Could Boston and surrounding cities start offering rental bikes as in Paris?
Users can rent a bike online or at any of the stations, using a credit or debit card and leave them at any other station.
A one-day pass costs 1 euro ($1.38), a weekly pass 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly subscription 29 euros ($40), with no additional charges as long as each bike ride does not exceed 30 minutes. (Beyond that, there is an incremental surcharge, to make sure that as many bikes as possible stay in the rotation.)
The outdoor advertising company J. C. Decaux is paying for the bicycles, docking stations and maintenance in return for exclusive use of 1,628 urban billboards owned by the city. The city receives the rental income, and city officials say they are hoping the program will bring in millions of euros.
Interesante, non? Metro Boston needs to reduce its traffic, for reasons of CO2 and mental frustration of its drivers, and bicycles could be part of the answer.
That is an interesting idea.
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On a side note, I love how some right-wingers still bash France, despite the election of a kindred right-winger as the relatively new French President, and that the United States’s existence as an independent nation is due largely to our alliance during the American Revolution.
Need a bike tunnel. So we can get to the city before this is viable. I would be all for a private company offering this service.
and drive them to canada
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It’s God’s country you know. (with all due respect to the people of Pawtucketville in Lowell)
I’ve not been to Paris to check out the cycle program there, nor to any other city [there’s about a half dozen with bike programs of some kind or another, including Portland OR].
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For one thing, people come in different shapes and sizes, and I wonder how they deal with that with bicycles — where tuning a bike to the size of the person is far more important because a bad fit means lots of wasted energy and aches the next day.
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For another thing, bicycles that aren’t tuned well are equally frustrating — low air in tires is bad enough [wastes energy, bad for stopping], but what about loose brakes? Play in the handlebar? A chain with problems? How to keep the machines in good shape?
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What about safety? When the bicycle isn’t in perfect shape and a cyclist gets into an accident, what happens? Lots of potential problems…
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Finally, I hate advertising in public space. I mean I really loathe it. Vermont has the right idea, and towns like Brookline Mass try to replicate it. I hate billboards, but billboards on public property? Double ugh. Don’t get me started on beer ads on the MBTA subways — the method how many thousands of kids use to get to school [you think ads for Budweiser would fly on school busses in Weston?]
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Keep in mind, I’m a cyclist — I don’t drive in the city at all. I also believe that more bicycles would make cycling better for me, a view not shared by all daily cyclists. But, implementation is everything, and I have no idea how they plan to deal with sizing, maintenance, and liability — and I hate the idea of encouraging more advertising in public spaces.
Do you think beer ads in subways are a good idea?
Not in subways or on subway cars or any other MBTA infrastructure — including billboards on MBTA easement property aimed toward MBTA riders.
Re French
What I hate more than French bashing by the right is French loving by the left. They are the perfect example of how a socialist nation easily becomes crippled beyond repair. That said I like the bike idea in theory but…
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Re Bikes
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Cambridge has a lot of bikes around a lot of bikers just don’t know how to act when they are on the roads, a lot of them do not follow traffic laws and a lot of times they stay in front of traffic slowing it down. The seperate bike lanes the city has created has done little to alleviate this since bikers are too scared to use them because cars like to drive on them and pedestrians often walk on them so there is no easy harmony between bikes and cars in a cramped city like Cambridge and Im sure it would only create more traffic problems in a city like Boston, though the net effect might still reduce C02 and thats a good thing.
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Re ads
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I dont really care if the subway has ads so long as it reduces he cost of driving. Although it is annoying when one company buys all the ads on the train and every car is covered with just one ad, that makes me feel very wierd especially because I now desire windorphins. Also I hate those ads that come right after a station on the side of the tunnel walls at a jillion miles an hour.
starring Orson Welles, an ad which required several takes:
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By the way, is France crippled beyond repair? I’ve never been there, and they clearly have a problem with cars burning up, but I’ve never heard a poli sci professor put France in the category of dysfunctional states like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Zimbabwe.
…the champagne wasn’t the only thing fermented in the bottle that day.
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WF
I wonder who did his makeup?
and it keeps getting funnier.
Thank you, YouTube!
WTF?
If you want to discuss cultural differences in subway advertising, Paris subways feature ads with topless women. I don’t think the topless women were advertising booze, though. I don’t actually remember what product they were advertising, but I do remember staring at bare breasts while waiting for the next subway.
I would put that high on the list.
I love this idea. Boston is so small it is perfect for this. We need less cars and more bikes. I really wish our city would invest more in making this city a heaven for bike users. If only all that big dig money had been spent on bike initiatives and better public transit. We will need to creatively deal with the issue of bike theft and traffic congestion.
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Last year, I used mybike – mybikeonline.com – until my bike was stolen. It is a similar service. They put an ad on your bike. In exchange you get a cheap bike and service is included.
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If you’ve ever been to the Netherlands you can see how to do it right. They have bike paths on EVERY road, and most people have bikes there. It’s great. (not to mention they have sensible drug laws, lgbt rights laws, universal healthcare, etc.)
Re Topless ads: Now theres a great idea!
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Re Bikes: Like I said earlier Im not anti bike, but bikes should have their own roads, bikes and cars do not mix and only lead to at best annoying road conditions with incosniderate or stupid bikers or at worst actual accidents. So definitely we should have a lot of bike paths and I think itd be a worthy investment and its something even drivers would support to get those pesky bikers off our roads.
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Re France: Crippled in the sense that it will never be a great power again, that its economy will only continue to shrink, and that the discontent and violence among both Muslim and youth groups will only get worse. The Fifth Republic is crippled and will be eliminated in our lifetimes.
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So the drivers of autos — you know — those with more able braking, more nimble steering, and thousands of pounds of protection [which doubles as thousands of pounds of implied threat] aren’t part of the mix?
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Typical crap. Somehow, whenever the mix of autos and bikes are mentioned, it’s always the cyclists’ behavior that gets publicly questioned, but never the drivers of autos. Your post is a brilliant and yet common example of just that.
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Look, there are plenty of cyclists who break rules while riding, and I’m one of them. Sometimes it’s ignorance, sometimes it’s apathy, and sometimes it’s out of self-preservation. Hide me in the back seat of your car while you drive from Kenmore Square to the North End, and I’d bet you violate a rule 50 times or more while driving — everything from beating a yellow to illegal lane shifts to speeding to failing to signal sufficiently before turning to coping to a stop at a light in front of the line and quite likely on the crosswalk. If I ride to the North End from Kenmore Square, I’ll violate two rules: lane change without signaling [often it’s dangerous for me to take a hand off the “wheel”] and running red lights [I do it… I treat them like stop signs. I get to the light, stop, and look. Nobody coming? I go. If I don’t, it’s too often I’ve got some jerk in an auto trying to squeeze past me illegally in the middle of the intersection, putting myself at risk].
Cars and bikes can share the same lanes, as long as cars don’t treat bicycles as second class citizens. The law is clear: except for limited access highways, bicycles can be on every road autos can. Furthermore, let’s get real: bicycles don’t slow you down by more than a few seconds on a trip. A few seconds! Furthermore, slow you down for what — so you don’t wait as long at the next traffic light.
So, you can say “I’m not anti bike” but the rest of your post wants bikers to be second class citizens who don’t interfere with autos, as if roads were built only for autos and by their good graces bicycles are allowed on them. In fact, let’s play a game: I’m going to change “bicycle” to “black person” in your paragraph, and let’s see how it reads:
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Re black people: Like I said earlier Im not anti black, but black people should have their own water fountains, blacks and whites do not mix and only lead to at best annoying eating conditions with incosniderate or stupid blacks or at worst actual attacks. So definitely we should have a lot of black neighborhoods and I think itd be a worthy investment and its something even whites would support to get those pesky bikers out of our schools.
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It’s a fun exercise; not a perfect comparison. My point is not that bikes are like the blacks of the 60s; rather that you can’t possibly say you’re “for” bikes and then write all that crap after it any more than a segregationist in the 60s could say he was for the negro.
Im speechless you must be having some fun, to say that affluent generally white bikers are like blacks is outrageous.
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Lets take a few of your quotes and put them back in context:
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“there are plenty of cyclists who break the rules while biking, and Im one of them”
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Clearly you have no respect for the rules of the road, sure drivers bang U turns and occasionally run red lights, but bikers, yourself included, have the odd attitude that they deserve to be treated as equally as cars but dont have to follow the rules that cars do.
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To use your preposterous civil rights analogy its like saying blacks are being like second class citizens therefore they can murder people and not pay taxes. No, clearly they deserve equal treatment and not a blank check to disregard laws, in this case traffic laws for you spoiled bikers.
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I had a cylcist riding right in front of my car and he slowed me down considerably, he was biking at bet 15mph on a 30mph road, thats slowing me down 50%, and unlike a car he was so close swerving around him wouldve injured him and kocked him off his precious bike, i honked and asked nicely, when that didnt work i yelled get the fuck to the side of the road Lance. And he did. I didnt want to be rude but for some reason bikers only respond to rudeness, taking your generalizing arguments further maybe your impolite people that are arrogant?
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And hell the roads were built for cars hence they are paved and are wide enough for cars to go around them, if they were built for bikes theyd be a lot smaller and wouldnt have car sized lanes or car sized parking lots adjacent to them.
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Anyway I take the T so I am both pro-Earth and i dont have to deal with jerks like you on the road, and Im sure your just as inconsiderate driving a car as you are driving a bike.
and I’m not eloquent to begin with.
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Nonsense. I can’t speak for other cyclists, just myself. Each cyclist has a whole lot more interactions with cars than other bicycles, due to the relative number of each and because bikes don’t pass other bikes all that often, but each bike gets passed by many many cars [and can in (legally) turn pass many cars in certain situations, like at a stop light]. There are three reasons to break a law in this situation: * ignorance * safety * convenience
The first: well, it’s pretty rare, but it does happen. Misunderstanding a sign, that sort of thing.
The second: it rarely is an issue in a car, but when it is an issue, drivers [wisely] react accordingly. Cross the double yellow to avoid something that has gotten on to the road, that sort of thing. What you may not realize is that this situation happens to cyclists far more often — we’re far more vulnerable, less visible [even with orange or yellow jackets], and have two narrow wheels, which means if either one hits a pothole we go down hard. But there’s another safety factor — and that’s behaving differently when there are cars around. Here’s what I mean: the law in MA allows for cyclists to ride to the front of a red light. Here’s the problem: If I’m at the front, when it turns green I have a car right up my butt. Literally. I’ve been “tapped” three times — the driver intentionally drove his front bumper into my rear wheel. Other times the car will speed around me, coming dangerously close. There are two ways I can avoid this: not go to the front of the queue, or safely blow a red light after coming to a stop. If I do the first [and I do, depending on situation], I’m making my commute much slower in fear of some jerk who might take an intentional, unnecessary action to cause me severe harm. If I do the second, I get through the light faster, and so do the cars because I’m not corking the intersection — it’s far easier and safer [and legal] to pass a bicycle in between intersections than in the intersection, where it is illegal. So, that’s my diatribe on lawbreaking. I still contend that over a 20 minute [or any other time interval] span of driving vs. cycling, that the average number of laws broken by a driver is far higher than a cyclist. Yet somehow this debate is over cyclists who run red lights and not auto drivers who harass cyclists, putting them in more danger [see below].
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My “civil rights analogy” was only to show that you can’t claim to be “for” something and then go out of your way to kick that someone in what is now two posts in a row. You’re “for” bicyclists like I’m “for” garbage dumps. They’re great as long as they never effect my life in a negative way, ever. Complete and total NIMBY.
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This is what I was waiting for, and I was pretty sure it was coming. Now, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know all the other factors — how wide the road was, whether parked cars were on the right, if the road was smooth or full of potholes, if there was debris like sand or rocks on the road, etc. But here’s the thing: maybe he was being a complete jerk, riding that way only to slow you down. But I doubt it. I’d bet he didn’t feel safer any further to the right, due to all kinds of hazards like the ones I mentioned. If that’s the case, then You were wrong and acting illegally, and I’d add, arrogant. What makes you so special that other people have to get out of your way when you’re driving? Assuming this wasn’t a limited access highway, he had every right to use that road safely, and that might include slowing you down. You know what the law says: STFU and stay behind him until it’s safe to pass. By honking, you illegally used your horn. By yelling, you harassed him. There’s a few laws right there. You were also the rude one — he has every right to the road. And let’s be do the math: let’s say you were behind him for an entire mile. A whole mile! That means in that mile you went from A to B in four minutes instead of two [15 mph instead of 30 mph]. We’re talking two minutes of your life. Two. Minutes. Yet you were prepared to risk startling the cyclist, potentially causing an accident. You were prepared to risk intimidating the cyclist, potentially causing an accident. Your precious two minutes were more important than that man’s physical safety.
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Wrong again. In fact historically it was cycling clubs which argued for paving instead of dirt or cobblestone, which served the few autos in existence 100 years ago quite well. In more recent times, the roads — and the laws — are very clear. Except for limited access highways all roads are built for bicycles and cars, and both must share. That means that both are expected to follow the laws, and that both are entitled to use the roads free of harassment or intimidation.
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Your behavior near the bicyclist and your attitude about road use are wrong both legally and morally, but all too prevalent in America.
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blockquote>i dont have to deal with jerks like you on the road, and Im sure your just as inconsiderate driving a car as you are driving a bike.
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Like me? It’s doubtful that you’ve ever encountered me on the road, since I ride only in Boston and towns abutting, and you likely don’t drive much in Boston since you seem to believe that bikers are generally “affluent”, when anyone paying attention downtown knows that most cyclists are either couriers [poor, decent bikes], students [poor, crappy bikes like mine], or 14-18 year olds [poor, crappy bikes, often BMX style]. Sure there are some nice hybrids or drop handlebars riden, but not many since nobody is willing to leave them locked outside in fear of theft.
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I can tell you one thing: I’ve probably driven about 60,000 miles in my life, and I’ve never honked at a cyclist and I’ve never yelled out my window at anyone. I am sure that I am a far more patient driver than you, based on your own writing.
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50% slowdown? What, that cost you 30 seconds, maybe a minute from your ultimate destination?
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“knocking him off his precious bike”. What a condescending statement. You realize, that “knocking him off his precious bike might just kill him don’t you. Then you said “get the fuck to the side of the road Lance.” That’s just road rage.
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Statutes of Mass say the roads are for cars, and, some specifically exclude bikes. Otherwise, it’s mine on the bike as much it is yours–I’m sure I pay as much or more in taxes, not that it matters.
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But seriously. My bike obstructing your speed for a few seconds isn’t worth acting like an ass, but for some reason–and I probably do more miles than most–there’s hardly a ride goes by where at least one ass yells or loses his cool because my bike’s nearby.
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Of course it could be just Massachusetts liberals who recognize me. In which case, nevermind 🙂
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and may the bikes be with us. But meanwhile back in Boston the barriers to cycling have to do with mean streets and lack of bike facilities.
I spent a few days in Amsterdam last week, and bikes rule there. There is a dedicated system of bike-only lanes and paths, and even dedicated signals for bikes at busy intersections. By car is far and away the worst way to get around the city, after the public transit (trams/LRVs), bikes, boats, and walking. Except for the lack of a canal system, Boston’s compact geography would lend itself to this kind of hierarchy among methods of getting around, but we’d have a long way to go to get to where they are, and the SUV/gasoline/parking lot special interests to overcome.
in that winter is not severe in Amsterdam as it is in Boston (and, there are zero hills). getting people into the habit of seasonal biking in MA is probably a very different problem than getting people to bike daily in Holland, where they can do it year-round. i am COMPLETELY for maximizing use and ease of use of bikes and public transit, and this is not a critique of your comment. however, the comparisons with other cities don’t always inform the local situation very well.