pedestrian advocacy group. The group collects its data through social media posts and news reports. This data is not reflected on Vision Zero's website.

Vision Zero has been collecting data on pedestrian and cyclist accidents from ambulance reports since the program's founding in early 2015. The map below was created using bicycle accidents that resulted in EMS calls from 2015 - November 2020 in the City of Boston. The red areas on the map indicate parts of the city where accidents have been spatially concentrated over a 5-year period, while the blue areas represent parts of the city that have seen a dearth of accidents. Neighbourhoods like Fenway, Back Bay and Downtown have had a high spatial concentration of accidents, while neighbourhoods like Hyde Park and Roslindale have had a low spatial concentration of accidents. Since 2015, the city has installed 717 new bike lanes. Of the 717 new bike lanes installed, 77% have been in accident "hotspots." This suggests that the city is making some efforts to curb accidents in the most dangerous parts of the city. Of the 717 new bike lanes added however, only 156 are separated bike lanes. This is an exclusive lane for bicycles that is physically separated from motor vehicle traffic by posts, parked cars, or a raised curb. These types of bike lanes are the most effective at preventing accidents.

Zoom and drag to explore. Click  here  to learn how the map was made.

The NHTSA  report  also reinforced research showing that pedestrian and cyclist deaths are higher in lower-income neighbourhoods which have been systematically neglected by city agencies. The  2008-2012 American Community Survey  found that the single largest group of Americans walking or biking to work earn less than $10,000 a year, yet they are more likely to see streets devoid of bike lanes, sidewalks, and traffic signals in their neighbourhoods. This same trend is playing out in Boston.

According to the 2014-2018 American Community Survey, the median household income in Boston in 2018 was $65,833. In neighbourhoods with a median household income below the city-wide median, people who commuted to work on bikes over a five-year period faced 2,028 accidents that resulted in EMS calls. This corresponds to a ~20% per capita accident rate for a five-year period. The per capita accident rate for a five-year period in neighbourhoods with a median income above the city-wide median was ~13%. This is a liberal estimate because the denominator in the accident rate calculations only included people who commute to work by bike, not people who use bikes recreationally. However, it still shows an enormous discrepancy between neighbourhoods on the low- and high-end of the income spectrum.

Zoom and drag to explore. Click  here  to learn how the map below was made.

In November 2020, the Massachusetts’s Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) which serves the city of Boston and the surrounding area, proposed a slate of sweeping service cuts to be implemented in 2021. Under the proposed  plan , the following major changes would take place:

• Bus and subway services would end at midnight, up to an hour earlier than before
• Subway frequency would decline by about 20%
• A number of bus routes with lower ridership or other nearby transit options would be consolidated or shortened, and 25 bus routes would be eliminated entirely, including some in suburbs such as Dedham, Melrose and Beverly
• Trolley’s on the Green Line’s E branch would end service at Brigham Circle rather than continuing to Heath Street
• All ferry service between downtown Boston and Hingham, Hull and Charlestown would stop operating as soon as March
• Commuter rail service would no longer be offered on the weekends and would stop after 9 p.m. on weekdays

Altogether the MBTA’s plan would shave roughly $130 from spending on services, and trim current offerings by 15% on the bus, 30% on subways and 35% on the commuter rail. The plan would also result in hundreds of layoffs in a time of mass-unemployment. The MBTA says the cuts are being made to help close a  $579 million budget gap  in fiscal year 2022 and offset losses in revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ridership across all forms of public transportation dropped sharply in the spring when businesses shut down. Only a small portion of pre-pandemic ridership–an average of about 40% on buses, 25% on subways, and 13% on the commuter rail–has  returned .

According to the MBTA’s plan, some of these cuts won’t take effect until June, when MBTA ridership will likely be on its way to returning to normal levels with the release of a COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, the MBTA claims these services will be restored once ridership returns to normal levels however, this has hardly been the case in the past. For  example , the Green Line E-branch used to extend beyond Heath Street to Arborway Station, connecting riders to the Orange Line through the nearby Forest Hills Station. That stretch of the line was “temporarily suspended” due to construction work in 1986 and has never been restored.

This is just one of many major changes to come to the MBTA in recent years. In November of 2017, the MBTA signed a $723 million-dollar contract with San Diego-based corporation Cubic Corp to privatise their fare collection system. Cubic will not only design this new system– called Automated Fare Collection 2.0 (AFC 2.0)–it will also operate and maintain it through 2031. The contract includes two 5-year extensions, meaning a private corporation could be in charge of maintaining and updating fare collection for the entire MBTA for the next 23 years. Set to be fully implemented by May 2021, AFC 2.0 will replace the old Charlie Cards and paper Charlie Tickets with credit cards, smartphones or new fare card that riders will tap against fare readers when boarding any train, bus or trolley. The use of cash on MBTA transit will become a relic of a bygone era. AFC 2.0 will also involve “tap-out” fare collection, where riders will be required to tap their phones as they enter and exit the train, creating a distance-based fare system where riders pay more the farther they have to travel. There has been little transparency from the MBTA about how this new system will change fares for riders. However, a similar system is in place in Washington DC where riders can pay up to $6 per trip during peak hours to ride the  MetroRail , as opposed to the current $2.25 flat rate that riders pay with a Charlie Card to ride Boston’s subways and busses, commonly referred to as the “T.”

Cities across the US are becoming increasingly concerned with urban traffic congestion and the air pollution, noise and traffic accidents associated with it. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute, which puts outs a yearly report called the Urban Mobility Report that provides a comprehensive analysis of traffic conditions in 494 urban areas across the United States, has found that expanding public transportation use is key to addressing urban congestion. According to the report, Boston is one of the top 10 congested areas in the United States.

The map below on the left shows the number of people per Boston neighbourhood who used public transportation to commute to work in 2019. It is overlaid by MBTA bus routes offered as of spring 2017. Routes being proposed for elimination by the state agency are coloured in red. Click each bus route to see its number, and each neighbourhood for the total number of public transit commuters in 2019.

The map on the right includes the "T" lines in blue and bus lines in red and black. Bus lines being proposed for elimination are in red. ¼-mile buffers (blue polygons) were created for 3 of the 25 bus routes being proposed for elimination. They are routes 18, 504, and 52. The US Department of Transportation has  found  that most people are willing to walk 5-10 minutes, or approximately a ¼-mile to a transit stop. There are many points along these bus routes that are over a ¼-mile from an alternative mode of transit. And even if they are within a ¼-mile of another transit mode, this does not mean that alternative bus or T-line is going in the direction a rider needs to travel, or that the elimination wont add multiple stops and extra time to a rider's trip.

Drag the arrows in the middle to the left or right to see more of either map. Zoom and drag to explore. Click  here  to learn how these maps was made.

MBTA officials say that routes proposed for elimination have low ridership and are near alternative modes of transit however some, like Route 18 that runs through Dorchester, are in neighbourhoods with high numbers of public transportation commuters. As the map on the left shows, more Bostonians who rely on public transportation to commute will find themselves living farther than a ¼-mile to the nearest bus or T stop after the proposed service cuts go into effect, effectively penalising working class people who rely on public transit to get to work.

It is not only bus ridership that could decrease under these proposed cuts. Mired in delays and even derailments, Boston’s subway system is already an unreliable service for commuters and will become even less reliable with a 20% reduction in frequency. This, coupled with the impending hike in fares, could see ridership drop off even further. As riders abandon the MBTA, finding it easier and faster to Uber or hop in the car, congestion in the city of Boston will worsen, making the city’s streets ever-more hostile to cyclists. In addition, anyone living in the suburbs looking to come into the city for entertainment on the weekends will have to drive. These proposed service cuts are completely antithetical to the city’s  promise  to “focus [its] resources on proven strategies to eliminate fatal and serious traffic crashes in the City by 2030.”

Every year in April, the City of Boston releases an annual budget plan for the coming fiscal year, detailing how revenue generated by the City–through property taxes, fees, fines, state aid and other sources–will be apportioned to each of the City’s departments. The annual budget is submitted by the mayor and voted on by City Council. Each fiscal year spans the period between July 1st and June 30th of the coming year. The City department responsible for pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure–like sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, pedestrian and cyclist lighting at intersections and bike lane barriers–is the Department of Transportation.

As in every year previously, the Boston Police Department’s budget dwarfs the spending of other City departments. The proposed FY21 budget for the Boston Police Department–the second largest line item in the entire city budget, second only to Boston Public Schools–is $404 million dollars. Compared to the proposed budgets for other Boston City departments, the proposed Boston Police Budget is:

• 4x larger than the Public Works Department budget
• 36x larger than the Medicare budget
• 4.3x larger than the MBTA budget
• 4x larger than the Public Health Commission budget

Shifting even a fraction of the proposed FY21 police budget over to the MBTA could close the current budget gap, forestalling the need for the proposed service cuts. In addition, the City could impose a tax on the rich to pay for public transportation and safer streets. This includes Boston’s many private universities like Northeastern, Harvard, Boston University and Boston College, which are not obligated to pay the City property taxes. Over 50% of Boston's land is populated by government and non-profit institutions such as hospitals, universities and museums that pay no property taxes. This despite the fact that property taxes account for 70% of all revenue generated for the City of Boston. To account for this enormous loss in revenue, the City has instated a Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program (PILOT), which asks tax-exempt institutions to contribute to the City in the form of cash donations or community programs. Year after year, these institutions fall woefully short of the City's requests, with university's like Northeastern only giving 13% of the $11.2 million requested in 2018.

The money generated through taxes on the rich and cuts to police spending could go to making the MBTA a more reliable and accessible service, reducing the number of cars on the streets. It could also use this money to improve pre-existing pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, and add new infrastructure to parts of the city where it is lacking.