Beverly bike-and-ped committee flags Rantoul and Cabot as crash hotspots, urges audits and low-cost changes

The Beverly City Council on May 19 heard an update from the city’s bike-and-pedestrian committee that summarized four years of police crash reports, identified concentrated incident clusters on Rantoul and Cabot streets, and laid out next steps including ward-by-ward walk audits and integration of the 2015 bike map with the city’s three-year paving plan.

The committee said the Beverly Police Department crash reports from 2020 through 2024 show pedestrians and motorists were involved in incidents “on average every 3.5 weeks,” while cyclist-and-motor-vehicle incidents occurred about every 6.5 weeks. Jared Porter, speaking for the committee, said the department’s new crash-report form — with diagrams and longer narratives — “provides much more insight into the nature of the actual event,” which helps the committee analyze how infrastructure and user behavior contribute to incidents.

Committee members told the council that over the four-year span bicycle-plus-motor-vehicle incidents fell about 11 percent, while pedestrian-plus-motor-vehicle incidents rose about 36 percent. The committee also reported time-of-day patterns: about 13 percent of incidents happened between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., 10 percent between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., and about 30 percent between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. The presenters said concentration of incidents is highest on Rantoul and Cabot streets.

Why it matters: the committee argued the trend and the concentration of incidents make targeted, data-driven fixes feasible. The group recommended walk audits conducted ward by ward, greater resident involvement in audits, and integration of audit findings into the engineering department’s planning process so fixes can be prioritized with the paving schedule.

Details and costs: Lisa Chandler outlined the narrow, incremental interventions the committee expects city staff to consider. She gave unit costs used for planning: about $5 per linear foot to stripe pavement and about $200 per sign (installed). Chandler said implementing the committee’s 2025 infrastructure package would cost about $175,000, with an additional roughly $55,000 for related items; she estimated that finishing the plan after 2026 would require roughly $300,000 more, and that the total additional investment to complete the map’s remaining treatments could approach $500,000, noting roughly half of those costs would be recurring maintenance (primarily line striping).

Committee process and next steps: the committee described a training seminar held in January with about 39 attendees, a pilot walk audit in Ward 2, and a recent combined audit for Wards 2 and 3. The group said the 2015 bike map contains about 40 miles of roadway with treatments identified, roughly 10 miles of which have been completed, and that nearly 9 more miles will be installed this year. Presenters emphasized that some incidents occur on infrastructure intended to protect pedestrians and cyclists and that analysis will separate infrastructure failures from user behavior when recommending remedies.

The committee did not seek a formal vote from the council at the meeting; members said they will continue audits, share findings with the city’s engineering division, and remain available to councilors seeking more detail.