A fed-up citizen in South Boston is outraged that his or her hallowed right to double park on Broadway has been taken away by a lame Hubway station:
Get rid of these stupid things! They are taking up valuable parking spaces. This is a high traffic area right in front of a busy store and Dunkin Donuts. Someone is going to get hurt! There is a parking lot 50 feet away with an area on the side off of the main street to place these bikes that no one wants to ride.
With Hubway bikes ready for riding for the season, Boston is soliciting bids from companies that would want to install and maintain "bicycle helmet vending machines at various locations throughout the city."
Bids are due by April 10 for the initial one-year contract.
H/t Brian D'Amico.
With Hubway season almost over, you may not get much use out of this, but file it away for the spring: Chris Snyder recently discovered a trick for getting a Hubway bicycle that's stuck in its docking bay.
Sometimes, Hubway bikes refuse to be undocked. The gears on the dock whir for a bit, and then it flashes a red light of failure (not to be confused with an always-on red light that signifies the bike needs to be repaired). But the bike's merely stuck, probably from being improperly docked the last go-around.
And that's not a good thing, say researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who had trained observers stationed outside Hubway rental kiosks last year.
Some 80% of Hubway users rode with no head protection - a far higher number than non-rental riders - according to their study, printed today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Of course, where some people see an exciting way for Boston to cycle into the 21st century, lawyers see the potential for new business:
Boston's Hubway bike-share system will undoubtedly lead to an increase in the number of cyclists sharing the road with automobiles. Unfortunately, this increase in the volume of cyclists on the road will likely also lead to an increase of bicycle accidents in the City of Boston.
The state Department of Transportation and the city of Boston today announced a competition for applications that let users navigate between the T and the Hubway bike system and find the location of the nearest food trucks.
State and city officials are hoping the real-time MBTA and Hubway data, coupled with information about food trucks, will lead to the same sorts of applications that emerged after a similar competition in 2009, then based just on data for certain bus routes.
BU Today's Leslie Friday takes Hubway for a spin to find out what all of the fuss is about:
Dan recounts a couple of sightings of tourists on rental bikes:
Here they came up Congress Street, arriving at the five way intersection of Congress, State and Devonshire just as the light turned green. Zig-zagging slightly, the male, who was in the lead, stopped in the middle of the road, clearly unsure where to go. Straight? Slight right? Sharp right? He turned to consult the female, and then something caught his eye. "I think that's it!" he yelled behind him, gesturing in the direction of the Old State House. ...
I've been a member of The Hubway for 2 weeks. All those bikes await me at South Station but I'm conscientiously waiting for my helmet (which I foolishly purchased on-line). The customer service line there is infuriating. Today I was told by a woman that she'd have to get back to me to tell me when someone would get back to me, and that, no, she couldn't give out the email address of the person responsible for helmets. An email request to support went unanswered. Anybody else having this problem?
Andy Riga, who writes about transportation for the Montreal Gazette, writes today that what I (and other folks) took as umbrage at Boston was, in fact, umbrage as his own city's civic leaders.
Originally posted at Union Jack Creative on July 29th, 2011 - from two Boston bikers to hundreds of new Hubway riders, nine tips to make biking better for you, and for the rest of us.
It’s no secret that we’re pretty big on bikes. We think they’re pretty fun to ride (and are kind of like magic carpets ferrying you home in the wee hours when everyone else is fighting for cabs) and we love when friends ask us for help breaking into biking in the city. More bikes are better for everyone involved, in our opinion.
And so, though we’re a bit confused as to the target market, we really want to get behind Boston’s Hubway bike share initiative, which had its grand opening last Thursday. Kiosks are up, bikes are out and locals are signing up – but what about that influx of new riders?
Map showing Hubway stations and the percentages of bikes that are available.
Via Sarah Grafman.
Dan K photographed City Hall Plaza full of new bikes awaiting the formal launch of the Hubway bike-rental network today.
Hubway, the impending bike-rental network, wants your suggestions for where they first start renting bikes sometime this month.
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