New Bike Racks In Harvard Square

Saw these awesome guys sprouting up today. Seems like part of the new construction in Harvard Sq. has been the addition of some new awesome bike infrastructure. I also hear they are putting bike lanes over the JFK bridge. Weee!

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MassBike And MBTA Team Up To Create Awesome New Bike Racks

From MassBike

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MassBike has been working with the MBTA to evaluate bike rack designs for the new Pedal & Park secure bike parking facilities coming soon to stations including Braintree, Ashmont, Davis Square, Oak Grove, and Malden Center. (The South Station Pedal & Park, which already has racks, will also be completed soon.) These great bike parking facilities will encourage more people to take the T instead of driving, by giving them the confidence to leave their bikes at stations that have suffered from insufficient bike parking and bike thefts in the past. Pedal & Parks have already made a big difference at Alewife and Forest Hills.
 

To maximize the number of bikes that can fit in each Pedal & Park, the T plans to use bi-level racks. The existing racks at Alewife, Forest Hills, and South Station are OK, but those racks are either unavailable now, or have not worked that well in actual use. So the T asked for feedback from actual bicyclists on bike rack prototypes from two vendors. We reported back that all the designs had significant drawbacks.

A few weeks later, when the T asked us to try out another design, we were pleased to see that most of our concerns had been addressed.

The T took our feedback seriously, asking the manufacturers to address the problems we identified. The new design works much better, and needs just a few more modifications before going into production for the new Pedal & Parks.

We really appreciate the T asking for our input and taking the time to get this right!

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Practice Bike Rack At Alewife

If you are like a lot of people you might want to try a practice run at putting your bike on a bus bike rack before you do the real thing.

Lucky for you they good people at the MBTA have a practice rack for you to try out.

We now have a bus bike rack located at Alewife Station
that can be used for practice purposes. Its located at the west bike
cage on the ground level of the garage.

Also, you should be able to practice at the Ruggles Station busway.
Many buses sit idle for several minutes at a time, waiting for their
scheduled departure. Most operators and/or station officials will gladly
accommodate you as long as it doesn’t interfere with bus operations.

Erik Scheier

So there you go, if you want to go practice putting bikes in bus bike racks you can.

(ht Debbie)

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Orient Heights T Station Redesign Meeting

Got this email today, if you use this T-stop regularly you should go and let them know you want bike facilities (maybe even some cages like at Alewife).

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I bike to the Orient Heights T station regularly. The current bike rack set up is not just inefficient but insufficient as the use of bikes to the T has grown exponentially over the summer. On some of the warmer days, I actually couldn’t get space and had to hook up to the iron gate railings of the station itself. I’m sure the station is going to see more winter riders as well once parking is increased to $5 per day in November.

I’m unable to make this presentation on November 5th. Link to meeting here

Marcie

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More New Bike Racks! This Time On Mass Ave Near Berklee

A while ago we posted about some new bike racks in the Dot. I had asked for more shots, my friend Greg sent me this fine example of my tax dollars at work.

Go Boston! Lets keep it going! Have you seen any of the hundreds of new racks the city is putting in? If so drop me a line with a picture (shane at Bostonbiker.org) and I will post them. If you want a plug to your website include that as well.

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