Biking in Boston

dshoost88 said:
I'm really excited to see people using Hubway all around the city, but I've been especially annoyed about them for one particular reason: NONE OF THEM RIDE ON THE STREETS!!! Unless I see them along Mass Ave, Commonwealth, or Columbus--i.e. roads with dedicated bike lanes--most of the Hubway riders I've witnessed out and about ride on the narrow brick sidewalks of the South End and Back Bay.

It's really wonderful that more people are using the service, but I really hope the cyclists learn how to ride around the city properly.
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Most of the violators I've seen are blatantly European, too. They also have no problem riding the wrong way into traffic on Boylston at rush hour, ignoring red lights and stopping in the middle of intersections to look at their maps.

The whole ($*&% program is a menace.
 
Itchy, I totally understand your point. Bike lanes are not heavy infrastructure, and I would take a revamped Green Line tunnel over a million bike lanes any day. But I don't think bike lanes are creating an either/or scenario you are describing. I think both can be done it just requires money and leadership to convince the public of the value of the new infrastructure, whatever it may be.

Also, I've taken the hubway to commute, to visit, to explore, to everything its great. Better and more bike lanes are still a must. My favorite ride- Charles MGH thru esplanade to Fenway. Casually done in 15 minutes and very pleasant. Can't do that by car or T at the times i do it.
 
Bikes lanes aren't siphoning cash away from other infrastructure projects. A few thousand dollars thrown into the annual road re-striping budget has no bearing on multimillion to billion dollar expenditures for rail expansions and bridge repair.

Your arguement against bike lanes could be used against sidewalks too. Why are we spending money on sidewalks when more money could be spent on roads? Heaven forbid anyone get anywhere without driving or taking public transportation.
 
I'm not arguing that cash is being siphoned away from heavy infrastructure and toward bike lanes.

My question was merely whether a few relatively inexpensive bikelanes are able to give politicians cover for not doing much to boost "real" infrastructure -- that people are less likely to be upset about the state of bridges or transit if they get a few bikelanes and are led to believe that "something" is being done to address infrastructure needs.

In other words, whether bikelanes are serving to distract the attention of the media and residents from other, more capital-intensive infrastructure needs and provide a perception that infrastructure is "getting done."

It was more of a question than an argument, and I would never claim that money is being rerouted toward bikelanes away from, say, the T.
 
Somehow I doubt the masses sitting in traffic in their cars all day atop crumbling infrastructure are going to allow politicians to use bike lanes as a distraction from necessary funding. In fact, most drivers default to a self centered universe and don't care about bikes or pedestrians or trains. They want a giant open road for them to drive as quickly as possible to their destination while preferably paying a penny a gallon for the gasoline to do it.
 
Lurker said:
Your arguement against bike lanes could be used against sidewalks too. Why are we spending money on sidewalks when more money could be spent on roads? Heaven forbid anyone get anywhere without driving or taking public transportation.
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Uh. Huh? Sidewalks may technically be city property but the onus is on property owners abutting the sidewalk to maintain sidewalks.

EDIT: for clarity
 
bbfen said:
Uh. Huh? Sidewalks may technically be city property but the onus is on property owners abutting the sidewalk to maintain sidewalks.

EDIT: for clarity
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Maintain (as in keep snow and trash off). Not repair or build new ones.
 
Looks like Hubway has 60 stations on the ground today, finally.

Meanwhile in DC....

It’s taken a year for the first dozen bikesharing stations to be installed in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. The next dozen will take just a week.

Three new stations went in yesterday, north of Courthouse. They’ll be followed by about two each day for the next week, until all the locations shown as bright green pins on this map are installed and functioning.

After that, another dozen stations are due later this year.

Arlington’s rollout of bikesharing may seem slow, but put in the national context it’s quite impressive. If Arlington’s network were by itself, and there no DC stations at all, it would still qualify as the 6th largest bikesharing system in America.
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http://beyonddc.com/
 
I notice that people are continuing taking Hubway to task for not answering questions regarding the lost Buswell station.

I'm also happy to finally see a station serving SOWA. About damn time!
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Maintain (as in keep snow and trash off). Not repair or build new ones.
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Huh. I'd like someone to then reimburse my company for the several hundred thousand dollars we recently spent repairing and replacing sidewalks. Because the City of Boston made it very clear that if we wanted to upgrade the asphalt shitpatch THEY created after digging up the concrete sidewalks (circa 1994), we had to pay for it.
 
I'm all for bike lanes as long as they do not take away space from the sidewalk, and especially as long as they do not widen roads. Otherwise, it's just a stealth attack on walkers by drivers, who will happily take advantage of the extra space.

What I've noticed is that a lot of people are afraid of using the bike lanes still. I've been bumped by bikers and I asked them why they weren't using the bike lane next to them, and they said it felt too dangerous. Still I did see other people using them, so, hopefully the long term effect will be to make people more comfortable. Maybe they should put a wider line and reduce the vehicle lane width on that particular road.
 
Lurker said:
I notice that people are continuing taking Hubway to task for not answering questions regarding the lost Buswell station.

I'm also happy to finally see a station serving SOWA. About damn time!
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You simply cant take away a station people depend on without notice or explanation.

And then saying "it wasnt being used" is a slap in the face to the people who obviously were using it and have now been inconvenienced.

Its like saying "nobody does that". Well, if you DO, it means youre being called a nobody.


I did note a lengthy post today that does complain how undeserved the BU campus is. The fact is, the stations are too far apart. If one station is full or empty, youre screwed, the enxt station is too far away to be useful.
 
bbfen said:
Huh. I'd like someone to then reimburse my company for the several hundred thousand dollars we recently spent repairing and replacing sidewalks. Because the City of Boston made it very clear that if we wanted to upgrade the asphalt shitpatch THEY created after digging up the concrete sidewalks (circa 1994), we had to pay for it.
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Right, you guys chose to spend money beautifying the sidewalk in front of your office (or wherever) just like the little old ladies chose to install gardens in the tree wells outside their homes. But that doesn't take away from Lurker's point.

And FYI, if the "aspalt shitpatch" was not smooth or had too steep a pitch you can file a complaint with the AAB. They'll forward the complaint to the city and sue the city if Boston doesn't fix the sidewalk.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Right, you guys chose to spend money beautifying the sidewalk in front of your office (or wherever) just like the little old ladies chose to install gardens in the tree wells outside their homes. But that doesn't take away from Lurker's point.

And FYI, if the "aspalt shitpatch" was not smooth or had too steep a pitch you can file a complaint with the AAB. They'll forward the complaint to the city and sue the city if Boston doesn't fix the sidewalk.
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I guess you still don't understand who actually pays for sidewalk repairs. It's not the city of Boston. They're are really good at messing them up though!

As for the access board, they are as obsolete as two spaces between sentences. Pointless beauracracy that is another layer between problem and resolution.
 
Something this thread has talked about before, Alta will be handling the San Francisco Bike Share as well.

A board committee of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) is expected to recommend selecting Alta tomorrow, according to a memo [PDF] from CEO Jack Broadbent. The memo says that Alta ranked the highest out of six bidders in meeting the agency’s criteria.

If awarded the contract, Alta would run a system initially consisting of 1,000 bicycles and 100 station kiosks – half in San Francisco and the other half in four cities in Silicon Valley. The contract would be capped at $5,969,000, according to the memo.
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http://sf.streetsblog.org/


Also will also be launching NYC and Chicago.
 
Matthew said:
I'm all for bike lanes as long as they do not take away space from the sidewalk, and especially as long as they do not widen roads. Otherwise, it's just a stealth attack on walkers by drivers, who will happily take advantage of the extra space.

What I've noticed is that a lot of people are afraid of using the bike lanes still. I've been bumped by bikers and I asked them why they weren't using the bike lane next to them, and they said it felt too dangerous. Still I did see other people using them, so, hopefully the long term effect will be to make people more comfortable. Maybe they should put a wider line and reduce the vehicle lane width on that particular road.
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Mass ave still scares the hell out of me even after they put in the bike lanes - people get killed around MIT at least once every year or two - if they'd only change the laws to make motorists culpable for hitting pedestrians and cyclists it might change things around here.

In response to Itchy:

I've been biking around Boston for over 10 years (and have been using bikes as a mode of transit since my training wheels came off)- I'm definitely not one of those weird bike fanatics who ride fixed gear and hang out at the otherside, not a very good environmentalist (I threw a plastic bottle in the trash today, and I had a hamburger for lunch), I am pretty photogenic, though;) - I have some basic bike tools I don't really know how to use very well, and I don't own fancy biking clothes or gear - just a helmet and lights.

I want better bike infrastructure (yes, it's REAL infrastructure) because I don't like the hassle of having to find (and pay for) parking near my office, I don't like sitting in traffic - and I really don't like taking the T during rush hour. I live too far to walk, but it's only about a 30-40 minutes by bike. However, there are still a couple spots that are very dangerous unless I go a considerable amount out of my way. I used to walk to my old job (like 14% of Bostonians - and almost a quarter of Cantabrigians) in all sorts of weather in professional clothes and somehow managed. IMO - if you work up a sweat riding you're pushing yourself or more likely out of shape - if you go at a reasonable pace it's just like walking at a brisk pace.

also - I'm pretty sure a very large number of the population that works in the city proper lives within 5-10 miles of their workplace - easy biking distance. And if people could take bikes on the trains during rush hour...

I think before copenhagen started expanding their bike infrastructure they only had about 10% of the population commuting by bike (still far more than the 2% we have in Boston - which has actually doubled in the past few years) - but now it's well over 50% in the city, and over 40% in the suburbs. Boston is compact and relatively flat enough, the weather isn't actually that bad (Minneapolis has a much stronger bike culture, and I hear it's just lovely there in the winter), and I know there are plenty of people like myself who would prefer to bike places, but won't because we're afraid of getting run over - and we're not militant enough or are a little put off by the hard-core biking organizations around here. I think if the city builds bike lanes and does a good job marketing them, people will definitely use them.
 
bbfen said:
I guess you still don't understand who actually pays for sidewalk repairs. It's not the city of Boston. They're are really good at messing them up though!

As for the access board, they are as obsolete as two spaces between sentences. Pointless beauracracy that is another layer between problem and resolution.
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I hate going back and forth on this, but your wrong. I work for a company that gets paid by the City of Boston to repair sidewalks. In fact, we just completed an $8M project repairing sidewalks and installing WC Ramps along Comm Ave near BC. And we got a huge contract (again, from the City of Boston) to rip up and resent a freshly built sidewalk along Huntington Ave because the City lost a lawsuit to the AAB (apparently the sidewalk was designed to ADA but not AAB standards). And all those handicap ramp replacements you see, those are because of the AAB or fear of the AAB.

Yes, if you want to spruce up a perfectly functional sidewalk, you will have to pay for that yourself.
 
According to Boston Biker, new bike lanes are sprouting up like summer weeds. Any one have pictures?



Also, first details of bike share pricing in NYC....the pricing is pretty damn astronomical IMO. Remember, in paris, the day rate is 1 euro.


An annual membership will cost $95.
A one-day membership will cost $10.
The first 45 minutes of any ride will incur no additional charges to annual members beyond the initial subscription fee.
Lower membership levels, such as one-day and multi-day options, will have a shorter “free” ride limit: 30 minutes.


http://brooklynspoke.com/2012/04/30/initial-details-about-bike-share-start-to-emerge/
 
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