Designing new bicycle lanes

Planners are working on designs to install bicycle lanes in Arlington Center in an effort to improve the Minuteman Bikeway’s route through town. The bikeway runs 11 miles from the MBTA’s Alewife Station in Cambridge through Arlington and Lexington and into Bedford, but in Arlington Center cyclists are forced to cross busy Massachusetts Avenue to get from one leg of the path to the next. Using a $290,000 grant from the state Department of Transportation, the town is hoping to add bicycle lanes where Massachusetts Avenue intersects with Route 60/Mystic Street. Laura Wiener, a senior planner for Arlington, told selectmen Monday night that the town has hired Boston-based Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates Inc. to help design a solution. Mike Rademacher, Arlington’s director of public works, summarized several options, including one that would establish a bicycle lane running diagonally across the intersection. It would require a modification to the traffic signals, which would show a green bicycle to indicate when cyclists can cross the intersection. Funding for changes to the intersection won’t be available until 2013, but officials said they will hold a public meeting about the design options soon. - Brock Parker