Emily Rooney on Boston's bizarre bike lanes | No Kings demonstrates political savvy | Mass. teachers union and its bulging political war chest | Wu administration's growing tax scandal |

Bikes on the Pike? The design of Boston’s bike lanes is such a bizarre, willy-nilly hodgepodge that anything seems possible

By Emily Rooney

There are two certain ways to take your life into your own hands in Boston: one is riding a bike, the second is having an opinion about riding a bike. I’ve given up the former, but I’m willing to take a risk on the latter.

On a recent, miles-long stroll from Brookline to the Back Bay, I started noticing bike lanes, and then I started obsessing about bike lanes. It struck me that someone must have suggested that every street, or even every few blocks, should be written on tiny pieces of paper, thrown into a hat, and drawn by would-be city planners who were each given the nod to design their own tract.

For instance, Beacon Street inbound is nothing more than a giant bicycle decal in the middle of a busy two-lane road; outbound isn’t much better, with one thin lane designated by a white paint line. But there is far worse.

Get on foot, a bike, or a car and try to get down Beacon Hill from the Common, where you hit a frenzy of flex poles where both bikers and drivers weave in and out a sea of indecipherable lanes that veer from curb to middle of road to the other side of the street.

Then there is this mysterious configuration: a two-way bike lane on one-way Dartmouth Street that picks up on Commonwealth Avenue and ends after Marlborough Street, with no lanes at all before or after. This mini interstate is 15 feet wide, complete with a concrete barrier and bright green paint. Over on tastefully tree-lined Commonwealth Avenue, there are bike lanes on either side of the road, but no flex poles, no concrete barriers, no bright green paint, and no signage. I didn’t see any bikers on the two-laner on Dartmouth, but Comm Ave was busy.

Little-used bike lanes on Dartmouth Street/Emily Rooney

Head down to Arlington Street and you’ll find a bike path with flex poles, but just as the road gets dicey, the poles disappear. The city apparently hauled the poles off earlier in the spring, claiming damage by snowplows, and while the mayor said they would return, so far they have not. Now, head up St. James Avenue from Arlington and you’ll find more of those quaint bike insignias in the middle of a very busy street, with right-side parking. But just two blocks later, the decals go “poof,” and the same road turns bright red with lettering that says “BUSES ONLY.”

I love seeing bikers all over the city, and I would like to see less traffic, but the current arrangement is a willy-nilly hodgepodge; dangerous, befuddling, and maddening to everyone; and, in fact, outright whimsical. So in the anything-goes spirit of Boston bike lane design, here’s a suggestion: bikes on the Mass Pike. I mean, why not? A protected bike lane would offer the most direct, fastest, and securely visible opportunity for cars and bikers to co-exist. Boston drivers will happily share the highway, while bikers will be in for an experience they won’t soon forget. We can pull suggestions out of a hat as to whether we need concrete barriers, flex poles, green paint, or two-way lanes. It could work. Seriously.

Emily Rooney is the creator of “Beat the Press,” which ran for 22 years on WGBH.

Good job, No Kings: Protest movement so far has managed to stay on message while keeping the left-wing nuts at bay

A sea of American flags and not a keffiyeh in sight.

That was the scene at the recent No Kings demonstration in Hudson, one of the many town and cities across the country where the fledging protest movement put on a show of the political force over the weekend, reports Jay Fitzgerald at Hub Blog.