Biking in Boston

jass said:
I said that because I didnt realize Bixi stations weren't as efficient as their competitors. I know Bixi lacks many of the user-end features other systems provide, but I didn't realize their power management was also less efficient.

And yes, Im with you. Especially for the longer stations, they should have the panel kiosk at both ends (like south station). Extra power, extra map, extra sponsorship place.
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Jass,
If the Bixi stations are so bad why do they keep winning all the major systems up for grabs recently? London, NY, DC, Boston. The cost of a Bixi system and a B-cycle system is roughly the same. Why can't B-Cycle win?

Justin/Jass,
Kiosks at both ends or maps at both ends is doable, it's only a cost issue. Most cities have very strict rules on how much space is able to be used for advertising so in many cases having multiple map frames won't help you cause you can't use all the space for sponsors anyway.

The stations have to be visted on a regular basis regardless so it's not like operator is sending someone out to just replace the battery and that's it. You guys have made the issues of batteries a much bigger deal that it really is.

Secondly, Bixi's primary function is to make hardware, not to operate systems. So making their product much more expensive (better solar) to improve a very minor part of operations (replacing batteries) doesn't make sense for them. That's not to say the power systems won't improve, it just doesn't make sense to make it a huge priority.
 
nobody said:
If the Bixi stations are so bad why do they keep winning all the major systems up for grabs recently?
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There's the whole 'alleged' bid rigging thing going on which seems to occur in almost every city Bixi is involved in.
 
nobody said:
"And if x location is having issues....why not "install" the station a block away while the details get worked out"

Money. City pays operator to launch the system which consists of 61 stations. If they choose to place 4 of the 61 in temporary locations the system is still fully "launched" because 61 stations have been installed. If at that point the city decides to move 4 stations to a new location they have to pay the operator to do so. The city cannot make the operator move stations without paying them unless there is some sort of public safety issue.
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I dont know what the final Boston contract said, but DC contract said the operator could be asked to move the stations x amount of times (might have been 4) for free. Did Boston not include this common-sense line?


nobody said:
If the Bixi stations are so bad why do they keep winning all the major systems up for grabs recently? London, NY, DC, Boston. The cost of a Bixi system and a B-cycle system is roughly the same. Why can't B-Cycle win?
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I didnt say the Bixi stations are bad. Theyre much better than the Clearchannel ones, and theyre extremely similar to the B-cycle ones. B-cycle does offer some GPS features which Bixi doesnt (lets each rider track their actual miles) and has a basket, which in my opinion, is superior.

Also, their lights stay on when the bike stops, which Bixi doesnt make standard.

But again, these are minor preference points. Perhaps you prefer the Bixi basket system. It's really not a big deal. (I find the Velib basket the best).

So why does Bixi win? Well, thats an incredibly complicated question, and it's impossible to fully know without reading all the contract submissions. Boston had 3 bids, NYC had 6. DC, I believe, went directly to Bixi without a bidding process, but I may be wrong.

However, one major reason is that government officials do not want failure. Failure means problems at election time. So what is perceived as the safest bet is a big deal.

Youll notice that Bcycle has won many bids.

Youll also notice that the Bcycle wins and the Bixi wins are both clustered geographically.

This isn't a coincidence. A high weighting is placed behind "what is the next city over doing"

According to their wiki page:

Broward County, Florida;
Chicago, Illinois;
Denver, Colorado;
Des Moines, Iowa;
Hawaii;
Louisville, Kentucky;
Madison, Wisconsin;
Omaha, Nebraska;
San Antonio, Texas;
Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Ignoring Florida and Hawaii, they have a distinct regional bias.

If Tampa sets up a system, odds are, it will be Bcycle because thats what Miami Beach has. Salt Lake city would probably favor them as well.

If Philly sets up a system, Id put my money on Bixi. Same with Baltimore.

Both manufacturers knew Boston was a big deal because of the looming NYC bid. Alta/Bixi was able to say "come visit us in Boston and DC". Bixi saying "come to Denver" holds less sway.

Meanwhile, those other 4 bidders? They're screwed. They might get college contracts, but no city will pick Veolia because theyre a "what if?" pick when these two are a "sure thing"

Bixi also has an advantage that they have the consistent partnership with Alta. I believe B-cycle goes with local operators in each market. That should be a strength, but hasn't been.

You see the exact same thing around the world.

Look at this incomplete listing of who sells to which city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bicycle_sharing_systems

Extremely strong geographic bias.

Most French systems are the Velib people, most German systems are the nextbike people, etc etc. Which system is better? It doesnt actually matter, it's which system is safer and more "local". Montreal was more local to Boston than Wisconsin.
 
Hubway logged its 100,000th ride today!!!

http://blogs.bostonmagazine.com/boston_daily/2011/10/10/hubway-turns-100000/

By the numbers:
Distance:
Average ride: 1.13 miles
Total miles: 115,260 miles
Earth’s circumference at the equator: 24,901 miles

People:
By residence: 48 percent from out-of-town
By gender: 32 percent female
By occupation: 11 percent are students; 80 percent work in Boston
By bike ownership: 50 percent don’t own a bike in working condition

49 percent of users join the Hubway because it provides a faster way to get around town than walking, or taking the T (especially when it’s on fire … yikes!).

By transportation type, 41 percent of Hubway would otherwise have ridden public transportation, and 20 percent would have driven their cars.

Doing a quick mathematical analysis, that’s 20,000 car trips saved by the Hubway program.
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Maybe Boston included that line and doesn't want to waste those moves on stations that will only be down for 2-3 weeks?

You say that b-cycle has won many bids but you fail to point out the size and viability of those cities you list. Lets look at the number of stations in each of those systems

Broward - 35
Denver - 51
Des Moines- 4
Hawaii - 2
Madison - 35
Ohmaha - 5
San Antonio - 15
Spartansburgh - 2
Chicago - 7

And don't forget that chicago released an RFP last month for a 3,000 bike system to launch next year. If they already had a great relationships with B-cycle why not just expand the B-cycle system that exists instead of going through an RFP process?

The bottom line is that with the exception of Madison, Broward and Denver these are literally NOT real bike sharing sytems, they are test systems with little value to the city. B-cycle literally gives away these systems and then sends out big press releases saying that they launched bike sharing in Hawaii.

And when you consider B-cycle is based in Denver and one of the 2 partners in B-Cycle (Trek) is based in Wisconsin you have to figure that Broward is the only one they won without a home field advantage.

First, Bixi partnered with Serco in London, not Alta, and still won. Beating out all the European systems. And Bixi parntered with NiceRide in Minneapolis and still won. And I don't understand how partnering with Alta should be a disadvantage. How can partnering with a "rookie" operator be an advantage? Also, DC did not go to Bixi without a bid process.

Maybe you see it as a disadvantage because you like to bash Alta for what you percieve as their mistakes. But in the end the people who work for the cities are happy with Alta/Bixi and they pass information on to other cities. Don't you think Boston called DC and asked how they felt about Alta?

I'll make a prediction here, in the next year it's likely Chicago and San Fran will award contracts. If B-cycle can't win either of those (or some other 75 station plus system I'm not thinking of) they will go out of business.
 
I said Alta should have been a disadvantage over a local operator for two reasons:

Theoretically, the local operator is more in tune with the local market then a company based across the country.
And theoretically politicians prefer supporting local businesses.

I then followed through by saying that obviously these disadvantages were not an issue, for whatever reason.

I didn't "bash" Alta, I thought their launch in DC and Boston was quite amateurish, and I pointed out many of the simple problems they repeated in both markets. I think it's a shame that they weren't able to fix those mistakes by the Boston launch. Hopefully they don't do it again in NYC.

I'm most notably displeased with the 58 station launch. Hubway has been successful, in spite of, not because of the way 2011 was handled. A May 2010 launch with 150 stations, and an advertising/education campaign, as originally proposed, should have happened. You may spread blame to Bixi, Alta, MAPC or Boston as you see fit.

I'm interested in seeing how Alta handles their winter shutdown in Boston, as they don't have experience with that either.


Chicago issued an RFP because this is a democracy, and not even Chicago could afford to dictate who the supplier would be. Of course, cities get around this by writing their RFPs to favor a candidate. I havent seen the Chicago RFP, but if it, for example, states that the bikes MUST have GPS....well, that's clearly a nod to B-cycle. I'm not saying Chicago did this, as I said, I haven't seen their RFP.

I would expect B-cycle to win though, because they did do the trial system, and like you said, Trek is from Wisconsin and theyre from Denver. I'd also assume B-cycle is going all-in with this bid because they've lost the northeast. I don't work for B-cycle, and never have, so I don't know what they're doing. Maybe they're focusing on the San Francisco-San Jose RFP? That would help them with an eventual LA bid.

I agree that they can't afford to lose both those bids. I dont think theyd go out of business though, but theyd have to downsize. Miami beach and Broward was important because of the greater Florida market. Downtown Miami (city of Miami) would obviously pick B-cycle.


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On another topic, it's mid October. Paint season is coming to a close. What happened to the Mass Ave and Greenway bike lanes announced for 2011...?
 
Side note:

Pan Am finally filed its paperwork for abandonment of the Watertown Branch this week, which means next steps are negotiating sale to the state and state filing a landbanking order on the branch to secure it for the Alewife-Watertown Sq. path. I guess this means PAR has finally settled with that last customer on Grove St. who's been holding this up and keeping the line "active" for years against PAR's will. Means you might finally be able to bike grade-separated to Arsenal, Watertown Mall, and (close enough to) Watertown Sq. from Fresh Pond and (close enough to) the Minuteman/Somerville Path network. Watertown made pretty quick work of the first path segment behind the Mall to Arlington St., so they and Cambridge could probably crank this one out by 2014 if there are no big funding snags. This is a big one...could rival the Minuteman to Arlington Ctr. in usage because of the Malls and lack of any direct access from North Cambridge to Watertown Sq. One of the few rail trails I'm gung-ho about; I usually view those things as anti-transit trojan horses, but this is the best possible utilization for that 'tweener of a line.


Might also mean a direct Fresh Pond to Danehy Park path, sparing the fugly jog down the narrow New St. sidewalks.
 
New Street is not very busy, so I don't know why you'd want to bike on the sidewalks instead of the street. I agree that a path directly to Danehy would be sweet.
 
A different type of bike rotary on Stanford's campus. This picture shows how proper etiquette can be self-enforced.

300514_10150873071015603_754310602_21176901_1330023173_n.jpg
 
HenryAlan said:
I liked it, until they got to the left turn, which would evidently require two light cycles.
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Vehicular cyclists could still make conventional left turns in traffic. For everyone else not comfortable with directly sharing traffic lanes with cars, the "pedestrian" or "Dutch" style turns are much safer and accessible.
 
Lurker said:
Vehicular cyclists could still make conventional left turns in traffic. For everyone else not comfortable with directly sharing traffic lanes with cars, the "pedestrian" or "Dutch" style turns are much safer and accessible.
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Agreed, and that's exactly what I'd do. Though I imagine that it wouldn't take too long for ignorant drivers to start hassling cyclists about how we have our own lane for turning now and that left-turn lanes are for cars.

I mean, I'd still tell him he can blow it out his ass, but I could see it becoming another point of tension between cyclists and idiotic drivers who feel that cyclists have (or should have) no rights on the road.
 
In Copenhagen this week. Why can't we have nice things in the US? I'm convinced the massive uptake of biking here vs say Boston is not on account of greater density here or flatter terrain or better weather - just better infrastructure. Bike lanes between parking and sidewalk and grade seperated in between the grades of street and sidewalk. At large intersections, bikes have seperate signals. There are even pedestrian islands and walk signals across bike lanes! And, of course, massive bike racks at major nodal points.

Anyway, just reporting and ranting. I know things have improved in the US and especially Boston but there is still such a long way to go.
 
Sigh? Because the SUV broke the law and didnt yield to the crosswalk user?
 
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