The city did not return multiple requests for comment about the new installation.
Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Boston’s chief of streets, told the news site StreetsblogMASS that the city has been trying to “identify alternatives that can provide better protection, be more durable, and manage the flow of different roadway users while also providing some flexibility for emergency vehicles.”
The new barriers span from Arlington’s intersection with Boylston Street until its convergence with Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue, segregating bike traffic and streams of cars.
Other cities across the country have, at some stage, put the lumps to use, including New York City and Miami Beach.
The remaining strands of Arlington bike lanes are still fenced off by often battered and bruised flexible plastic bollards, often dubbed flexposts.
The city had removed bollards lining a section of the Arlington bike corridor earlier this year, to the surprise and concern of some cyclists.
Flexposts provide a visible barrier but can be porous and flimsy. They can also require routine maintenance.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has called flexposts her “personal pet peeve,“ adding that while the barriers are “the fastest, cheapest way to create a bike lane” with some semblance of safety, they were never meant to be a permanent solution.
Speaking of the new lane protectors, Galen Mook, the executive director of statewide cycling advocacy group MassBike, said, “I think it’s a compromise, like all road infrastructure is.”
The Zebra barriers are, compared to their predecessors, easier to maintain and less likely to produce dangerous debris when trampled, Mook said.
An emergency vehicle or rule-flaunting driver could still enter the protected bike lane with a bit of determination or deft maneuvering. But, Mook added, the barriers still offered some safety benefits for cyclists.
“I do think they will serve the purpose of letting drivers know that this is not a space they should be driving into,” he said.
The city seems intent on making flexposts a street feature of the past. Across Boston, the city is “replacing flexposts installed through past safety projects with more durable materials,” according to its website.
Preferred substitutes include “cast-in-place” concrete separators, poured and shaped on site. The concrete barriers, the city says, could be “designed and installed relatively quickly and with comparable costs to flexposts.”
Jaime Moore-Carrillo can be reached at jaime.moore-carrillo@globe.com.
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