I live in Boston, and have lived in Silicon Valley. Biking in Boston is downright scary.
Having a bike sharing program is great, but Boston needs to invest in more dedicated bike lanes, and bike paths before it can get anywhere near SF in bikability.
Plus you are visiting when its 40ish degress out, not 20 and the Hub system isn't available in the winter.
I've used this system in Minneapolis, which is almost identical to the costs and station density here. It's OK for certain people I suppose. If you are a local, it's better to bring your own bike. If you are visiting, the fees are very high since you have to start paying extras for a few minutes overage. Overages are easy to get because the stations are usually no where near where you are going unless you are doing short tourist jaunts. So you end up walking for 30 minutes to a bike, riding the bike for 15 minutes to a station roughly in the direction you are going, parking to avoid the fee, transferring to a new bike to continue, now you have to go further, then you get to closest destination station, park, walk 30 minutes to actual destination, and reverse to go home. Spend too long stuck at a red light and now you pay a fee for late. Want to ride somewhere, drop something off, then come back? To save on fees you have to factor in a bunch of stations and swaps, so a 40 minutes bike ride round trip if you had your OWN bike is now 90 minutes including all the walking to stations and swapping.
So just pay the fees. Or take the bus, which is cheaper and faster. Or rent a car and be done with all this.
The idea such inefficient systems are being taxpayer funded in some cities is offensive.
I agree with the other comment that it is quite difficult to navigate Boston traffic with a bike since the city is not built to accomodate it for the most part. Police are also highly aggressive, belligerant, uneducated, ignorant and thuggish and risk of being arrested and harassed for not being in the correct lane or whatever are significant.
I'm the CEO of a startup company that creates a different type of bike sharing technology, viaCycle: www.viacycle.com
While you're right that bike sharing doesn't make sense for all commuters, the idea that these systems are inefficient is actually incorrect. Yes, you have a capital outlay to set the program up - just like you do for every subway, bus system, and public road in the U.S. Often, these outlays are taxpayer funded. However, once a bike system is running, it's cheaper than almost any other form of transit. Capital Bikeshare in DC recovered almost all of it's operating expenses last year. B-Cycle Denver pulled a profit. Compare that to the T or almost any bus/metro agency in the country, which usually hover around 30-40% cost recovery.
Hubway or NiceRide might not work for your situation, but it's effective and affordable for a whole lot of people.
As someone who spent a long time biking, driving, and taking public transit in Boston this is sort of laughable.
A bike sharing program is a neat idea, but actually riding bikes in Boston is a terrible experience. The roads are in bad shape, there are no bike lanes, and the drivers are homicidal.
Public transit in Boston certainly isn't bad, it's better than most cities I've lived in and it may very well be better than the valley. But the subway is generally only helpful if you're going to and from downtown. If you say live in Somerville and work in Allston, you're pretty much out of luck, unless you're willing to transfer between the bus and the subway a few times.
In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston.
Yes, the idea of biking in Boston scares me. About 90% of the people I know who ride bikes in Boston have gotten in at least one accident. The streets are very crowded.
"In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston."
This is true for you, but not my experience. I moved to Boston in 2008 and got rid of my car. I've been living car-free for four years now. I thought I'd need zip cars or cabs every once in a while but I don't use either. I mostly walk everywhere (I live in Cambridge) and occasionally take the T.
The real story is not how bikable Boston is, but how walkable it is.
The rail lines (red and green respectively) go straight through Somerville and Allston. Obviously there are some places in both towns without nearby rail access, but it's sort of a stretch to claim "multiple transfers" for that ride.
The roads are in no worse shape than any other northeast city (potholes are a fact of life in that climate). The drivers are agressive but broadly competant. Maybe a better complaint would be lack of bike lanes, which is true: old streets don't always fit them.
I grew up in Boston; lived, studied and worked there until I was 27; and never once felt the need to own a car.
You simply don't take the Red Line to Park Street, change to the Green Line, and ride out to Allston. That's utterly moronic. As I recall, you would take the Red Line to Harvard Square and change to Bus 77 to Allston.
Sigh. I wasn't doing mikeocool's transit planning, I was responding to the assertion that you have "to transfer between the bus and subway a few times" to get between Somerville and Allston. Whether it is "utterly moronic" to take the subway into Boston seems to me to be situation dependent. If there's snow on the ground and the buses are all running late, that's certainly the first choice. If it's a nice day, you'd probably decide to just walk the half mile across the river from Harvard Square.
Look: if you don't like Boston don't live there. The Bay Area is really nice too and I liked it a lot. I'm currently really liking Portland. But flaming about transit options in what AFAIK is the densest city in north america is just dumb, sorry. Carless bostonians have absolutely no grounds for complaint.
A few weeks ago I went to a talk by Nicole Freedman, the head of the Boston Bikes program, on the state of biking in Boston as of the end of 2011. She talked about the enormous changes Boston has been making, like going from 180 feet (!) of total bike lanes a few years ago to over 50 miles now [1]. For instance, they removed 70 parking spaces from Mass Ave to make a bike lane there.
Most of the people at the talk seemed to be hard-core cyclists, who tend to be a pretty tough crowd to please, but there were so many standing ovations that it could've been the State of the Union address. Have you ridden in Boston lately? I'm curious to see if the changes are as big as most of those people seemed to think.
As to getting around, there are certainly trips in the Boston area that are easy by public transit and others that aren't. I live in Somerville and getting to Allston is a pain (I'd probably use the 66 bus [2]). I generally only drive outbound from Somerville, since I find driving in Boston stressful and of course the parking is expensive.
Boston has changed quite a lot in the past couple of years in terms of biker friendliness. The mayor has made it a big deal to put in new bike lanes and the difference is obvious. For example, on Commonwealth Ave there was a difficult spot where the road goes under Mass Ave. Instead of two lanes now there is 1 lane for cars and 1 for bikes. Similar changes have been made in other parts of the city. Much of the city is flat and the distances between neighborhoods is small. Also because there are a lot more bikers on the road now drivers are becoming much more aware of bike traffic. Between your bike, Zipcar and Relay Rides, which is everywhere, you really don't need a car.
"In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston".
I would agree with that assuming that you live in and/or want to go out of Boston for whatever reason (work, visiting friends, etc.). I live in Beacon Hill without a car but need a cab/zipcar to visit friends in Watertown or go to the Cape for instance.
Hubway has a real-time feed of bike availability [1]. I built a little web site that shows the bike stations and T stations on a map [2], along with real-time data for both bike and T stations. Bike stations with available bikes are shown in green and ones without are red. Also, it's open source [3].
I see it's got a map showing bike share docks in London (by default, with a bunch of other cities available), with a circle for each docks whose size is proportional to the size of the dock, and a color ranging from blue (for empty) to red (for full), and the color scheme is configurable. And it's got a neat graph showing the number of bikes in the dock over time for the last 24 hours.
One minor irritation is that the graph is overlaid on top of the distance scale line (labeled "1km 1mi"), so it looks like that line is part of the graph. Also, it'd be nice if the graph were labeled by time of day rather than hours ago.
(One funny thing is the use of "scheme" even for the US pages, since as Wiktionary notes "In the US, generally has devious connotations, while in the UK, frequently used as a neutral term for projects: “The road is closed due to a pavement-widening scheme.”".)
This is the same line of reasoning many people put forward in London as well (and before that Munich when I lived there). The reality is it works well. Yes the occasional bike gets vandalized, but the system provides reliable transportation for thousands of people every day.
It reminds me of the indoor smoking ban. Everywhere I live, people say "yes, that's fine in X, but it will never work here." Then it comes and it works fine.
Here in London it costs 45 GBP (about 65 USD) per year - you can also pay just per trip. Either way it works out to very cheap, much cheaper than the tube, bus, taxi, etc. but not free. You have to pay by card so they know who you are. Also the bikes are big bulky bikes, the parts won't fit with normal bikes. Based on the picture it looks like the Boston system is the same company, their bikes and software are used in several cities.
I've never lived in Boston, but I've lived in SF and current live in the Valley and I have to say that SF is awesome for public transit (when it's on time) and SV is better for bike because of the bike lanes. SamTrans on the peninsula is a joke, but the VTA and CalTrain are pretty good. They don't have the extensive coverage of Muni in SF, but if you aren't willing to walk a few blocks to get from a transit stop then you need a car.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 52.4 ms ] threadHaving a bike sharing program is great, but Boston needs to invest in more dedicated bike lanes, and bike paths before it can get anywhere near SF in bikability.
Plus you are visiting when its 40ish degress out, not 20 and the Hub system isn't available in the winter.
So just pay the fees. Or take the bus, which is cheaper and faster. Or rent a car and be done with all this.
The idea such inefficient systems are being taxpayer funded in some cities is offensive.
I agree with the other comment that it is quite difficult to navigate Boston traffic with a bike since the city is not built to accomodate it for the most part. Police are also highly aggressive, belligerant, uneducated, ignorant and thuggish and risk of being arrested and harassed for not being in the correct lane or whatever are significant.
While you're right that bike sharing doesn't make sense for all commuters, the idea that these systems are inefficient is actually incorrect. Yes, you have a capital outlay to set the program up - just like you do for every subway, bus system, and public road in the U.S. Often, these outlays are taxpayer funded. However, once a bike system is running, it's cheaper than almost any other form of transit. Capital Bikeshare in DC recovered almost all of it's operating expenses last year. B-Cycle Denver pulled a profit. Compare that to the T or almost any bus/metro agency in the country, which usually hover around 30-40% cost recovery.
Hubway or NiceRide might not work for your situation, but it's effective and affordable for a whole lot of people.
A bike sharing program is a neat idea, but actually riding bikes in Boston is a terrible experience. The roads are in bad shape, there are no bike lanes, and the drivers are homicidal.
Public transit in Boston certainly isn't bad, it's better than most cities I've lived in and it may very well be better than the valley. But the subway is generally only helpful if you're going to and from downtown. If you say live in Somerville and work in Allston, you're pretty much out of luck, unless you're willing to transfer between the bus and the subway a few times.
In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston.
"In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston."
This is true for you, but not my experience. I moved to Boston in 2008 and got rid of my car. I've been living car-free for four years now. I thought I'd need zip cars or cabs every once in a while but I don't use either. I mostly walk everywhere (I live in Cambridge) and occasionally take the T.
The real story is not how bikable Boston is, but how walkable it is.
The roads are in no worse shape than any other northeast city (potholes are a fact of life in that climate). The drivers are agressive but broadly competant. Maybe a better complaint would be lack of bike lanes, which is true: old streets don't always fit them.
I grew up in Boston; lived, studied and worked there until I was 27; and never once felt the need to own a car.
Look: if you don't like Boston don't live there. The Bay Area is really nice too and I liked it a lot. I'm currently really liking Portland. But flaming about transit options in what AFAIK is the densest city in north america is just dumb, sorry. Carless bostonians have absolutely no grounds for complaint.
Most of the people at the talk seemed to be hard-core cyclists, who tend to be a pretty tough crowd to please, but there were so many standing ovations that it could've been the State of the Union address. Have you ridden in Boston lately? I'm curious to see if the changes are as big as most of those people seemed to think.
As to getting around, there are certainly trips in the Boston area that are easy by public transit and others that aren't. I live in Somerville and getting to Allston is a pain (I'd probably use the 66 bus [2]). I generally only drive outbound from Somerville, since I find driving in Boston stressful and of course the parking is expensive.
[1] http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Annual%20Report... [2] http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/bus/routes/?route=66
[1] http://www.thehubway.com/data/stations/bikeStations.xml [2] http://bikeboston.herokuapp.com/ [3] https://github.com/amonat/bikeboston
I see it's got a map showing bike share docks in London (by default, with a bunch of other cities available), with a circle for each docks whose size is proportional to the size of the dock, and a color ranging from blue (for empty) to red (for full), and the color scheme is configurable. And it's got a neat graph showing the number of bikes in the dock over time for the last 24 hours.
One minor irritation is that the graph is overlaid on top of the distance scale line (labeled "1km 1mi"), so it looks like that line is part of the graph. Also, it'd be nice if the graph were labeled by time of day rather than hours ago.
(One funny thing is the use of "scheme" even for the US pages, since as Wiktionary notes "In the US, generally has devious connotations, while in the UK, frequently used as a neutral term for projects: “The road is closed due to a pavement-widening scheme.”".)
But unfortunately it would be destroyed and/or gross as hell in most cities that I've lived in.
Nothing wrong with owning your own bike, $150 buys a really descent bike these days.
It reminds me of the indoor smoking ban. Everywhere I live, people say "yes, that's fine in X, but it will never work here." Then it comes and it works fine.
If there is a way to record people's info and/or financial responsibility, maybe that is the key.
Here in London it costs 45 GBP (about 65 USD) per year - you can also pay just per trip. Either way it works out to very cheap, much cheaper than the tube, bus, taxi, etc. but not free. You have to pay by card so they know who you are. Also the bikes are big bulky bikes, the parts won't fit with normal bikes. Based on the picture it looks like the Boston system is the same company, their bikes and software are used in several cities.