Bicycling in Worcester

In general there are limited dedicated bike lanes in Worcester. They have been added though when roads have been redone. One good example of this is Hamilton Street which used to be two lanes and now has one car lane and a bike lane. Sadly, sometimes while driving your car, you will be passed on the right in the bike lane by impatient drivers. The worst incidence of this I witnessed was one evening when a guy was crossing in the crosswalk at the Harrington Way and Hamilton Street intersection. There was also a guy on the right in the bike lane. As I traveled east and slowed down to let the guy cross the crosswalk the car behind me tried to pass on the right. Luckily he slowed down and didn’t kill anyone. There is a need for traffic enforcement and speed cameras throughout the city.

First let’s see where there are bike paths. I didn’t find a bike lanes shapefile in the Worcester GIS portal so I downloaded a version from “OpenStreetMap”. I downloaded as a kml and then converted to a shapefile. I then added the bike lane on Lake Avenue.

What you will most notice is that the bike lanes are often discontinuous which makes getting across the city more difficult. One example of this is on Lake Avenue you have a nice bike lane near Quinsigamond State Park but once you get north to the ice cream shop the bike lane is gone and you are one your own. It doesn’t really get bad though until you have people parking on the shoulder such as near 65 Lake Avenue and “The Lake Shore” condos. This is also near the stinky leaker of a sewage pump station.

Google Streetview Image: alt text

The Quinsigamond Bridge is also vastly improved now that it has bike lanes. Although I would encourage anyone planning bike transportation to bike across the bridge coming from Shrewsbury back to Worcester. People are racing to get to the light, going 40-50 mph.You kind of wish there were some dividers when you have people passing on your left in right normal lane and on your right to get to turn lane. But compared to the danger zone that it was prior to the new bridge it is an incredible improvement.

Google Streetview Image: alt text

MassDOT has a lot of crash data on the their open data portal. Below is a map of Worcester with both the bike lanes and 2006-2016 HSIP Bike Crash Clusters from MassDOT.

Basically most of the bicycle crash clusters occur along Madison, Belmont Street near the Hospital, Main Street west of Madison, and lower Lincoln Street. Basically all of these are high traffic areas with limited to no bike lane. You can zoom in on the map below. The fields MassDOT uses are somewhat of a mystery but if you click on a crash cluster it will give you the number of crashes in the “CrashCount” field.

I can attest that lower Lincoln Street is tough. If you are going north towards Lincoln Street, first you must survive the gauntlet of people going onto 290. Then as you go up lower Lincoln before the Adcare hospital there is a travel lane and turn lane. Historically people were racing with each other before Lincoln dropped to one lane after the hospital.

Google Streetview Image: Lower Lincoln Street, Worcester

I often bike from east side of Worcester to Institute Park. The best way to do this is to go Front Street to Pleasant Street. Coming back from Institute Park going down Salisbury Street can be rough. If you want to go back behind the police station on Goldsberry/Summer Street you have to go through one of the more dangerous intersections in the city. You’re have got Lincoln Street merging on your right and you have to try and get right to do the right hand turn onto Goldsberry/Summer Street. I have largely given up this route as it is bonkers.

Google Streetview Image: Lower Lincoln Street and Salisbury Street, Worcester

I usually try Lancanster Street to Pleasant and then back through downtown. This requires going through Washington Square near Union Station. I then take a left and go up Franklin Street. The road quality on Grafton Street just south of Washington Square is pretty absymal. The worst part of this route is the Franklin Street and Suffolk Street/Norfolk Street Intersection. You have go people going 40 mph+ and you are trying to bear left while they either want to go straight up Norfolk or right on Suffolk. Honestly it is worse than Washington Square.

Google Streetview Image: Franklin Intersection

Also in terms of dangerous intersections, Lincoln Street to Burncoat Street intersection is tough. You have a similar situation where you are trying to go left up Burncoat and you have people both coming south and turning left in front of you and people bearing right up Lincoln towards the shopping areas.

Google Streetview Image: Lincoln and Burncoat

Recommendations

So my general recommendations would be:

  1. Build on the existing bike lanes
  2. Work to calm traffic and if possible add bike lanes in areas with high bike crash clusters
  3. Enforce speed limits and traffic rules
  4. Improve road surface conditions, esp. Plesant Street west of Flagg Street, Moreland Street and Highland Street near WPI. While bike paths would be great in all locations these areas have rough road conditions which really bounce you around on a bike.