Bike bill goes for a third spin

Bike advocates have been over this terrain before and say they're ready to ride it again.

A bill they pushed for that would increase ticketing of both drivers and cyclists who break traffic laws died on the desk of former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey this month, but state Senator Pamela P. Resor of Acton, a Democrat, refiled it last week.

The bill would allow police departments to use the same tickets they now use for motorists to fine cyclists for such things as running a red light or making an illegal turn. Currently, communities must devise their own cyclist ticketing systems, and few have (Cambridge is one exception). Fines for bikers would probably range from $20 to $50.

A new "anti-dooring" statute in the bill would require drivers to make sure the road is clear of approaching bikers before opening a car door. Violators could be fined up to $100.

Healey called the bill "overly regulative" and "an unwarranted governmental intrusion into the recreational affairs of citizens."

Resor said in an interview: "There's an awful lot of biking going on, particularly in the streets of Boston, that isn't recreational. I hope that the new administration will be concerned with this bill and take it seriously into consideration." Resor was asked to shoulder the bill by former state representative Anne M. Paulsen, a Belmont Democrat who who filed its two previous versions. She retired this month from the House.

David Watson , executive director of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, or MassBike, said Healey's veto memo "mistakenly assumes that this is new regulation on bicyclists, which in fact it isn't, because virtually everything in this bill was already in the existing law in some form. We were proposing to replace the existing enforcement mechanism with the mechanism for ticketing automobiles that exists in the Commonwealth."

So strongly did Paulsen feel about passing it that on Nov. 2 she brought House business spinning to a halt by questioning the presence of a quorum, making it impossible for the session to continue. The demonstration got her a meeting with House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi , the attention of her colleagues, and ultimately support for the bill. The veto left advocates back at the beginning, minus Paulsen.

"Once again it shows how the importance of bicycling is not yet taken seriously by the state of Massachusetts," said Jeff Rosenblum, the founder of the LivableStreets Alliance, a group that promotes public and alternative modes of transportation.