Biking in Boston

Choo -- sorry that kind of logic led us to elect President Obama

You would spend for one Harpoon in a bar about $5.00
You would spend for one tank of gas at a loca station about $30.00

both of which flow into the Massachusetts economy

Some of it stays in Massachusetts to pay:
employees and local suppliers
Taxes at the state and local level

and some of it leaves Massachussetts to pay:
suppliers of Hops grown in Germany {Harpoon} or gasoline refined in New Jersey or Texas {Exxon}
Taxes at the Federal level

Now which choice helps the local economy more?

What the heck does this have to do with who we elected as president?

Let's keep this out of politics. If anything, this argues that we should spend less on them military (which we should) and more on infrastructure and technology which can help cut transfer cost, increase efficiency, decrease prices and thus drive consumer spending. As I recall, the Republicans are calling for an increase in military spending. Regardless, none of this has to do with the politicians.
 
What the heck does this have to do with who we elected as president?

Let's keep this out of politics. If anything, this argues that we should spend less on them military (which we should) and more on infrastructure and technology which can help cut transfer cost, increase efficiency, decrease prices and thus drive consumer spending. As I recall, the Republicans are calling for an increase in military spending. Regardless, none of this has to do with the politicians.

Kent -- Fine -- I'll retract the gratuitous political remark

The rest however stands in response to Choo's post
Originally Posted by choo
...In Massachusetts, my biking to a bar in the back bay and buying a harpoon (made in south boston) is much more valuable to the massachusetts economy then me going to exxon and filling up a tank of gas.
Spending $5 for a Harpoon in a bar may make you feel better (I've enjoyed quite a few of their brewskis), but spending $30 filling your tank at a gas station will definitely contribute more to the Massachusetts economy
 
Spending $5 for a Harpoon in a bar may make you feel better (I've enjoyed quite a few of their brewskis), but spending $30 filling your tank at a gas station will definitely contribute more to the Massachusetts economy

The comparison should be $30 at a bar versus $30 at the tank (since most middle class people have a low savings rate in the US, most of that $30 get's pumped into the economy).
I have a family friend who owned around a dozen gas stations (he sold them a few years back). He hardly made any money selling gas - the margins are too thin. He made all his money selling crap at the C-store. Likewise, the refineries don't make much money. That's why there's not a ton of new refineries being built all the time. Most of the money in oil sales goes to production (i.e., drilling). And most of that happens overseas.
 
I prefer to fill my tank with beer. Harpoon tastes considerably better than Exxon.
 
Yeah, because China hasn't been pouring money into super highways, wide roads, and towers-in-a-park or anything. No, not at all. Clearly this is the "free market".

Hey everyone, China is free market!

Chicken and egg thing, but I think from my knowledge discussing with Chinese groups and my own experience. I think Mark is right that is about growing income. The reasoning is multiple - a large part is status symbol related, but I'm also damn sure the Chinese aren't abandoning bikes for cars because they are too frustrated with increased spacing. They are abandoning bikes because riding it now have an increasing stigma of being backward and poor. One person once said in a previous discussion about it was patronizing/insulting - "Look at how environmental the Chinese are riding bicycles" as a view that China is suppose to be poor.

Granted policy isn't been helping either, though I hear they been catching on with the idea of providing more infrastructure as taking note from Europe. Until they can shake off the symbol of the car as a requirement to be a modern man and the bike as weakness, then China is going to buy cars regardless how the government build things.

---

Oh and the 30 dollars of gas or a 5 dollar beer. Why can't the scenario be drinking 6 beers? I guess for some they can't ride the bike afterwards for a while, but hey, 6 beers.
 
HubWay bike share data unavailability

So, it seems WE need to act locally to get Boston bike share trip data

Hi Mark,

Currently data is only available for D.C.

Alta Bicycle Share as the operator of these cities does not choose to make or not make the data available. The cities themselves choose to do that and Alta facilitates the release of the data.

I do agree that additional data can be very helpful. And we do use all the data within the system to continual work along side the cities to make the systems better.

Thanks
Danny

On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Mark K wrote:
Is data only available for Washington D.C.?
When will data be made available in other cities? Boston?

The data is really cool and tremendously valuable in bettering systems!

Other interesting data, with appropriate anonymity, would include unique users/day (like web sites have), bucket counts of high frequency users by day/week/month/year. Also, total members and how active they are in what percentage use 1x/day/week/month/year. Most gym members are often inactive, so anything similar can be expected for bike share.

Sincerely,
Mark Kaepplein


--
Danny Quarrell
Director of IT

Alta Bicycle Share, Inc.
dannyquarrell@altabicycleshare.com
 
Cycling downhill is more popular over uphill

An interesting analysis done on DC data found that people prefer to take out share bikes at stations with higher elevations and turn them in at stations at lower elevations (per station GPS data). Vans powered by gas engines then distribute the bikes back up hill. I suspect HubWay bikes would become more popular if they were mopeds with gas or electric motors.

People want to reduce effort, either by not stopping for red lights or crosswalks, to going the wrong way down more direct streets on bikes, to automatic transmissions in cars and driving cars, then parking them (or bicycles) as close as possible to destinations.

Human nature is what bicycling promotion combats, and its a difficult battle. Just ask anyone engaged in the (also futile) war on drugs.
 
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Oh and the 30 dollars of gas or a 5 dollar beer. Why can't the scenario be drinking 6 beers? I guess for some they can't ride the bike afterwards for a while, but hey, 6 beers.

Ant -- If I wanted to drink 6 bottles of Harpoon beer (a bit over two litres) -- I'd buy the pack of Harpoon at the local shop only having spent about $10 with $20 left from my $30. I then walk home enjoy the beer and sometime later go an buy about 6 gallons of gas.

After 6 beers in one sitting even in Deutchland I'd only trust myself to ride the T or walk and I hope that our friend wouldn't be riding his bike in that state.
 
Re: Cycling downhill is more popular over uphill

An interesting analysis done on DC data found that people prefer to take out share bikes at stations with higher elevations and turn them in at stations at lower elevations (per station GPS data). Vans powered by gas engines then distribute the bikes back up hill. I suspect HubWay bikes would become more popular if they were mopeds with gas or electric motors.

People want to reduce effort

Yes -- despite what we were taught in freshman physics -- you can apparently close a loop with net personal down hill travel

When I had a project for about 6 months in the Central Sq. area of Cambridge I'd take the Red Line from Alewife taking the bus from my house to Alewife. in the morning I walked down the hill and caught the #62 on Mass Ave. In the evening I'd take the #68 get off on a street near to the DOT Highway building walk up a slight hill and then finish with a slight down slope to get home.

Note In case someone is woried about global conservation of energy -- Fear-not the loop as described was not a closed system -- the evening T bus provided the make-up energy by carying me up to an elevation higher than the point on Mass Ave where I boarded the morning bus.

But as Mark pointed out -- Especially on hazy, hot and humid day like today -- it certainly beats the opposite loop where you travel up both in the morning and the evening
 
Let us not neglect what our parents tell us: "Kids are so spoiled. I walked to school, 2mi uphill each way!"

The HubWay data has been interesting this week with nice weather. There is a morning peak for those going to work, and a broad usage all afternoon with a higher and broader after-work peak. Not many sought cooler AM opportunities. http://www.codeline-telemetry.com/maps/bos-depletion_yesterday.htm
 
So overall, has the Hubway been successful? The statistic mentioned above of 1,650 rides per day sounds good but I wonder if that is more or less than is expected.
.

Way less.

But a big reason it's so much less is because the system was supposed to launch with 110 stations, not 57. A year later, and not expansion at all yes, even though they said early summer so many times....

Note: because of the network effects, doubling the size of the system would have a much larger than x2 increase in use.
 
They actually prefer to? Or have they been manipulated by a century of automobile related subsidies and bailouts, coupled with an onslaught of regulations and subsidies for living in areas which require a car, in additional to absurd marketing tactics? The marketing I can deal with, but when added onto everything else government has done to promote the car, it's insane.

He pulled this statistic out of his proverbial ass. Where is the data to support the claim? As for me, I know a lot of people who live in car-centric cities who complain quite a lot about being forced to drive for everything. They consistently say they wish they could take a bus or train or that the distances were snort enough to allow biking.
 
But a big reason it's so much less is because the system was supposed to launch with 110 stations, not 57. A year later, and not expansion at all yes, even though they said early summer so many times....

Note: because of the network effects, doubling the size of the system would have a much larger than x2 increase in use.

The second part seems to come from ass also. If Boston didn't keep secret usage data that DC makes public, we could see which stations are little used and try putting them where they might get more use.

Lack of new stations is probably from two problems: 1. Revenues don't afford buying new stations. 2. The station and bike manufacturer, Bixi, is likely overwhelmed rolling out product for new systems. Once locked into their system, other cities will endure delays and price increases to add more stations and bikes. The priorities for Bixi is getting new cities trapped with their system, then satisfying expansion and repair orders.

Does anyone have a copy of the contracts made between Boston and Bixi and Alta Bike Share? These should be public documents and they should have penalty clauses for late deliveries and other failures.
 
The latest I've heard from Somerville officials is that what's holding up expansion is neither the city nor the Hubway organization, but manufacturing.
 
The latest I've heard from Somerville officials is that what's holding up expansion is neither the city nor the Hubway organization, but manufacturing.

That is the case, which is what I said would happen the second they won NYC. Boston is not a priority, even though bike share planning begun in 2009. Chicago and (eventually) SF will cut in line as well.
 
That is the case, which is what I said would happen the second they won NYC. Boston is not a priority, even though bike share planning begun in 2009. Chicago and (eventually) SF will cut in line as well.

Like I said, Alta will will want to hook new cities on Bixi's system before expanding existing (trapped) ones unless there are penalty clauses in contracts for not being able to deliver more stations and bikes on schedule. Its much the same for drug dealers - expanding the client base is top priority. The only hope is if another manufacturer or operator can replace the entire system with a different brand cost effectively, meet expansion requests, and the used gear sold off for nearly the cost.

The other choice is to use the system data to optimize locations of existing hardware - move least used stations to where they might get more use until utilization everywhere is higher. Neighborhoods losing stations may be unhappy, but not very, because the data shows not so many made use of the station giving them little to stand on.

System data analysis can also allow stations to be increased without more bikes, so long as bike locations are kept better matched to demand locations. This increases operational costs with more van trips moving bikes, but that is what equipment shortages require. Again, it needs to be cheaper than contract penalties.

So where are copies of the contracts our government has signed with Alta?
 
Like I said, Alta will will want to hook new cities on Bixi's system before expanding existing (trapped) ones unless there are penalty clauses in contracts for not being able to deliver more stations and bikes on schedule. Its much the same for drug dealers - expanding the client base is top priority. The only hope is if another manufacturer or operator can replace the entire system with a different brand cost effectively, meet expansion requests, and the used gear sold off for nearly the cost.

The other choice is to use the system data to optimize locations of existing hardware - move least used stations to where they might get more use until utilization everywhere is higher. Neighborhoods losing stations may be unhappy, but not very, because the data shows not so many made use of the station giving them little to stand on.

System data analysis can also allow stations to be increased without more bikes, so long as bike locations are kept better matched to demand locations. This increases operational costs with more van trips moving bikes, but that is what equipment shortages require. Again, it needs to be cheaper than contract penalties.

So where are copies of the contracts our government has signed with Alta?


Moving a station is not so simple.

Say 10 people use one stations (like Buswell and park). And then that station is gone. Without their home station, the users have no incentive to use ANY station.


What once may have been...

Buswell - Copley - Park (subway to Harvard) and then biking from Harvard (allston) to Buswell is now....

Zero trips.
 
Moving a station is not so simple.

Say 10 people use one stations (like Buswell and park). And then that station is gone. Without their home station, the users have no incentive to use ANY station.

Its much like removing least used bus stops or routes. Some users may be dropped with the intent of gaining more riders than were lost by moving the bike station to a new location. Its not feasible to add more stations until every last rider has been captured. Limited resources need to be maximized - a basic rule of life for survival.

With the Washington DC bike share data made public (Massachusetts is rated grade F in public disclosure of government information), people have done wonderful, color coded 3-D maps of trip endpoint frequency. I don't know Washington well, but gather bike usage is highest where commercial or residential density is very high and is centralized. A fair number of trips are one-way - going from higher elevation to lower, but no trip for the reverse. Boston has been showing a much smaller peak during AM commute hours than PM, not sure why.
 
Its much like removing least used bus stops or routes. Some users may be dropped with the intent of gaining more riders than were lost by moving the bike station to a new location. Its not feasible to add more stations until every last rider has been captured. Limited resources need to be maximized - a basic rule of life for survival.

With the Washington DC bike share data made public (Massachusetts is rated grade F in public disclosure of government information), people have done wonderful, color coded 3-D maps of trip endpoint frequency. I don't know Washington well, but gather bike usage is highest where commercial or residential density is very high and is centralized. A fair number of trips are one-way - going from higher elevation to lower, but no trip for the reverse. Boston has been showing a much smaller peak during AM commute hours than PM, not sure why.

Funny how others continue to disagree with you.

"In 2011, eight states created new transparency websites: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, and West Virginia.
Seven states garnered “A” grades. These “leading” states – Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, West Virginia, and Arizona – provide information that is highly searchable, and include detailed data about government contracts, tax subsidies and grants to businesses."

Source: http://www.uspirg.org/news/usp/report-card-ranks-50-states-transparency-spending
 

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