Originally Posted by supcom
Being required to ride single file is not a very good tradeoff for an unenforceable 3 ft passing requirement.
Good thing it didn't require that, then!
What the bill actually said was, "(3) Bicyclists shall not ride more than 2 abreast and, on a laned roadway, shall ride within a single lane. Nothing in this subsection shall relieve a bicyclist of the duty to facilitate overtaking as required by section 2 of this chapter." n.b. Chapter 89 section 2 of the Massachusetts General Laws requires the operator of a slower vehicle to stay right and not speed up when visually alerted to the desire of a faster vehicle's operator to overtake, where overtaking can be done safely. That's a fairly standard application of the "slow vehicle rule," though not in the language of the Uniform Vehicle Code, since Massachusetts never got 'round to passing the UVC.
A newspaper reporter confused the requirement for cyclists to ride in a single LANE with a requirement to ride in a single LINE. That's not the same thing, tho' the single LANE requirement is a bit baffling in itself, since bicycles are so narrow it's actually difficult to straddle two lanes.
But that nit aside, the current law prohibits side-by-side cycling except where one cyclist is overtaking another. The new law would have eased that restriction.