Boston Doctors Can Now Prescribe You a Bike | Hacker News Reader

Boston Doctors Can Now Prescribe You a Bike

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99 pointsRougeFemme41 comments

In Greensboro, NC, Greensboro Housing Coalition is a non-profit that wants everyone to have safe housing, regardless of income levels. A common problem with low-income housing is cockroaches, bad insulation, and other conditions which lead to a much higher rate of asthma in children who grow up in such homes.

They are putting together a study to test whether improving the condition of these home would reduce the incidence of asthma in affected children (and the costs associated with the resulting frequent hospital visits) so much as to be a more cost effective use of Medicaid funds.

If the study finds that this is the case, and their experience suggests that will, the end goal is to enable doctors to prescribe home inspections and improvements, and for those actions to be paid for by medicaid/insurance. It would be a clear win/win: healthier children and lower costs across the board.

If this interests you, please consider a donation to http://greensborohousingcoalition.com . They are an excellent organization that will make efficient use of your donation.

The US is so afraid of socialism it has to medicalize every social problem so that it can be helped. That really does sounds like a good program and this is not a criticism, just an observation.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/11/the_terrible_awful_tr...

Ireland has cycle-to-work scheme. It deduces price of bike from your income tax, practically it means you pay 40% less for a bike. Ireland is probably the worst possible country for cycling (rain, wind, narrow roads with walls on side) but it seems to work.

You just need to make the bike clothing/armor tax deductible too!

Already is, I forgot to write bike AND equipment. The limit is about 1000 euro every 6 months.

Did it start off as 1000€ every 2 years when the law first came into effect?

I am not sure about 6 months, I guess it could be 2 years instead.

Seems like a good idea to get unfit people onto bikes. However I don't see why Hubway should cost $85 a year. I recently bought a decent second-hand mountain bike for $50 (before that I bought one for $25 that lasted 7 years).

I can't speak for Hubway, but most municipal bike programs I've seen have bikes built like tanks, which must cost more than $50. I assume this is to minimize the maintenance costs that must be inherent in a system where the bike users have nearly no incentive to take care of the bikes. And, of course, you still have maintenance costs even for these tank-bikes.

Hubway bikes have often been described like that, as "tanks." They are 42 lbs each, designed like that on purpose to be stable & steady street bikes for riders of different skill levels. They do, indeed, cost more than $50, but a lot of that is the technology involved with the docking/rental system, moreso than to minimize maintenance. Alta Bicycle Share, the system that operates Hubway for the metro-Boston region, employees a full team of mechanics and field staff to do regular maintenance, including a full service during the winter months, on the entire fleet of 1300+ bikes.

Here in Hamilton we're getting SoBi - their bikes actually contain cellphone and GPS components so they can phone home with their position. That's more maintenance and service costs.

When you own your own bike, you have to deal with storing it in your possibly cramped apartment, and locking it up outside wherever you go. Then you need to worry about it being stolen or vandalized while you leave it outside. And you need to do any maintenance, which may not be your cup of tea.

With bike sharing, you just leave the bike in a docking station and you don't need to worry about it ever again. The only problem with bike shares is if there isn't a docking station near where you want to go, which is at least a plannable inconvenience, as opposed to getting your bike stolen and needing to walk home 4 miles because there are no good bus routes near you.

> And you need to do any maintenance, which may not be your cup of tea.

And on a <$100 bike (or for that matter any bike under about $400) that'll be frequent. Department store "bike-shaped objects" are not known for their reliability

Well my $25 and $50 bikes have required exactly zero maintenance. I oil the chain once a year, and that's pretty much it. Originally these bikes cost about $200 new I think (Raleigh Ozark and MTB Trekker), so they're fairly decent bikes that are about one step up from the Walmart models. Note that I only ride a couple of times a week, and not every day.

To be honest I think once you spend more than a few hundred dollars you're just paying for fancy suspension and fancy brand-name. I could of course be wrong, as I've never bought an expensive bike.

I live in NYC, and use CitiBike ~10 times a week. I own my own bike, too: $105 (after-tax price) is incredibly cheap for me not to have to worry about locking my bike up outside of my friend's apartment overnight, or finding a safe place to lock up outside my office. Even if it only prevents me from losing a shifter or getting my brake cables cut, it's worth the money.

If I'm going some place that I can bring my bike inside, I ride my own bike. But for ~80% of trips in NY, CitiBike is more convenient (plus, if I meet up with friends, I'm not chained to my bike anymore, and can just use the subway like everyone else).

Craigslist often has some great deals on older bikes in lightly used condition. But it also has ads from professional bike thieves. If an ad is form someone selling lots of cheap, more heavily used bikes that they made no effort to fix up, chances are good they were stolen from a college campus some distance away and taken to a different campus to resell. If your seller has a pickup truck load of such bikes, see if the truck has out of state plates.

You aren't buying a bike for $85/year, you are paying for a service. It's like the difference between buying a server and paying Amazon to do it for you.

If you are discerning enough to buy a decent bike on (e.g.) craigslist for $50, and are confident that you can do any probable maintenance, the service probably is not for you.

I live in Boston and I ended up buying a bike to commute into work. Boston/Cambridge is great for cyclists (drivers not included). The point of Hubway is you pay for the convenience of the network. They have stations literally everywhere. And the cost of maintaining those bikes and stations is probably very high. I think I read somewhere that NYC's Hubway equivalent was losing money (even though it's partially sponsored). I'm not sure how popular their annual memberships, I suspect a lot of the revenue comes from the casual renters like tourists and working folk needing to get from point a to b quickly.

The NYC equivalent is losing money because everyone got a annual pass and not many tourists are using it. The tourists are the real money makers, as only 10 daily passes or 4 weekly passes will be the same cost as an annual pass[1].

If I was the program director though, I wouldn't be worried yet. We just got out of the coldest winter in recent years, and in a few months we can tell if no one is riding the bikes because the novelty wore off or because it was cold.

http://www.citibikenyc.com/pricing

I live in SF and have both a personal commuter bike, and a BABS membership. When I factor in the convenience of not having to do any maintenance on the BABS bike, don't have to worry about fixing any flat tires, don't have to worry about theft (a big problem in SF), and can quickly dock a bike where I'm going, $88 a year feels like a very good deal. The only thing preventing me from going 100% BABS is the network of stations in SF is very sparse and located mostly downtown (see: https://twitter.com/ptraughber/status/388368763281625089).

$85 a year is basically what Netflix costs, i.e. nothing. You get the key, forget about the tiny amount of money it costs, and can now bike whenever you want, regardless of whether or not you have your bike or feel like finding somewhere to lock it up.

What about winters? I'm under impression it can get quite rough in Boston (possibly to the point that health risks will outweight the benefits).

Interestingly, in the winters the streets seem much cleaner much faster than the sidewalks. In fact, pedestrians get to deal with snow plowed off of the streets.

I know a few residents who bike to work from Cambridge to MGH (over the Longfellow bridge) year-round.

If you're used to riding in traffic, it's not really any riskier than other seasons -- they salt the roads heavily and tend to have the main ones pretty clear the day after a storm.

Probably the riskiest part (as a commuter) was that with shorter days, I was often riding home well after sunset.

The Hubway stations are removed before winter.

They kept the Cambridge ones open this year, though, and it seemed like they were still regularly used.

In Scandinavia people take the bike even in snow storms. Just put on winter tires and you're safe.

I commute on my bike all year long in Pittsburgh, and did do as well in Boston (Cambridge and Allston). It was actually easier in Boston as they're better at cleaning snow off the streets. It's perfectly possible with the right gear.

Ironically, many of the best cycling cities in the world have terrible winters. Montreal, Copenhagen, Dublin - not exactly tropical climates. They manage.

How about prescribing nutrient rich food?

One thing at a time. I like this idea because it encourages activity, not just exercise but just being out. With all the various aid programs we have institutionalized poverty.

For far too many we have nearly found the least cost to society to idle a large portion of it. To give them just enough to exist, just enough to not want to resort taking from others, but too much so that they don't have a need or desire to live. Its a drug.

Here, watch some tv, enjoy that boxed dinner in your microwave, we will even help you with a place to stay. All you have to is stay out of sight, be quiet and it will all be okay

Now, if we can only get doctors to prescribe stopping at stop signs.

Now, if we can only get doctors to prescribe not speeding. #replacebikewithcar

Prescribing Idaho stops would be even better.

I hope pollution levels are low in Boston because making a physical effort while breathing polluted air (= in a city with a lot of cars at rush hours) is not the best for your health.

Heart disease kills many more Americans than pollution. Even after factoring in the additional pollution exposure and traffic accident risk, cycling is still a net win:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/

(And, of course, the more people cycling, the more drivers look out for cyclists. And there are less cars!)

Interesting study. Just as a slight criticism of your wording, although I don't think this applies to the study- a lot of deaths from heart disease are actually caused by air pollution. Inhalation of particulate matter is implicated in tens of thousands of deaths a year.

Even though exercise outweighs inhalation of fumes, air pollution is a serious issue, and many lives could be saved by its reduction. Hopefully that will be an extra benefit of electric and hybrid cars in cities.

As a bike commuter on a major city recently hit by a peak of air pollution (Paris), I've looked around for infos, and it's seems cyclists are less exposed to air pollution than motorists or even pedestrians.

Sources : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2014/feb/20.... http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2014/03/city-cycling-...

sitting on your butt as you drive, or standing in a crowded train car full of diseases is probably worse for your health

What are you talking about it keeps your immune system prepared :P

I have thought about this a lot - I biked to every day this winter, and only took the train wearing a surgical mask a few dozen times when I couldn't bike. I didn't get sick this winter like I usually do.

I probably need to bike for the next 9 winters though before I can really attribute not getting sick to not taking the T and exercising.

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