NEWTON, Mass. — It is a place to shop, dine, and, lately, avoid if you’re a bicyclist. The reconstruction of Needham Street is nearly finished, but the project, from a two-wheel perspective, is oddly incomplete and even dangerous.
“We think this is going to be a wonderful project once it’s completed,” said Galen Mook, executive director of MassBike, the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition. “We do see that there are fits and starts sometimes to these projects.”
Left in the wake of those fits and starts: the completion of the bike lanes, which is turning out to be a more complicated process than it might look. Every 15 yards or so, implanted in the middle of the lanes, are temporary utility poles strung with wires.
“At some point, they’re going to have to take the poles out and repaint and repave,” said Corbin Dunn, an avid bicyclist and manager of Landry’s Bicycles, which is on Needham Street. “I think when the poles are out it will be a tremendous step forward for us, but it’s just getting there and finishing the job.”
Verizon and Eversource say they’re working on it -- but the dismantling requires separate and successive efforts. Eversource tells Boston25 News it is a detailed and complex process. Verizon said it can’t move forward until others have finished their work. The latest estimate for the complete removal of the temporary poles is Summer 2025.
In the meantime, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation has put up signs to indicate the bike lanes are closed. But some are using them anyway -- including Newton resident and Landry’s Bicycles employee Mark Mansoor.
“Personally, I feel like no bike path is better than a bad bike path,” Mansoor said. “It’s very dangerous as it is.”
Dunn said that’s mainly because the poles obscure vision for both bicyclists and drivers.
“If you have a thirty-foot pole in front of you every 40 to 50 feet, you can’t see anything -- especially with the traffic,” he said. “It’s a nightmare trying to see cars coming out, seeing bikers going by or people on scooters. Even, quite frankly, people walking on the sidewalk.”
As is, the bike lanes don’t meet the design, accessibility or safety standards MassBike wants to see. Mook said the lag in getting the bike lanes up and running is reflective of the larger attitude towards alternative transportation.
“I don’t believe any Transportation Department or Department of Public Utilities would have left poles in the center of a roadway for the better part of a year,” Mook said. “They do present a visual obstruction. So a driver coming out of a driveway might not be able to see the person on the bike -- and that is why those poles need to be removed.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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