Biking in Boston

How the hell is Boston rated ahead of Cambridge in that study. That makes me question the whole legitimacy of it.
 
jass said:
Looks about right, why do you think it needs works?
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I've been digging down into the details of how the scores were calculated and there are a lot of questionable assumptions. I'll use Provincetown as an example since it's easier to parse:

Provincetown scored a Ridership rating of 1.6, but according to PeopleForBikes' own data, it has a 14.3% bike commute rate. In their attempt to normalize scores, they also created a target bike commute rate, and the one they assigned Provincetown is 51%! They used the gap between the actual and target numbers to rank all of the communities.

So despite an actual high commute rate, it got scored lower than places where the commute rate is far less.

Portland's commute rate is 8.8% and its target was set at 7.8%, so it got the top ranking.

Confused yet? I'm not a statistician, so some of the nuances of this is lost on me.

You can see a lot of the detailed data in this Google sheet they shared with me today:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wvjimOG3pyYo3KBBRgO6UyWFBZK1mWU1ZBdtjWv5DvY/edit?usp=sharing

The spreadsheet doesn't include the calculation formulas, so it's kind of hard to figure out how they got some of the results.
 
Re: PeopleForBikes City Ratings

elemenoh said:
PeopleForBikes released their first-ever City Ratings this week. It's a more data-driven approach than the Bike League's Bicycle Friendly Community Awards, but it looks like it needs some work.

Here's how Massachusetts towns stacked up on the 5-star rating scheme (note that the highest overall score in the country was 3.5 for Fort Collins, CO):

Massachusetts Overall City Ratings

City - Rating
Boston - 2.6
Cambridge - 2.3
Melrose - 2.2
Provincetown - 2.1
Somerville - 1.7
Northampton - 1.5
Lexington - 1.4
Newburyport - 1.1
Falmouth - 1.1
Worcester - 1.0
Lowell - 0.9
Springfield - 0.8
Bedford - 0.6
Cochituate - 0.4
Foxborough - 0.4
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This list is odd. Cambridge is a cyclist's paradise. Even though Boston has a few nice facilities, they are mostly unconnected (not much of a network). I grew up in Melrose and while I'm happy to see it made the list, there is only 500ft of bike lane and two sharrowed roadways in the entire city...
 
Does DCR have any plans to repave and widen the Paul Dudley White path in Cambridge between the BU Bridge and the River St Bridge?
 
Melrose just recently added bike lanes to a few major streets including Lynn Fells Pkwy. They also reduced the speed limit on major roads to 25mph. I bike around Melrose all the time and most streets don't need bike lanes.
 
Jrubbs said:
Melrose just recently added bike lanes to a few major streets including Lynn Fells Pkwy. They also reduced the speed limit on major roads to 25mph. I bike around Melrose all the time and most streets don't need bike lanes.
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That's a DCR road. While the buffered part to the East of Main St is nice, the Western part just got bike symbols added to the shoulder. It's like a 5ft bike lane, 13ft travel lane... They also skipped in front of the school complex, arguably the most important place to have safe biking infrastructure.
 
The area infront of the school also has wide shoulders on both sides. These shoulders are only used in the morning before start of school(7:45am) and during pick up (middle school ends 2:03, high school 2:09pm) otherwise shoulders on the fells are usually completely clear all day.
 
Jrubbs said:
The area infront of the school also has wide shoulders on both sides. These shoulders are only used in the morning before start of school(7:45am) and during pick up (middle school ends 2:03, high school 2:09pm) otherwise shoulders on the fells are usually completely clear all day.
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Drop off/pick up hours are the most important times for the shoulders to be clear for biking to/from school.
 
Comprehensive website on Hubway Expansion

https://www.boston.gov/departments/boston-bikes/bike-share-expansion

Current stage:

View Proposed Maps
March – May 2018 (Happening now!)
We used your suggestions from the public workshops and online maps to find more than 120 locations that meet or exceed the technical needs for a bike share station. You can give your input on station locations through mid-May.
Get Ready to Ride
Summer 2018
After collecting your final comments on our proposed maps, we will move ahead with locating and permitting the final locations. We'll post the final plans online. Stations will be placed in waves, and turned on as soon as they're installed. Get ready for a great summer of biking in Boston!

Map:
https://www.boston.gov/departments/transportation/bike-share-expansion-survey
 
Are there any usage maps? Does anyone know if they track each bike trip? I would be very curious to see what the most heavily utilized stations are, and what the transit patterns are.
 
Is there a reason why there are no Hubway docks anywhere in the Back Bay Fens? Seems like a no-brainer place to put some (especially around Clemente Field and the basketball courts or along Boylston St / Park Drive). Is this a turf-war issue (i.e., the powers that be don't want to see Hubway docks in the parks)?

The West Fens neighborhood is pretty dense, but there are no docks anywhere south of Boylston St until you reach the campuses of Simmons/Wentworth/Northeastern.
 
JumboBuc said:
Is there a reason why there are no Hubway docks anywhere in the Back Bay Fens? Seems like a no-brainer place to put some (especially around Clemente Field and the basketball courts or along Boylston St / Park Drive). Is this a turf-war issue (i.e., the powers that be don't want to see Hubway docks in the parks)?

The West Fens neighborhood is pretty dense, but there are no docks anywhere south of Boylston St until you reach the campuses of Simmons/Wentworth/Northeastern.
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One of the proposed new stations is in front of restaurant row on Peterborough Street. It’s a good spot and will definitely help with number of bikes available from the neighborhood. I agree it would be nice to have a few stations along Park Drive. Maybe they’re worried about vandalism?
 
Cambridge City Council is voting tonight on a key part of the Inman Square redesign: to flip Velluci Plaza to the opposite (more useful) side of Hampshire Street, the city must submit a Home Rule petition to the state. This has big implications for bicycle infrastructure through the square (as well as past the square to the east on Cambridge St and SE/NW on Hampshire).

Here's the official language (per the Cambridge Bikes! facebook group): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mLiFBkxhGZCw68l45Z5ManyQ-8W-JRbJ/view

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DOtApRah.jpg
 
...aaaaaand it gets tabled. Quinton Zondervan, who says that "One of my top priorities as a councillor would be to adopt a comprehensive plan for the implementation of a network of protected bicycle lanes within Cambridge as part of the growing regional network which connects us to cities like Somerville and Boston", used his charter right to delay a vote on the home rule petition to the next city council meeting (in two weeks).

More from the Day: http://www.cambridgeday.com/2018/05...-as-legislative-session-ticks-down-to-summer/
 
At last Tuesday's meeting of the GLX Construction Working Group, the GLX team presented the current iteration of the design for the Community Path. The slides from the presentation are here.
 
Who controls the Grand Junction Path in Cambridge/Kendall between Broadway and Main? Is that MIT, Cambridge or a PPP?

I ask because the sprinklers come on at 2pm, which can't be right...chasing away users at lunch time. But whom to call?
 
Our public bike share system is getting bigger and even better. We will add more than 70 new stations in Boston, starting in June 2018. We're bringing service to new neighborhoods and adding capacity in our existing service area. We need your help to finalize the best locations for these new stations.
Click to expand...

Its August, anyone know whats going on?

Edit: They started last week!

https://www.bluebikes.com/blog/bluebikes-expansion-station-deployment

In the past, the map highlighted the new stations, but now this blog will have to do.
 
Last edited:
The Hubway station map has added 15 stations coming soon in Dorchester and Roslindale.

https://member.bluebikes.com/map/

Density is a bit weak. However, Ive noted all the new stations tend to be larger than the older stations in the area.

IE: They just added St Marys in Brookline with 15 docks. The existing station at Park and Buswell has 11 docks.


699 Mt Auburn St in Cambridge has 25 docks, while the closest older station have 14 and 12.

The new stations are also coming with a new model bike, that has a better basket and supposedly better gears
 
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