William Lyons
A few short years ago, the nascent sharing economy for transportation included car share services like ZipCar. This was big news at the time. Early car share success in Cambridge and Somerville rapidly expanded to become a global enterprise. Bike share services are now following the same path.
To be sure, bikes are not cars. For suburban dwellers, cars are an unfortunate necessity for all but the most enthusiastic bikers. In rural environments, bike travel is unsafe for most people who might bike to their daily destinations. As a result, the bike share movement does not have the same cache as a car share service outside of our more dense urban environments.
In the city, however, bike sharing makes economic as well as lifestyle sense. A well distributed bike share system on par with car sharing in terms of the number and density of stations makes the service a very convenient option. Factoring in the amount of time it takes to retrieve a car from parking, drive to your destination, park again and pay for your parking, bike sharing is more efficient and more cost effective. Which is why the service is becoming very popular in Boston.
Bike share programs started in the 1960s in Europe. Bike sharing finally caught hold in the United States in 2008, when Washington, D.C., introduced SmartBike DC. The program was relaunched in 2010 as Capital BikeShare, and bike share systems expanded to Minneapolis and Denver. This set the stage for a revolution in the way bike transportation was viewed in the United States.
Enter Hubway
Greater Boston’s bike share service, known as Hubway, has enjoyed tremendous success. Now known as “Blue Bike” due to a sponsorship arrangement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the Hubway service began in 2011. It has expanded to more than 185 stations and more than 1,800 bikes. The service spans Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville. The service has more than 10,000 annual memberships and tens of thousands of daily rentals.
Many Bostonians believe that biking is not a viable mode of travel due to New England’s notoriously challenging weather. This has proved not to be the impediment that people think it should be. Besides European success in cold weather and snowy climates (such as Copenhagen, Denmark), weather in the United States has proven itself not to be an impediment to mass bike share adoption in the United States. Boston’s success in generating 10,000 year-round memberships demonstrates that bike share is not a seasonal phenomenon.
As a Bostonian, I take great pleasure knowing that New York City launched its bike share program in 2013 – two years after we introduced our bike share system. Today, New York’s system includes 142 stations and 12,000 bikes. For a city like New York, 12,000 new bikes on the road is a significant benefit! In bike sharing, Boston and New York are roughly equal.
When Boston prepared its most recent citywide transportation plan, known as Go Boston 2030, the city announced an ambitious goal to expand the bike share program. As part of that process, the city solicited public input as to where new bike stations should be installed to best service the city’s residents. The city now plans to refine the list of new stations to identify a total of 70 new bike stations to take the bike share program to the next level.
The new partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield represents another major evolution in the development of the city’s bike share system. The partnership, which includes all of the municipalities, aspires to add enough bikes to bring the number of bikes in the system to 3,000 over the next year. Blue Bikes represents a notable expansion of Blue Cross and Blue Shield into the sponsorship of bike share programs, which includes the bike share system in New Orleans. With the obvious connection between biking and health, it is no surprise that Blue Cross and Blue Shield have expanded their sponsorship of bike share programs over time.
As Hubway/Blue Bike enters its next expansion phase, the trend is unmistakable. Bike sharing is not only here to stay; it offers a huge opportunity to expand mobility options in our urban environments. Getting around the city is changing in very profound ways. As the city evolves, emerging modes of transportation will be essential to make our city move. Bike share is absolutely a key component of our new mobility systems.
