Biking in Boston

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http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679248/dutch-kids-pedal-their-own-bus-to-school
 
Looks like hubway expansion stalled again.

These have been around for a while but havent had chance to take pics of them. Nice to see bike infrastructure spread to all corners of the city

Proper use of sharrows
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I believe the only cycle track in the city
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^Thanks for the photos, I was wondering if Boston had any of those separated bike lanes. Also nice to see a sharrow in both lanes in that first picture. Of course, all lanes at intersections like this are open to bicycles but it's nice to have some proper signage to remind people.
 
jass said:
Nice to see bike infrastructure spread to all corners of the city
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If anywhere needs bike infrastructure its Allston. Most times of day bikes outnumber cars on Franklin Street.
 
Someone asked me where the Hubway station was in Allston. I pointed them to Packard's Corner. They're strangely missing around the Harvard Avenue area: the busiest part.
 
aaaaaa said:
The Hubway continues to expand, especially in Somerville. A few stations were recently added in Ball Sq, Davis Sq, Powder House Circle, and Wilson Sq.

Obviously, more redundancy is needed but I am encouraged by the station placement in and around Union Sq.
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I hope Porter Sq. gets both a cambridge and somerville stop. It's kind of selfish on my part cuz i live in the area, but one at the station on Mass ave or somerville ave, then another on Elm on the back side of shaw's I think would both be heavily used.

With the GLX, and current bus routes its easy to get down the main streets in Somerville (Somerville Ave, Highland, Broadway) but it is actually a pain to go between them. From Porter to Ball or Magoun you have to walk or go up to Davis or down to Lechmere. Going the Porter-Ball route on a bike is great cuz the streets aren't very busy.
 
http://hubwaydatachallenge.org/
Lots of new Hubway data released here for a contest. It looks like data for almost every ride ever up through some recent date (552,073 of them). You can't identify unique users, as has been mentioned in this thread before, but there's some good stuff in here for anybody who wants to go nuts with analysis and visualization. (I know I do!)
 
Hubway finally hit 100 stations this weekend.

The expansion still isnt done (they appear to install a station every 4 days) and its almost winter.

At current Hubway rate, NYC would take how many years to finish phase 1 deployment?
 
Mark from Arlington is now posting on Streetsblog? Oh good Lord that isn't going to end well.

BPHC has been painting the helmet reminders in various bike lanes around the city as well. It would be nice if they could also leaflet parked cars with "check mirrors twice save a life" reminders.
 
Since moving to Allston Village/Brookline, I've commuted to work in the Back Bay everyday via bicycle. I ride down Commonwealth Ave in the morning to Gloucester, and I return in the evenings up Beacon Street to Coolidge Corner. This weekend I started noticing the "No Excuses, Wear a Helmet" logos on Commonwealth Ave pretty much the length of BU's campus stamped in the bicycle lane as you head eastbound.

As far as the campaign measure to get people wearing helmets is concerned, I think that is an excellent tactic. It's discretely placed somewhere that only cyclists will notice it, and they are the only ones that should be reading this in the first place. The f*cked up billboards using scare tactics, however, were a stupid move and serve to discourage many prospective cyclists from ever getting on a bicycle in this city. The reality is that cycling in this city has gotten much safer and easy to do in the last few years, and it's a stupid move to suffocate bike growth by littering the streets with these silly PSA's.

Besides, the biggest danger on the roads are neither drivers nor bike owners; it's casual Hubway users. If only I had a nickel for every Hubway user I see that doesn't wear a helmet, doesn't ride in a bike lane, and doesn't stop at a red light (let alone look both ways while crossing the intersection), I'd be a very rich man.
 
Helmets don't even prevent road rash anyways, so the whole basis of the campaign doesn't even make any sense.
 
datadyne007 said:
Helmets don't even prevent road rash anyways, so the whole basis of the campaign doesn't even make any sense.
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This. When I first saw the billboard I was basically like "huh? what kind of road helmet saves your jaw from getting messed up?"

dshoost88 said:
The f*cked up billboards using scare tactics, however, were a stupid move and serve to discourage many prospective cyclists from ever getting on a bicycle in this city.
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Couldn't agree more.
 
My favorite is the comment from the guy that says people are gonna start trying to wear helmets on their faces like a Jason mask.
 
My problem with the ad campaign is that it just continues the "blame the cyclist" mentality while doing nothing to address the fact that most Boston roads are not safe for cyclists. They have the helmet paintings on Huntington Ave. now right next to the sharrows, which do absolutely nothing to make cycling safe on that road.
 
A better campaign would have been along the lines of "Be safe be SEEN use lights" and "check twice save a life". With photos illustrating cyclists not being very visible without lights in some conditions and how drivers need to check twice because of blind-spots.

Helmets are secondary measures akin to seat belts which only come into play once a collision is occurring. Situational awareness, visibility, and careful operation of all vehicles are all essential for avoiding collisions in the first place!
 
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