The most trivial of the changes brought about by the pandemic was in my running route. Instead of crossing Mass Ave while in Cambridge to run against the direction of traffic, I waited to cross until after I'd returned to Boston and therefore ran with traffic as I crossed the bridge. This was solely motivated by social distancing. My new route avoided the pedestrian ramp connecting the bridge to the Charles River Esplanade. My estimate is that the switch halved my pedestrian encounters on that bridge.
One fun detail of my new route is the radar gun at the halfway mark. There is some graffiti decorating this public technology - someone has spray painted 'SPEED LIMIT - 25 MPH' on the sign in block letters, so neat that it looks like every other speed limit sign I've seen in my life. Silly, I always think, because the speed limit throughout both cities on such roads is 25 MPH, everyone knows this, so on the main bridge connecting the two there is no need for the reminder. The radar gun is a firm but fair judge, and never tires of flashing its simple observation to law-abiding citizens. Sometimes I speed up as I approach and delight in seeing '6' flicker up to '7', but this is a rare joy because most of the time a car will zip by and restore order - '27', '31', even '38'. I've seen all kinds of numbers appear on the screen, but the only thing the numbers have in common is being above '25', unless of course it's just me.
At the end of the bridge is the famous intersection, Mass Ave and Beacon Street. The fame isn't just because everyone knows these streets from another block, or another town; the intersection is famous because people are hit by cars here, over and over and over. This article cites fourteen crashes from 2009 to 2012 alone, and that's only accounting for vehicle-bicycle collisions (1). Who knows what the number is if you add the next eight years, or could tally up all the unreported collisions, or include vehicle-pedestrian, er, crashes?? The folks coming through this intersection every day might not know all these details, so there are reminders everywhere - memorials, traffic markers, and the standard set of traffic lights are all placed to keep this number locked in place, forever, at whatever it happens to be right now.
Still, the next increment is only a matter of time. A six is always a moment of confusion from a seven. I was in this very intersection just a month ago, standing next to Anita Kurmann's ghost bike, already feeling uneasy because of the three cars that had ignored the walk signal and zipped across my path. Finally, there was space, so I made a belated start across Beacon Street toward The Digital White Guy. I'd made it just past halfway, the tireless signal likely preparing for its change to The Flashing Orange Hand, when a horn unloaded from what sounded like three inches behind my head. I looked back at a turning LMA shuttle, one corner of it already in the crosswalk, the details of an angry face that I instantly forgot when it accelerated out of sight a second later. The only thing I still remember is the moment familiar to me from riding a bicycle, when my heart pounded like dice bouncing across what I felt, and I wondered again why following the law was never enough to beat the house.
Footnotes / TOA's fake Onion headlines?
1. But if I have my helmet on, I'll be OK!
Imagine the headlines if some lunatic shot a biker in this intersection:
Biker crashes into bullet!
And I'm sure the story itself would be a delight...
"The victim was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash."
