2015 Annual Rush Hour Race

Come on bicycles!  We have had one victory, and one almost victory, but we all know that the fastest way around town is by bike.  But sometimes its fun to prove it.

After a year off the race is back for its third year.

from Bostino

One will go by bike, one by T, one by car, one by Hubway, and one by any which way: That’s the description of tonight’s annual Rush Hour Race, a fun event to determine the fastest way to get from A to B in Greater Boston.

The Boston Cyclists Union and the Somerville Bicycle Committee are putting on the third annual Rush Hour Race tonight, starting at 6 p.m. at the corner of Beacon and Somerset streets in Boston. Racers will converge on Brass Union Bar, located at 70 Union Square in Somerville. It’s expected to last approximately one hour.

For the 2012 and 2013 Rush Hour Races, biking and the T won, respectively.

Spectators can begin gathering at Brass Union Bar at 5:30 p.m.

Its very interesting to see this years route, as I basically commute this exact route every day. On a good day I can do it in less than 20 minutes on bicycle (following all the traffic rules). I know of no other transportation means that can beat that. We will see how this years racers do.

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Boston Or Austin Taking Your Bike Is Faster

Once upon a time I lived in Austin, then Boston, if any of you know of a city like Costin, Dustin, Eustin…I am kind of trying to go in order.

But enough of that, seems even in a city more or less designed for cars (as Austin is), biking is still faster.  Mostly because cars are too damn big, and there are too many of them, and everyone wants to get into them all at the same time.

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From the AustinPost:

It was a simple enough idea. Last Friday, five Austin Post reporters set off across the center of town around 5 p.m. to see how our city’s transportation options stack up: just a little more than four miles through rush hour hell.

 

We avoided the parking lot that was I-35 and the river of cars known as Mopac. No, we were in the mood for a multi-modal race, and we also wanted to test the powers of the new MetroRapid bus. We chose Guadalupe as our race route because it traverses the living, breathing (if not always moving) heart of the city and can be traversed any way you like, short of water travel. And so: 38th and Guadalupe to South Congress and Monroe.

Five travelers, five modes:

• MetroRapid Bus
• Regular Bus
• Car
• Bike
• On Foot

We assumed our pedestrian would come in last. Austin traffic might be horrendous, but there’s no way a not-particularly-athletic person can walk 4.5 miles faster than a car can drive it, right?

Well, you know what they say about assumptions: don’t make any when it comes to how bad Austin traffic can be. We’ll let the results speak for themselves:

 

Yes, that graph is correct: the driver came in last place and took an hour and a half to get 4.5 miles through town. That’s half the time it takes to get to Dallas on a good day. The regular bus didn’t do much better, clocking in at just under 80 minutes.

– See more here:

Amazing, really.  Even the pedestrian beat the car driver…

Best part is this timelapse of the car drivers experience,

(note how different this is than a car commercial)

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