Agree - need a better balance of supporting "passers through" that use shared services without paying anything towards the cost of providing them and residents/businesses that pay taxes (property and excise); fees (license, registration, parking by the minute), and insurance (auto and property). Loading zones are needed - we live, go to school and work in Cambridge.

"...dedicate 2 or 4 parking spots in Trowbridge street permanently as loading zone"?

As a cyclist, you may not understand the scarcity of permitted parking spaces for residents. The idea of dedicating 2-4 spots on a residential street for deliveries is absurd, and I'm sure would be most unwelcome!

What this problem seems to point to is a solution of creating local pick-up centers for deliveries, such as those built by Whole Foods/Amazon. Even apart from the scarcity of parking spots, delivery trucks, etc often just park in the middle of the many one-way streets here in Cambridge, stopping traffic for many minutes at a time. It can be very frustrating.

...and trucked deliveries are up now by many orders of magnitude because of COVID, as we all know.... :-(

I have lately seen smaller cars - like station wagons, SUVs etc, contracted out for deliveries. Maybe having more of those rather than the huge trucks would be helpful. Companies that do a high volume of deliveries - especially in urban areas - could be pressed by the City to go this route?

Or just build a few more strategically-placed, local pick-up centers.

(Here I go again): another solution is for us as citizens to do more of our shopping at the highly-deserving local busineses, who are struggling for survival in the pandemic. And walking is good for (us)!

Wonderful point Ms Richard. Parking is already sparse due to bikes lanes. And deliveries are at all all time high.
What worries me most is a bike thinks Trowbridge st is a dangerous situation. This shouldn’t be too difficult to navigate around, considering the speed limit is 20mph and it should be a simple skill bikes and drivers all learn. Look, then stop if dangerous or proceed if safe. Basic life skills.

Ugh.

Trowbridge is not a high speed arterial road. I think it would function perfectly well as a "slow street" with sharrows or, alternatively, marking some of the bike lane sections as shared use. This has never been a dangerous road for cyclists with or without a striped bike lane. There are, in fact, a lot more deliveries being made these days and the alternative is to have trucks double-parking in such a way that motor vehicles will have to pass via the marked bike lane. A little tolerance here would go a long way.

I cycle most of the time and I agree with Mrs. Richards and Mr. Richard. Parking is sparse, and I have never known Trowbridge to be a busy street. Just the opposite as a matter of fact.

@Resident:

"UGH" - lol... :-D

I agree, too, on the characterization of Trowbridge as a slow speed street. It is identical in this regard to most of the non-main streets in Cambridge.

I'm not sure if the cyclist knows that bicycles are allowed to use the whole lane if necessary - such as when a truck or other obstruction is temporarily blocking the bike lane - there are signs all over Cambridge saying so.

I still love that, "Look, then stop if dangerous or proceed if safe". It's the guideline cyclists seem to like the least and most frequently ignore! I get it - flying along on a bike is fun, but it doesn't eliminate the fact that cyclists have just as much responsibility as everyone else to avoid accidents in mixed traffic.

😀 Robert and Ms Richards... we need our own podcast. Or perhaps run for city office. Haha.

YES!! Count me in!!

City Hall – DR assigned this issue to Traffic - NC (Communications)

Issue 8928123 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue.

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