HubWay Is Hiring

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Bicycle Service Technician

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Holy Hubway: Hubway Set To Break A Million Trips

Hubway had a good year last year, with half a million trips before shutting down for the winter.

They reopened the service April 2, and as of May 7th had already logged 85,000 trips. If they keep up this pace the system should hit 1 million plus trips this year. See the email they sent me below.

We’ve made it! Another winter is under our collective belts and the miles are starting to pile up on the Hubway fleet. Did you know that since we reopened the system on April 2, riders have logged more than 85,000 trips? That’s right, Hubway is #RealTransportation.

Hubway is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with Bicycle Benefits, your single source for discounts at local businesses throughout metro-Boston and beyond, available to you simply by riding your bike and wearing a helmet. Beginning May 1, every Hubway member will receive a Bicycle Benefits sticker in their new member packet! Affix the sticker to your helmet and you’re ready to enjoy exclusive savings at great local businesses! Already a Hubway member? Follow Hubway on Facebook and Twitter to learn when we’ll be out and about around town. Show us your Hubway key fob and your helmet, and we’ll hook you up with your own sticker! Visit http://www.thehubway.com/bicycle-benefits for a list of participating businesses and to learn more about this great program.

And don’t forget that May is National Bike Month and here in Massachusetts, May 11th-19th is Bay State Bike Week. There are dozens of great events to choose from so get on a bike and ride!

85,000 trips during April (an admittedly cold miserable month) rivals some of the busiest months the system had last year, one can assume that once the weather is really nice the trip counter is going to smoke it goes up so fast.

One can hope that the success of the program will allow them to expand the system into Dorchester, and other under-served neighborhoods. These areas could really benefit from such a reliable and cheap form of transportation.

I personally have seen more Hubway riders in the last couple weeks than ever before, the streets are thick with them during commute times, and on the weekends. I love it, long live Hubway!

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Hubway Is Hiring!

Hubway is looking for some new help, seems like a sweet gig.

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Station Service Technician

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Spring Is In The Air: Hubways Sprouting

While it still might be windy and chilly, Hubways are blooming around town, you seen any in your area yet?

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Hubway Had An Amazing Year, Plans On Expanding Again Next Year

The Hubway bike sharing system had a record breaking year, and is going to continue its steady expansion next year. With trips over 50% higher than expected, year round operation and steady expansion are in the works for 2013.

Hubway recorded 533,755 rides before shutting down for the season Wednesday night, pushing the cumulative total to 676,044 since its July 2011 launch, roughly 50 percent better than planners had hoped.

Now, officials are envisioning a future with Hubway running year-round and fanning out across all Boston neighborhoods and many surrounding communities, beyond the current 105 stations — 72 in Boston, 22 in Cambridge, eight in Somerville, and three in Brookline — and 1,003 bicycles.

“Everybody’s been calling,” said Jessica Robertson, transportation coordinator for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which helped Boston launch Hubway and expand across municipal borders for its second season. Cities as far off as Pittsfield and Portland, Maine, have inquired about starting satellites, while local communities, starting with Newton, want to tie into the existing map.

A typical station with bikes costs about $50,000 and requires $10,000 in annual subsidies, though operations are expected to be covered fully by user fees and advertising as Hubway matures. Those costs make expansion contingent on grants, private sponsorship, and local taxes, and the outward march is incremental — far-flung stations do not succeed in a system designed for short trips and rapid transit.

But a winterized Hubway could happen by December 2013. Current contracts and permits call for a nearly four-month closure, but the two-thirds of Hubway stations located on plazas and sidewalks could remain in place without posing an obstacle for street plowing.(via)

More information about the first Hubway rider to reach 1000 miles here. Kid is pretty nice.

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Hubway Shutting Down Soon, But There Is Still Plenty Of Time To Ride

From the email:

 

Dear Hubway Member, It’s Almost That Time…

The low-hanging sun on the horizon and leafless trees throughout town are both indicators that the Hubway 2012 season is coming to a close. As we did last year, our pack-up plan consists initially of a phased drawdown of our on-street stations and those stations with expiring permits. This will begin on Monday, November 19th and continue through our last day of operation on Wednesday, November 28th. The system shuts down completely at 11:59pm that day, and we then collect the rest of the stations and bicycles as quickly as we can to beat the arrival of old man winter.

Hubway will provide 48 hours notice preceding the take down of each station.  This information will be posted to our News page, Facebook page and Twitter feed to allow you time to make alternate transit plans.  Please visit us often and stay informed on our system shut-down progress.

Between now and then there is still plenty of time to ride, so get out there and log those last few trips of the season and help us get to 700,000 rides! (As of today, we’re up to 654,971 rides!)

Thanks to you, Hubway has emerged in its second year of operations as a critical piece of the transit network here in metro-Boston and one of the most successful bikeshare systems in the world. We are #realtransportation, we are Hubway.

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Hubway Bike Share Data Visualized

Boston BikeShare Data Animation (Hubway) from Chris Whong on Vimeo.

This is absolutely fantastic. You can see people getting up late on Sunday, taking the Hubways home after the T closes, and the daily commutes. The Hubway system really is changing the way people get around town for the better.

This city is changing for the better, and we will all look back on these days as the “bad old days” when it was hard to get around by bicycle. It’s clear we are heading towards a more bike/walking/public transportation intensive, and less car oriented city. Our new bike friendly future can’t get here fast enough.

Much more data awesomeness here. (also thanks Ron for the tip)

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I’m Not The Only One Who Thinks The Boston Parking System Is Broken

Patrick Doyle from the Boston Magazine lays out in wonderful detail exactly what is wrong with the Boston parking system…its too cheap.

Driving in Boston is about as much fun as an emergency appendectomy with a jigsaw. Those of us who live here are well equipped to deliver detailed lectures on the reasons why: one-way streets derived from 17th-century cow paths; the lack, for the most part, of a grid; poor to nonexistent signage; and the general willingness of citizens on foot, on bike, and behind the wheel to dart out recklessly into traffic. But as bad as driving is in Boston, it’s a dream compared with the parking.

You see, the average car is driven only about 5 percent of each day. The rest of the time—when the owner is at work, at home, or in a store—that car is parked. In a small city with limited space like ours, this creates a major problem. Too many cars are competing for too few parking spots. Finding an empty space on the street is such a rarity that when my friend in the North End does manage to grab one, she’ll often choose to keep her car parked in it and shell out for a Zipcar when she needs to run an errand. Whenever you’re thinking of driving into the city—be it for a Red Sox game or a quick stop on Newbury Street—there’s always one overwhelming concern: If I can’t find a spot on the street, how much is the garage going to cost me?

It doesn’t have to be like this. Unlike a lot of the problems we have with cars around here, this one we can actually fix.

Read the rest of this great story for an in depth look at how we got into this problem, and some very good suggestions for how to get out of it, here.

While the Hubway rental system is briefly mentioned in the article what isn’t is how we can re-purpose a lot of that wasted parking space for bike infrastructure.

No one wants to talk about removing parking spaces, its one of the many third rail’s of government in this city. But if we are creative, we can accommodate more bike infrastructure and slightly less car parking.

If we do we will be able to provide a convenient alternative to all those poor souls trapped in their cars in traffic. This allows for less congestion, less traffic, and basically makes everyone’s life better (car drivers and bike riders).

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