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At the City Council meeting on May 22, Tom Lamar spoke about his achievements after receiving a citation for his leadership as Chair of the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee.
By Harry Kane
Somerville’s City Councilors and Mayor Katjana Ballantyne commended Tom Lamar with a citation for his six years of service as the Chair of the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee.
Lamar has advanced the city’s goals of improving the safety of all road users, encouraging residents to travel by bike, and helping cyclists to build a culture of “safe streets activism” in the community.
“I’m really pleased to introduce this citation and thank Tom Lamar for his excellent service as Chair of the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee,” said Mayor Ballantyne during the City Council meeting on May 22.
Lamar has served on the committee for the past 10 years and was elected to chair the committee in 2019. He will continue serving as a member of the committee.
An ordinance by the City Council, formerly the Board of Aldermen, established the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee on February 8, 2001, to improve safety conditions for bicyclists and promote and implement programming and policies.
“In Somerville, we are very lucky that we benefit from the time and energy of so many volunteers in our community,” said Mayor Ballantyne.
During Lamar’s tenure, Mayor Ballantyne says he has helped pedal forward Somerville’s transportation policies for the benefit of future generations.
“He became Somerville’s leading voice on state agency projects, challenging our partners at MassDOT to meet our community’s demand and redesign state roads like Mystic Ave., McGrath Highway, and Alewife Brook Parkway.”
Lamar helped build support among elected officials to grow in-house staff teams in several departments that work on safe streets issues, including the City Council-endorsed citywide bicycle network plan.
“I am tremendously proud of our work for the bike network plan and the safe streets ordinance,” said Lamar. “There was a tremendous amount of community input that went into that.”
Several City Councilors thanked Lamar for his advocacy in the community that aims to build collaboration among folks who care about street safety.
“You’ve really found a way to manage to channel that energy in a productive and constructive way,” said City Councilor at Large Willie Burnley, Jr. “And to do so in a way that creates an environment where people feel that they can speak, that they can engage, that they can debate without ever losing a sense of community.”
Ward 3 City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said that the leadership at the Bicycle Advisory Committee is “admirable” and “effective.”
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Congratulations to Tom Lamar on his cyclist activism. I came onto your website to submit an article about my recent visit to Somerville and experienced the results of his hard work:
Look Both Ways… and Then Duck: A Visitor’s Brush with Boston-Area Cyclists
By Monica Lee
On a recent visit to Somerville, I nearly got hit by a cyclist. Three times.
I came to town expecting raw oysters and friendly chats, not evasive maneuvers that would make a Cirque du Soleil performer break a sweat.
It started innocently enough: I was strolling down Kirkland Street toward Beacon Street after lunch with a friend in Harvard Square. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I was enjoying that rare urban sensation of having nowhere I urgently needed to be. That’s when a blur of bike blew through a stop sign. I jumped back. No helmet. No hand signal. No shame.
Later, I attempted to cross Beacon Street for buck-a-shuck oysters at Café Saint-Germain — a noble mission if ever there was one. But yet again, another cyclist, apparently indifferent to the existence of traffic lights or the fragile mortality of pedestrians, came barreling through. For the record, I wasn’t even doing the infamous diagonal cross to Dali, which I’ve since learned is a daredevil move that might as well be called the “Squid Game of crosswalks”.
The final straw was at the corner of Dimick and Marion. Another bike, another near-miss, another heart palpitation. This was no Tour de France; this was the kind of maneuver that belongs on TikTok under #UrbanStunts where I didn’t sign up to play.
According to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 85, Section 11B, cyclists must follow the same traffic laws as cars: stop at lights, yield at crosswalks, and generally not behave like gravity-defying anarchists. It’s one thing if they want to risk their own skin by blowing through stop signs or skipping helmets, but I draw the line at risking mine.
Maybe the Somerville Police need to take a week, park a cruiser at each major intersection, and start writing citations like they’re giving out free scones at Petsi Pies. Maybe that’s what it will take for cycling culture to prioritize safety alongside speed.
To be fair, I’m just a visitor. I live elsewhere now, but I was born and raised in Boston, and I return often. I’ve always avoided renting a car when I’m here — not because of the traffic, but because I don’t trust the drivers. Ironically, now it’s the cyclists who scare me more. And that’s saying something.
Thank goodness for the MBTA, with all its quirks. At least the T doesn’t sneak up on you in a bike lane.
So to my two-wheeled friends in Somerville: I salute your commitment to sustainable transportation. I admire your calf muscles. But could you please obey the traffic laws? I’d like to return home with memories — not medical bills.