After about three years of work, a Lincoln group is putting the finishing touches on a long-term master plan to make Lincoln’s roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
More than half of Lincoln’s residents would like to walk or bike more on town roads but feel they and their children would be unsafe, according to research by the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Committee (BPAC), which summarized its work for the Select Board on April 25. After more public outreach and listening sessions, the group plans to finalize its master plan and submit it to a Town Meeting vote in 2023, though officials are still researching exactly what voter actions are required.
The early draft includes a list of almost 70 potential safety projects sorted by region of town and by category (intersection, crosswalk, road segment, trail, and special cases, which will require approval and/or funding from more than one source, such as the MBTA, MassDOT, easements from property owners, etc.). Ideas will be added, removed or altered as time goes on.
“This is probably a 30- to 40-year plan. Do I think [everything] is going to happen in my lifetime? No… but it’s something that needs to be at the table every year,” said BPAC member Bob Wolf.
The committee is an outgrowth of the Cycling Safety Advisory Committee, which was formed in 2017 after three bicycle crashes (two of them fatal) in Lincoln involving motor vehicles in the summer of 2016.
The master plan is based on a federal philosophy known as the Safe System, which assumes that people make mistakes and accidents will still happen, but aims to eliminate fatal and serious injuries for all road users by minimizing impact energy. This can be achieved by lower vehicle speeds, safer roads and vehicles, and educated road users.
Lincoln has already introduced a pilot program on Farrar Road with the creation of advisory shoulders, one of the suggested roadway measures intended to physically separate people traveling at different speeds). Other techniques include:
- Clarifying stop lines and intersection boundaries (something that’s already been done where Tower Road northbound meets Route 117)
- Tightening the marked turning radius at intersections to slow vehicles
- Painting “bike boxes” at intersections where bikes can wait in a separate area from vehicles
- Improving access to existing rail trails in neighboring towns, and/or creating new “rail to trail routes” (pedestrian/bike paths built alongside railways tracks that are still in use).
Better road maintenance is another important way to improve road safety, the BPAC noted. A wide crack along the side of Route 117 recently caused a crash when a cyclist’s tire was caught in the crack and he was thrown from his bike, causing multiple injuries (the crack was patched the day after).
Wolf and fellow BPAC member Ginger Reiner listed some “quick hits” (improvements that could be made quickly and easily) and “high-value opportunities” (those in locations that link a large number of Lincoln households) when they met with the Select Board. Among the former:
- A crosswalk on Bedford Road just south of Route 2
- A contraflow bike lane on Winter Street between Old County Road and the Waltham town line
- Bike boxes, lane markings, and tightened intersection at Routes 126 and 117.
High-value opportunities include further improvements to the Tower Road/Route 117 intersection, upgrading the trail surface for family cycling on Bedford Lane south of Route 2A, and laying the groundwork for a grade-separated crossing of Route 2, as well as applying lessons learned from the Farrar Road advisory shoulder pilot to other minor connecting roads.
Once the various improvement opportunities are further studied and prioritized with resident input, the town will apply for grants and additional state highway maintenance funding to pay for part or all of as many projects as possible. The town also gets help for a nominal fee from a consultant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
“What is most important is a very subjective call,” Wolf said. “Each [project] requires a group to dig in and figure it all out.”