Boston beats Silicon Valley when it comes to transit & bike sharing
xconomy.com
xconomy.com
A bike sharing program is a neat idea, but actually riding bikes in Boston is a terrible experience. The roads are in bad shape, there are no bike lanes, and the drivers are homicidal.
Public transit in Boston certainly isn't bad, it's better than most cities I've lived in and it may very well be better than the valley. But the subway is generally only helpful if you're going to and from downtown. If you say live in Somerville and work in Allston, you're pretty much out of luck, unless you're willing to transfer between the bus and the subway a few times.
In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston.
"In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston."
This is true for you, but not my experience. I moved to Boston in 2008 and got rid of my car. I've been living car-free for four years now. I thought I'd need zip cars or cabs every once in a while but I don't use either. I mostly walk everywhere (I live in Cambridge) and occasionally take the T.
The real story is not how bikable Boston is, but how walkable it is.
The roads are in no worse shape than any other northeast city (potholes are a fact of life in that climate). The drivers are agressive but broadly competant. Maybe a better complaint would be lack of bike lanes, which is true: old streets don't always fit them.
I grew up in Boston; lived, studied and worked there until I was 27; and never once felt the need to own a car.
Look: if you don't like Boston don't live there. The Bay Area is really nice too and I liked it a lot. I'm currently really liking Portland. But flaming about transit options in what AFAIK is the densest city in north america is just dumb, sorry. Carless bostonians have absolutely no grounds for complaint.
Most of the people at the talk seemed to be hard-core cyclists, who tend to be a pretty tough crowd to please, but there were so many standing ovations that it could've been the State of the Union address. Have you ridden in Boston lately? I'm curious to see if the changes are as big as most of those people seemed to think.
As to getting around, there are certainly trips in the Boston area that are easy by public transit and others that aren't. I live in Somerville and getting to Allston is a pain (I'd probably use the 66 bus [2]). I generally only drive outbound from Somerville, since I find driving in Boston stressful and of course the parking is expensive.
[1] http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Annual%20Report... [2] http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/bus/routes/?route=66
Having a bike sharing program is great, but Boston needs to invest in more dedicated bike lanes, and bike paths before it can get anywhere near SF in bikability.
Plus you are visiting when its 40ish degress out, not 20 and the Hub system isn't available in the winter.
[1] http://www.thehubway.com/data/stations/bikeStations.xml [2] http://bikeboston.herokuapp.com/ [3] https://github.com/amonat/bikeboston
I see it's got a map showing bike share docks in London (by default, with a bunch of other cities available), with a circle for each docks whose size is proportional to the size of the dock, and a color ranging from blue (for empty) to red (for full), and the color scheme is configurable. And it's got a neat graph showing the number of bikes in the dock over time for the last 24 hours.
One minor irritation is that the graph is overlaid on top of the distance scale line (labeled "1km 1mi"), so it looks like that line is part of the graph. Also, it'd be nice if the graph were labeled by time of day rather than hours ago.
(One funny thing is the use of "scheme" even for the US pages, since as Wiktionary notes "In the US, generally has devious connotations, while in the UK, frequently used as a neutral term for projects: “The road is closed due to a pavement-widening scheme.”".)
So just pay the fees. Or take the bus, which is cheaper and faster. Or rent a car and be done with all this.
The idea such inefficient systems are being taxpayer funded in some cities is offensive.
I agree with the other comment that it is quite difficult to navigate Boston traffic with a bike since the city is not built to accomodate it for the most part. Police are also highly aggressive, belligerant, uneducated, ignorant and thuggish and risk of being arrested and harassed for not being in the correct lane or whatever are significant.
While you're right that bike sharing doesn't make sense for all commuters, the idea that these systems are inefficient is actually incorrect. Yes, you have a capital outlay to set the program up - just like you do for every subway, bus system, and public road in the U.S. Often, these outlays are taxpayer funded. However, once a bike system is running, it's cheaper than almost any other form of transit. Capital Bikeshare in DC recovered almost all of it's operating expenses last year. B-Cycle Denver pulled a profit. Compare that to the T or almost any bus/metro agency in the country, which usually hover around 30-40% cost recovery.
Hubway or NiceRide might not work for your situation, but it's effective and affordable for a whole lot of people.
But unfortunately it would be destroyed and/or gross as hell in most cities that I've lived in.
Nothing wrong with owning your own bike, $150 buys a really descent bike these days.
It reminds me of the indoor smoking ban. Everywhere I live, people say "yes, that's fine in X, but it will never work here." Then it comes and it works fine.
If there is a way to record people's info and/or financial responsibility, maybe that is the key.
Here in London it costs 45 GBP (about 65 USD) per year - you can also pay just per trip. Either way it works out to very cheap, much cheaper than the tube, bus, taxi, etc. but not free. You have to pay by card so they know who you are. Also the bikes are big bulky bikes, the parts won't fit with normal bikes. Based on the picture it looks like the Boston system is the same company, their bikes and software are used in several cities.