Smart signal phasing to control conflicts between vehicles and a two-way bike lane in Cambridge, MA
I’m here in Cambridge Mass where this two-way bike path comes out to a pretty cool intersection so let’s check it out so here the bike path comes out to a three-way intersection now if this street coming this way just had one green light there would be a major conflict between bikes going along the path and vehicles turning right across the path so the way the signal fixes this is by signaling each lane separately the bike lane the right turn lane and the left turn lane so here we can see separate left right and bike signals while the bike path has a green the right turn has a red so there’s no Crossing conflicts here the signal is also really efficient because it allows left turns to go while bikes are also going and in the next phase of the signal the right turn gets a green arrow while bikes have a red so right turns can go with no conflict one last cool feature of this intersection is any bikes coming up this way wanting to go onto the bike path which first come across on a green light the sign says left turn must use turn box they wait in the turn box and when they have the green light they can all go across the path