Cycling in Boston has been a popular activity since the late 19th century for both recreation and commuting, and it has grown in popularity in recent years, aided by improving cycling infrastructure. It is especially prevalent around the campuses of the numerous universities in the city.
Different areas in Boston have varying degrees of bike friendliness. [1]
At the end of the 19th century, cycling was especially popular in Boston, and Outing Magazine at the time described Boston as "the bicycling paradise of America". [2] The city's cyclists were pivotal in the formation of the national organization League of American Wheelmen, and Massachusetts had the largest per capita membership in the league in the 1890s and the largest percentage of women members. [3]
Bluebikes, the city's bicycle sharing system was launched on July 28, 2011, originally named Hubway, with 610 bicycles and 60 stations in the City of Boston. [4] Later, the system was expended to Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville. As of September 2016, the system has deployed 158 stations with a fleet of over 1,461 bikes. [4] PBSC Urban Solutions, a company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, supplies bikes and docking stations. [5]
The system is operated by Motivate. As of October 2014, it had more than 12,500 annual members, and an over 2.5 million trips have been taken by Hubway riders since 2011 launch.
From May 9, 2018, the system was rebranded Bluebikes following a marketing deal with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. [6]
Bike sharing companies Lime and Spin won a contract from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to introduce dockless rentals to certain suburbs in summer 2018. Lime was already operating in Malden, [7] and the MAPC system expands dockless rentals to Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Milton, Needham, Newton, Revere, Waltham, Watertown, and Winthrop. [8] Dockless bikes are excluded from the Hubway operating area because that system has an exclusive contract with Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville.
Transportation in Boston includes roadway, subway, regional rail, air, and sea options for passenger and freight transit in Boston, Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) operates the Port of Boston, which includes a container shipping facility in South Boston, and Logan International Airport, in East Boston. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates bus, subway, short-distance rail, and water ferry passenger services throughout the city and region. Amtrak operates passenger rail service to and from major Northeastern cities, and a major bus terminal at South Station is served by varied intercity bus companies. The city is bisected by major highways I-90 and I-93, the intersection of which has undergone a major renovation, nicknamed the Big Dig.
A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service where bicycles are available for shared use by individuals at low cost.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates 152 bus routes in the Greater Boston area. The MBTA has a policy objective to provide transit service within walking distance for all residents living in areas with population densities greater than 5,000 inhabitants per square mile (1,900/km2) within the MBTA's service district. Much of this service is provided by bus. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 83,623,600, or about 275,600 per weekday as of the fourth quarter of 2022.
People in the San Francisco Bay Area rely on a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, highways, rail, tunnels, airports, seaports, and bike and pedestrian paths. The development, maintenance, and operation of these different modes of transportation are overseen by various agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Association of Bay Area Governments, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. These and other organizations collectively manage several interstate highways and state routes, eight passenger rail networks, eight trans-bay bridges, transbay ferry service, local and transbay bus service, three international airports, and an extensive network of roads, tunnels, and bike paths.
Washington, D.C. has a number of different modes of transportation available for use. Commuters have a major influence on travel patterns, with only 28% of people employed in Washington, D.C. commuting from within the city, whereas 33.5% commute from the nearby Maryland suburbs, 22.7% from Northern Virginia, and the rest from Washington, D.C.'s outlying suburbs.
{{Infobox company | name = BCycle | logo = BCycle Logo.png | former_name = Freewheelin | type = Privately held | genre = | foundation = 2008 | founder = | location_city = Waterloo, Wisconsin | location_country =
United States | locations = 47 systems | key_people = Bob Burns, President | area_served = United States | industry = | products = | services = Bicycle sharing system
Bluebikes, originally Hubway, is a bicycle sharing system in the Boston metropolitan area. As of July 2021, the system had deployed 393 stations with a fleet of over 3,800 bikes in the 10 municipalities it served. Bluebikes is operated by Motivate and uses technology provided by 8D Technologies and PBSC Urban Solutions for equipment. The bike share program officially launched in Boston as Hubway. From 2012 to 2021, neighboring municipalities of Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, Everett, Newton, Arlington, Chelsea, Watertown, and Salem joined the system. By 2020, total annual members neared 23,000, and as of 2021, 14 million total rides have been taken.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) is a state licensed nonprofit private health insurance company under the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association with headquarters in Boston. The Boston location located on 133 Federal Street is currently under study as a pending Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
Motivate LLC is a company based in New York City that services bicycle sharing systems and other urban services in North America.
Divvy is the bicycle sharing system in the Chicago metropolitan area, currently serving the cities of Chicago and Evanston. The system is owned by the Chicago Department of Transportation and has been operated by Lyft since 2019. As of Sept 2021, Divvy operated 16,500 bicycles and over 800 stations, covering 190 square miles.
Bay Wheels is a regional public bicycle sharing system in California's San Francisco Bay Area. It is operated by Motivate in a partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Bay Wheels is 'the first regional and large-scale bicycle sharing system deployed in California and on the West Coast of the United States. It was established as Bay Area Bike Share in August 2013. As of January 2018, the Bay Wheels system had over 2,600 bicycles in 262 stations across San Francisco, East Bay and San Jose.
PBSC Urban Solutions, formerly the Public Bike System Company, is an international bicycle-sharing system equipment vendor with their headquarters based in Longueuil, Quebec. The company develops bicycle-sharing systems, equipment, parts, and software, and sells its products to cities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil and more. The company has sold about 100,000 bikes and 8,500 stations to 45 cities.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority operates subway, bus, commuter rail, and ferry service in the Greater Boston region. Boston has some of the highest rates of non-motorized commuting in the United States, including high bicycle usage. The MBTA offers certain provisions for riders wishing to make part of their trips by bicycle. The agency allows bicycles to be carried on all fixed-route services except the Green Line and the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line light rail lines, although they are restricted on the commuter rail and heavy rail subway services at peak hours. Bicycle storage areas are offered at many stations, with "Pedal and Park" locking bicycle cages at certain high-usage stations.
8D Technologies was a Canadian company that developed bicycle-sharing systems and automated parking management systems. It merged with Motivate in 2017.
Baltimore Bike Share was a bicycle sharing system that served the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The system had more than 50 stations, all owned by the Baltimore City government, and operated in a public–private partnership with Bewegen Technologies and Corps Logistics. Launched in 2016, Baltimore Bike Share had the largest electrical-assisted cycling (Pedelec) fleet in North America.
Ofo, stylised as ofo, was a Beijing-based bicycle sharing company founded in 2014. It used a dockless system with a smartphone app to unlock and locate nearby bicycles, charging an hourly rate for use.
Jump is a dockless scooter and electric bicycle sharing system operating in the United States, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Australia. The bikes are a bright red orange and weigh 70 pounds (32 kg). Riders unlock bikes using the Uber app and are charged to their Uber account.
A scooter-sharing system is a shared transport service in which electric motorized scooters are made available to use for short-term rentals. E-scooters are typically "dockless", meaning that they do not have a fixed home location and are dropped off and picked up from certain locations in the service area.
Micromobility refers to a range of small, lightweight vehicles operating at speeds typically below 25 km/h (15 mph) and driven by users personally. Micromobility devices include bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycle fleets, and electric pedal assisted (pedelec) bicycles.
