Biking in Boston

Well the goal of the central pay stations is to make collection easier and have people be able to pay with credit cards- not necessarily remove the meters themselves. So why not just unscrew the meter top and replace it with a simple bar that people can lock their bikes to.
 
Ron Newman said:
Removal of parking meters is a big problem for cyclists. I've done my best on the Bicycle Committee to persuade Somerville not to go in this direction for street meters. (They have removed meters in municipal parking lots, replacing them with central pay stations.)
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Don't many municipalities have ordinances against chaining bikes to street signs and meters?
 
In Somerville, you are explicitly allowed to lock bikes to street signs and parking meters. But not to benches or trees. I expect other municipalities' laws are similar to ours.

Most places I go, if you didn't lock your bike to a sign pole or meter, where would you lock it?
 
In less than a week, Alexandria VA went from anouncing their eight bike share stations to having them be fully operations.


....meanwhile, Cambridge and Sommerville have stalled.
 
You're saying that as if the Cambridge and Somerville city governments are somehow responsible for the deployment schedule. Both cities will install them as fast as they receive them.
 
aaaaaa said:
New stations have been set up in Inman Sq. and at 1 Kendall.
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Great! Inman was a huge hole in the Cambridge system. Would have been useful last week when I was going there and back a few times. I was frustrated when I saw that there wasn't a single station around there.
 
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Ron Newman said:
Removal of parking meters is a big problem for cyclists. I've done my best on the Bicycle Committee to persuade Somerville not to go in this direction for street meters. (They have removed meters in municipal parking lots, replacing them with central pay stations.)
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What is needed are parking meters for bikes that they pay money to park, thus offsetting at least some costs of bicycle infrastructure. Current in street bike racks and Hubway stations foist more costs on taxpayers due to lost revenue.

So, my invention idea is a paid meter that has a very sturdy locking mechanism for a bike, and users better pay up if they want their bike back - much like the dreaded boot! Cyclists get value for paying to park, locking that isn't easily cut and isn't heavy to lug around. Communities get income. Win-win. Cyclists just have to get over the idea that all public biking and all on the Internet is free (ie movies, music, software).
 
Somehow I doubt we will see market rate bicycle parking when we have yet to see market rate on street parking for motorists.
 
Mark02474 said:
What is needed are parking meters for bikes that they pay money to park, thus offsetting at least some costs of bicycle infrastructure. Current in street bike racks and Hubway stations foist more costs on taxpayers due to lost revenue.

So, my invention idea is a paid meter that has a very sturdy locking mechanism for a bike, and users better pay up if they want their bike back - much like the dreaded boot! Cyclists get value for paying to park, locking that isn't easily cut and isn't heavy to lug around. Communities get income. Win-win. Cyclists just have to get over the idea that all public biking and all on the Internet is free (ie movies, music, software).
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Mark, talk to me when car parking meters are in effect 24/7, and when it costs more than a dollar or so per hour to use said meters.
 
At some places and times, bicyclists would be willing to pay for truly secure (indoor, guarded) parking.
 
There is an on-road bike rack I like - ones that are used INSTEAD of curb extensions to block car parking near an intersection, as long as minimal additional space is taken. Curb extensions cost thousands of dollars, yet show no reduction in accidents. They are hard to plow snow around, so bike racks (on straight curbing) that are taken up in winter is a win-win. Bike racks are cheaper than curb extensions and actually provide benefits!
 
Mark02474 said:
There is an on-road bike rack I like - ones that are used INSTEAD of curb extensions to block car parking near an intersection, as long as minimal additional space is taken. Curb extensions cost thousands of dollars, yet show no reduction in accidents. They are hard to plow snow around, so bike racks (on straight curbing) that are taken up in winter is a win-win. Bike racks are cheaper than curb extensions and actually provide benefits!
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Crap, I like one of Mark's ideas...

Having a metal barricade with more pieces of metal strapped to it would stop people parking at corners, although I have to wonder if they would be taken out by a big rig eventually
 
I wish it were my idea. I heard it was being done some places. It has its problems too - seasonal work putting in and taking out racks (same with HubWay) and having space to store them. The slight benefit of a curb extension is having pedestrians a little more visible to drivers and a clearer intention to cross. Parked cars already protect pedestrians standing out from the curb, but hide them somewhat too. Bike racks would hide them less than a SUV.
 
After taking a couple of weeks of vacation, Hubway has some new expansion Looks like 4 stations were put in today, and three in the last couple of days. Compare to my last update on page 25. Not a single station went in for 3 weeks.

There are now 90 stations

From earlier this year:

More important to local commuters and recreational riders, Hubway is poised for a significant summer expansion. Roughly around the one-year anniversary, it will expand to nearly 110 stations and more than 1,000 bikes, leaping the Charles River and crossing municipal boundaries with 24 stations in Cambridge, eight in Somerville, four in Brookline, and 11 more in Boston.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...cambridge_somerville_and_brookline/?page=full

18 left to be installed....and we're more than halfway through the 2012 hubway season. Wonder if theyll finish the 18 or not. Hope so.




Ive circled the new NEW stations in red because some of the gold stations were active 3 weeks ago. They stay gold for 30 days.

hubway5.jpg


Good to see cambridge filling in, not a huge fan of the south Bosotn stations as they area way too spread out. JFk-Umass is an obvious good shuttle, but the stations are both small, meaning a high chance of being dock-blocked with no alternative.


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Also, a report is out using data from March which paints a bleak picture for hubway

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/16062/which-bikeshare-system-has-the-most-members/

Less than 4,000 annual members is garbage. In comparison, mexico city which runs a system of roughly the same size has 30,000 annual members (cap).

DC, which has a system twice as big, around 20,000.

Hubway isnt doing enough to market to (and support) college students. I think you could easily get over 1,000 members just from BU....but they need a higher station density to support class-class trips.

And the benefit to everyone else? Instead of students using the B line to go two stops, they could and should use hubway....

Hubway should sell a 9 month membership at a special student rate as long as they have the stations to support it (BU would need 4-6 more stations). And then theyd actually have to advertise it.



And check out casual members....the tourists.

Over 300,000 in Miami Beach, which archboston member nobody was calling a disappointing system. Thats over ten times higher than Boston with a not much bigger system....and some ridiculous rates.


I also like this post from that link


Some interesting facts:

DecoBike and CaBi are the only US bikehshares to exceed 1mil trips. To contrast, in April 2012, Bcycle (acording to one of their own press releases) stated that the ridership of all of their programs combined was under 500k which is ironic since Denver was open the for the longest period of time versus any other program.

DecoBike Miami Beach features 14 stations per square mile on average, while CaBi is less than 4 per square mile. Deco also has the highest usage per-bike, per-day on average, with the entire fleet going out about 5 times per day average (not just peak usage).

DecoBike features about 1 bike per 88 residents. CaBi is 1 bike per 1,000 residents. The population of Wash DC is 6 times greater than that of Miami Beach, so you should (in theory) have at least 6 times the number of members and ridership in DC than Miami Beach, but that is definitely not the case. CaBi also runs more bikes and stations for a longer period of time, which of course skews the stats higher.

Deco did not use government funding/tax payer dollars while CaBi used millions of govt funding, hence there is difference in pricing for the end user.

BOTH are amazing programs in their own right. Both are pioneers and risk takers for which efforts have paid off. Hats off to both.

by FactChecker2012 on Sep 7, 2012 12:3
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Someone should do these stats for Boston ....
 
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the DC system also stretches into residential neighborhoods and is year-round - boston's system is largely from commercial district to commercial district and is taken off-line when a lot of people (especially students) would prefer some kind of alternative to a car or T. IMO - you'd also see more membership if they also expanded into the more residential/student parts of the city - like fully into Dorchester, JP, Roslindale, and further north into cambridge and somerville - places where people would actually use it to run errands and get themselves to and from work.

also - miami beach casual ridership - the entire city is one long linear beach. it makes a lot of sense that more tourists would us it to get from one end of the beach to the other.

btw - I started using hubway as an alternative to the #1 bus to get me between the back bay and cambridge. I am not going to be happy when it goes away in November.
 
Hubway finally expanding at a respectable clip. The town of charles now included. 95 stations now.

Added Monday-Tuesday

hubway6.jpg


Thats a fairly respectable map, and obviously excludes most of Boston.

It may be too late in the season now to get many new annual members, but I think its good that residents of this area see the stations so they know they can sign up for next year if theyd like to wait.


Personally, id run an end of year promo.

3 day is currently $12 and an annual is $85.


Id run a promo stating $25 gets you September 23 until the end of the season so folks can try it out with a low entry cost.
 
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