Boston to Build Separated Bike Lanes Along Allston’s Western Avenue

Boston planners will install separated bike lanes along Western Avenue, a major, rapidly developing thoroughfare in Allston, this fall, the city announced in a press release last month.

The bike lanes will be run from North Harvard Street to the Leo Birmingham Parkway. The upper half of the street, which runs through the heart of Harvard’s Allston campus, already has bike lanes.

The project will also bring “patch-paving repairs” and “intersection safety improvements at North Harvard Street and Western Avenue,” according to the press release.

The undertaking comes as a result of the Western Avenue Corridor Study and Rezoning, a series of conversations with local stakeholders to plan and discuss the future of Western Avenue. It is also part of a larger attempt by the city of Boston to grow its bike lane network and improve traffic safety.

The bike lanes are also another signal of just how much Allston’s Western Avenue has transformed over recent years.

Fifteen years ago, car was king on Western Avenue. Aside from intermittent housing, the avenue largely consisted of auto bodies, car rentals, and parking lots. Most buildings did not exceed one or two stories, and things were quiet after working hours.

Today, the street is teeming with residential and office developments reaching up to seven stories high and totaling millions of square feet in space. Thousands of new residents are set to settle in the area as those projects go online in the coming years, accompanied by new gyms, restaurants, and retail outlets.

At the same time, the Boston Planning and Development Agency has worked to leverage the burst of development in the area to advance the city’s own priorities for growth, like adding affordable housing and converting parking lots to new uses.

In 2022, it rezoned Western Avenue to allow for denser and taller buildings and incentivize bringing more retail, affordable units, and open space to the strip — although not everyone was happy with the final result.

The rampant development in the area means the street is often peppered with diversions and heavy construction vehicles. Scott Mullen, a policy researcher at A Better City, a local business association, said the construction has made the road particularly unsafe for bikers.

The BDPA’s planned changes, he said, would improve the problem.

The bike lanes on Western Ave are a precursor to a broader reworking of the thoroughfare proposed by the BPDA.

The transitway plan is meant to reduce chronic congestion and bus delays currently plaguing the area through central bus lanes, bike lanes, and wider sidewalks.

Car traffic would be limited to just one way, a major shift for the area likely to draw opposition from those already skeptical of bike lanes.

The city has not yet provided a concrete timeline for the project.

“It’s going to be finally nice to have that safety barrier, the separation between bikes and cars,” Christine A. Varriale, a member of the Allston Harvard Task Force and avid cyclist, said in an interview. “It’s always been the fastest way to get places, but never the safest way, and now it can be both.”

Correction: September 11, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a press release was issued by the Boston Planning and Development Agency. In fact, the press release was issued by the city of Boston.

—Staff writer Jina H. Choe can be reached at jina.choe@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Jack R. Trapanick can be reached at jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @jackrtrapanick.