[*BCM*] MassBike Victory: MBTA Buses to Get Bike Racks

[Matthew Arcidy]

<sarcasm>
No, i think marq's right, we should all be against any progress made
towards boston accepting it's bike population.  Hail marq, our new
negative overlord.
</sarcasm>

As someone who has gotten his bike stolem after I wasn't able to bring my
bike on the MBTA when I was 16(didn't know better), I greatly appreciate
this ruling.

I recently spent time in seattle, and they have the racks.  They got used.

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Ari Pollak wrote:

> Let's not also forget that some bus routes that go outside of Boston &
> Cambridge travel routes that wouldn't normally be very safe to ride on -
> narrow roads, highways, etc. So this would be a safer way of bypassing
> those areas.
> Granted, it seems like a lot of money to be spending on something that
> may not get such high usage, especially if they could spend that money
> to actually improve service.
> 
> Rachel Elizabeth Dillon wrote:
> > There are a bunch of reasons this is a good thing, in my opinion:
> > 
> >  * It demonstrates a commitment to cyclists in that it's money going
> >    towards making the city more bike-friendly. While it may not be 
> >    what we would like to see most, it's something, and I think it's 
> >    a good thing.
> > 
> >  * It's great for casual cyclists who may be trying to choose between
> >    driving somewhere and not doing so --- say you're trying to go from
> >    Somerville to Waltham. You might say "I don't really want to walk
> >    15 minutes to the T, ride the T for 15 minutes, walk to a bus stop,
> >    wait for the bus, ride the bus for a half hour, and then walk to
> >    my destination.  I will drive." (This is even almost reasonable.)
> >    However, "I can bike to the bus stop, and then bike the bus route
> >    until it catches up with me, and then hop on" is much more 
> >    appealing, and also encourages people to use mass transit.
> > 
> >  * It's useful for people like me (and, presumably, many on this list)
> >    who would be happy to just bike to Waltham as well. If you start
> >    feeling ill, get tired, find that the weather is more than you
> >    bargained for, pop a flat and don't have your tools or, God forbid,
> >    get in an accident, you probably want to get to either your destination,
> >    a bike shop, or home, and trying to do that with a non-functioning
> >    bike or rider is very difficult. Being able to bring your bike with
> >    you on public transit it always a good thing --- even if you only use
> >    it once a year, if every cyclist in the city uses it once per year,
> >    that adds up. 
> > 
> >    (I got hit by a bus in Harvard Square a couple of months ago, and
> >    was fine but my bike wasn't ridable; I was very happy I could hop
> >    it on the T rather than just leave it locked up in a high-traffic
> >    area. Had I not been fifty feet from a Red Line stop, I would have
> >    been in a lot more trouble.)
> > 
> >  * It makes bikes more visible to drivers and people who use mass transit.
> > 
> > So, while I might like to see more money going into enforcing "No parking 
> > in bike lane" or something like that, I think this is valuable.
> > 
> > But it's possible you were just trolling. :)
> > 
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