‘I Don’t Want to Die’: City Council Moves Up Bike Lane Rollout Amid Cyclist Outcry

More than 120 Cambridge residents voiced their concerns for biker safety at Monday’s City Council meeting, where councilors voted to move up the deadline to expand bike lanes on Main Street, Cambridge Street, and Broadway from 2027 to 2026.

In April, the Council voted to delay the deadline for the city to construct a 25-mile network of separated bike lanes from May 2026 to November 2027 due to concerns around parking and the impact on local businesses. But following three cyclist deaths in summer, including the recent death of John H. Corcoran ’84, bike safety activists have stepped up their advocacy for infrastructure improvements.

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern, who introduced the amendment with Councilors Sumbul Siddiqui, Burhan Azeem, and Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, said the city’s goals for bike lane expansion could still be met by the reinstated 2026 deadline.

“We don’t have to wait as long, risking people’s safety,” he added.

The vote is an early sign that Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy will be more friendly to bicyclist advocates than her predecessor, Joan F. Pickett, who died in August. Zusy cast the decisive vote Monday to move the deadline up, while Pickett — who had previously sued the city over the bike lane expansion — voted to push the deadline back earlier in spring.

The vast majority of residents who spoke at the meeting advocated to move the deadline back to 2026, citing ongoing safety concerns.

“I stood here about six months ago urging you — begging you — please not delay this implementation of the safety ordinance,” resident Downing Liu said. “Unfortunately, we’ve mourned three cyclist deaths in the past four months.”

Farid Arthur said the city’s bike safety problem worries his mother because he regularly bikes on Cambridge Street, which lacks protected bike lanes.

“Help reassure my mother by putting up these bike lanes and allow her to hear good news rather than the death of someone else,” he added.

Other residents voiced skepticism about the basis of the delays. Vivek Sikri said he first brought up the issue of bike lanes more than a decade ago.

“I don’t believe for a second that, you know, a delay of a year or two years is going to dramatically change road designs,” he said.

Former Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan echoed Sikri’s concerns, saying the debate had gone on for too long.

“We've been fighting this battle for over 10 years, and all the data shows that the more protected bike lanes you put in, the safer it is for people to bike,” he said.

The public comment period was followed by contentious debate between the councilors, echoing years of arguments among city officials over bike lanes and bike safety in Cambridge.

McGovern urged the Council to vote to move the deadline up, emphasizing that the city still had two years to execute.

“We’re not talking about this happening in three months or two months or four months,” he said. “It’s two years.”

He added, however, that procedural concerns would endure regardless of the timing.

“If we extend this to 2026, when we get there, there are going to be people saying, ‘We need more time, not enough process,’” McGovern said. “If we did this to 2027, there would be people saying, ‘Not enough time, we need more process.’”

Mayor E. Denise Simmons — who voted against the measure — was worried that the process was too rushed and would not sufficiently involve resident input.

“I certainly want us not to sacrifice common sense public input or careful planning for the sake of speed,” she said. “If we do it quickly and not do it well, then no one benefits.”

Councilor Paul F. Toner voiced concerns about local businesses losing street parking.

“I think everybody on the Council wants to do everything we can to make things safer,” he said. “But there are also other things to be considered — and that's the small businesses in our community, the residents in the densest part of our city — that are going to lose parking until there’s some mitigation.”

With the original vote to delay the bike lane deadline, the Council also asked city staff to produce zoning language to allow businesses to open up their lots for on-street parking — a proposal that was returned to at the Monday meeting.

Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson — who initially voted present on the deadline, but switched her vote to yes after it passed— lamented the political charge of the debate and the difficult choice between the interests of bike safety advocates and local businesses.

“I think what we are really challenged with here is a situation where we’re talking about the safety of all on our streets and the accessibility of how we utilize our streets — and what’s being prioritized here is to make it a political statement,” she said.

“This position sucks,” she added.

—Staff writer Benjamin Isaac can be reached at benjamin.isaac@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @benjaminisaac_1.