City Of Boston Bike Survey

Got this in the email. I was a little hard on them for the Charlestown thing, but be sure to let the city know that you do appreciate all of the great new infrastructure they have been putting in lately, and also your feedback will help them improve.

————————————-

City of Boston Bike Survey
Dear Friends,

The City of Boston is conducting a brief 2010 year-end survey of people who bicycle in Boston. If you ride a bike in Boston–rarely, occasionally or perhaps every single day–please take a moment to complete this important survey. We will ask questions about your riding habits and ask for your feedback on our events.

To take the survey go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BostonBikes.

Please forward this to anyone else you know who bikes in Boston. Thank you very much for your input and have a safe and happy holiday season!

Sincerely,

The Boston Bikes Team

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

City Of Boston Responds To Charlestown Bike Lane Removal

I sent an email to Nicole Freedman the head of Boston’s Bike programs asking her if she wanted to say anything about the removal of the bike lanes in Charlestown. Here is what she had to say.

We did remove the bike lanes. We are still very committed to having bike lanes in Charlestown. Prior to installing, we had not paid enough attention to the public process. In the long-term interest of having a successful bike program, we decided it would be best to start he process over and have the whole community involved. We hope to be able to put back bike lanes in the future when the community is ready and with the community support.

It would be an amazing irony, if after the whole community process happens, these lanes go right back to where they were. This will most likely serve to keep the side opposed to bike lanes deeply entrenched in their opposition to them, if only to save themselves the embarrassment of putting bike lanes back down on the same street they had them ground off of.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

Boston Rolls Out Stolen Bicycle Registry

Seems the City of Boston is taking a bit more interest in stolen bikes. From their new website

——–

As part of our initiative to make Boston a world-class bicycling city, the Stolen Bike Alert program makes reporting stolen bikes easier and increases the chances of finding your stolen bike by giving you a larger network of search parties.

When you report a stolen bike, we send out an alert to the police, local bike shops, hospital and school security, and everyone who follows us on Twitter or Facebook. All of these people will be on the look-out for your bike and we will instantaneously notify the police as we receive updates on your stolen bike.

Please take a few minutes to register your bike online right now.
Become a bike vigilante by following us on Twitter, Facebook, or email.

For more information, contact Nicole Freedman, Director of Boston Bikes at: [email protected]

617-918-4343

——-

You can find this and more info here. Seems like an interesting idea, not sure how much it will decrease bike theft, but it can’t hurt.

The most interesting part of this website seems to be the ability of people to register and post about stolen bikes. You can then report a stolen bike if you see one. In essence getting lots of people to help you look for your bike. I am guess this will also be used by thieves to know when NOT to post the bike to craigslist. But overall it’s a good start, especially if it becomes popular.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

R.O.C.K. Roll and Ride!

Got this in the email from the city of Boston. Looks like a great family friendly event!

————-

At R.O.C.K. Roll and Ride, there is something for everyone including bike rodeos, bike safety lessons, hands-on bike maintenance workshops, giveaways and trail rides as well as music and free food. Free bike rentals will be available!

Franklin Park (07/18/09)
Dorchester
143 Seaver St
Dorchester, MA 02121
10am-2pm
Park at the Playstead parking lot adjacent to the back of the Zoo

Joe Moakley Field (07/25/09)
South Boston
600 William J. Daly Blvd.
Boston, MA 02125
10am-2pm

William E. Smith Playground (08/08/09)
Brighton/Allston
250 Western Ave
Boston, MA 02134
10am-2pm

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

Geekhouse Hitting The Big Time!

Marty over at Geekhouse Bikes has been doing some AMAZING stuff lately (here and here). I am not just talking about his amazing bike, seems he is getting his business side of things moving as well.

From the geekhouse website. (I know this is mad late in posting this, but I thought it was such a cool development that I couldn’t let it pass)

So I got an email on Sunday night saying that Mayor Menino was going to mention Geekhouse in his annual State of the City address which took place last night (I’m at the 8:27 section). At first I didn’t really know much about it. But then Monday I found out that the whole event would be broadcast live on Chanel 5 Boston, and that I had a reserved seat in one of the front rows at the event, which would be held in prestigious Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston.

If I haven’t mentioned this before in December I got a loan from the City of Boston to help purchase some necessary manufacturing equipment, and also provide the ability to hire 1-2 employees to help out with fabrication. This whole process involved a lot of time and effort. I sought out help from Score a division of the Boston SBA in reviewing a detailed business plan I wrote myself. And of course I had a lot of support from my amazing lawyer Joel Kinney of Goldstein and Herndon in Chestnut Hill. So after about 6 months of planning and effort I was finally approved for the loan. Also, a big thanks to Bill Nickerson and everyone from the BLDC for all their help with getting that done!

So back to the event last night. I ended up bringing my girlfriend Andrea, my Mom and two sisters Corie and Katty, and also Josh from Open Bicycle. I was told we had reserved seating, but when we walked in there were two levels, and upper and lower. The security guard blocked us when I tried to walk into the lower section, and I told him the I was Marty Walsh and we had reserved seating. His response was, “Oh yes Mr. Walsh, someone will show you to your seats.” Now, there’s also a state rep named Marty Walsh, so my response to him was “No, I’m the other Marty Walsh, not the State Rep Marty Walsh.” And he then said. “Oh no, we know who your are, I’ll have someone show you to your seats.”

The whole thing was pretty surreal. We had 4 seats which all had Marty Walsh written of them in the front row of the right side of the room. Then there were two seats for me and Andrea only a few rows back from the front row, which included Gov Deval Patrick, and the Mayor’s wife. My thoughts through the whole thing were; holy crap why the hell am I here with all these important people? Sitting right next to me was a guy who was first on the scene to the firefighter accident last week, I believe he actually saved one of the firefighters lives. And on the other side was a guy giving away like a million dollars to the Boston public schools. So out of all the people in the city who did amazing things this past year, we were the three that the Mayor mentioned. I still feel that I don’t deserve that kind of attention, and this isn’t something that I sought out. But hey I’ll take the free press, haha!

After the event my sister Corie made me go get a picture with the Mayor, and I told him thank you. I then met the Allston Rep, who went and introduced me to the State Rep Marty Walsh. I also shook hands with Secretary Galvin and a few other respectable Bostonians. The whole thing was really pretty amazing but also a little ridiculous. A few Boston firefighters shook my hand and said nice job and thank you. My response no them was “No, thank you guys, your awesome!” haha, like I said the whole thing was just pretty surreal.

Anyway, after all that I couldn’t sleep last night and I got in the shop a little after 7am this morning and I’m anxious to just get back to business as usual. Now I just have to see if my fat head still fits in my welding helmet. Anyway, thanks for listening!

-Marty Walsh (not the State Rep)

Add to Reddit.

Tweet