The Globe did a fine piece pointing out that Boston’s neighborhoods were being left out of the bike share. However there was nary a mention of Boston’s biggest neighborhood. We tried to be positive in pointing that out, along with providing some nice suggestions for how Hubway could creep it’s way south. I even failed to mention the bike trail that folks were advocating for along the Purple Line but hey there’s already some pretty good bike infrastructure (gulp) in the north end of town… Here it is and later I’ll update what we’ve seen in town for progress…
Dear Globe
Thank you for the piece on Hubway’s rollout and how most of Boston’s neighborhoods plus Cambridge and Somerville were left out. I’d like to add a plug for Dorchester as an area overlooked by Hubway. To start, Dorchester is roughly the same size and population as Cambridge and it’s actually in the city limits.
A station located near JFK station would be in a densely populated and widely visited area of Boston. With thousand of folks living in Harbor Point, attending UMass Boston and visiting the JFK Library, along with the Harbor Path providing access to Carson Beach and Castle Island it is an obvious location. Then consider Franklin Park with 100,000’s of visitors a year and and both sides of Dorchester are covered.
So, with stations in JP at any Orange Line station, Franklin Park, the soon to be completed Purple Line stations at Geneva Avenue and Uphams Corner plus JFK would provide the network Nicole Friedman suggests is required for success. The biking infrastructure is already there too with the Southwest Corridor in JP, bike lanes in Franklin Park, on Blue Hill Avenue and most of Columbia Road, soon to be installed bike lanes on Dorchester Avenue and the Harborway Bike Path. If that works, chances are a similar network could be built along the southern tier of town from Pope John II Park, Lower Mills to Mattapan Square. Fill in the blanks from there and Dorchester residents would be well served by Hubway.
So we’ve seen new paint on Columbia Road as it looks like the punch list is being addressed. Also some signs posted in Franklin Park as well as on Blue Hill Avenue. Didn’t notice the gaps on Talbot Ave filled in….yet. No progress on Dot Ave, but the 10 Intersection Solution isn’t finished. I have to say it is more difficult to go south through Fields Corner now that a turn lane has been added to go onto Park Street west and another to go to Gibson Street east. Luckily cars continue to park in the no stopping anytime zones in front of Town Field to help us bike riders.
Oh yeah another thing just occured to me wrt the Hubway program. $85????????? There goes the tourist trade. That’s a lot of cab riding or it makes renting a bike from one of the downtown establishments much cheaper for sure. Especially if you think it would be $85 for each person? We thought the sign up was to be free and the cost to taxpayer’s zero. I guess they got a sponsor but here’s thinking they didn’t charge enough for that. I don’t know what it costs in other cities, but when I was in San Franciso two years ago there were dozens of rental by the hour shops that didn’t put an $85 onus on you.
While I’m at it I was amused to hear there are STILL negotiations on some of the sites? Talk about seat of the pants. Just think how much more education or bike infrastructure improvements might have been made had the super-human efforts to salvage the bike share idea was put into that. But hey, I already said it was destine to fail. After three years and an ever shrinking pool of bikes in a smaller area, it would appear my cynicism has been pretty spot on. Believe it or not I was secretly hoping to be proven wrong. So far I haven’t missed a beat in terms of my predictions… We’ll see how it goes starting next Tuesday.
