Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Bike Sharing

Boston to Expand Hubway Bike-Share After Brilliant First Season

It's logged more than 140,000 rides over just four months. And now Boston's brand new Hubway bike sharing system is packing it in for the cold New England winter.

false

When it returns in the spring, Hubway will be expanding, adding stations in Cambridge, Somerville and Brookline. In total, the four-month-old bike sharing system will add 30 stations and roughly 300 bicycles -- a 50 percent increase, according to The Boston Globe.

Hubway has come out of the gate roaring, surpassing early ridership figures from some of the country's most well known bike sharing systems, the paper reports:

Its first 2 ½ months, Hubway recorded 100,000 station-to-station rides, significantly eclipsing the pace of similar systems in Minneapolis (where Nice Ride needed six months to reach that mark) and Denver (where B-cycle needed 7 ½ months).

And it seems Boston's neighboring cities and towns were feeling left out of the bike sharing excitement. Jeff Levine, director of planning and community development in Brookline, told the Globe that the "number one question" he gets is, "When is Hubway coming to Brookline?"

Local news site BostInno credited the system with helping to make Boston more bike-friendly overall. According to writer Lisa DeCanio, despite some lingering ambivalence about biking in Boston, growing enthusiasm cleared the way for the removal of 71 parking spots on Massachusetts Avenue to make way for a bike lane. She called Hubway a "shining success," noting that even the defending NHL champion Bruins have gotten on board, "with players riding to and from practice."

Hearing the news, Network blog Boston Biker was cheerfully smug.

Woo! And this after everyone thought the streets would run red with the blood of a thousand dead Hubway cyclists … seems that Boston city streets are not [as] rough and tumble for cyclists as they used to be.

Hubway was funded in part with a $3 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The Boston region's Metropolitan Area Planning Council is overseeing the expansion.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Streetsies 2024: Vote For This Year’s Biggest Failures

Overall, it was a pretty sad year. But what was the city and state's worst failures? You get to vote!

December 26, 2024

Streetsies 2024: Vote for this Year’s Best Livable Streets Projects

This year had some bright spots for livable streets projects. Here are the ones that stood out.

December 26, 2024

Thursday’s Headlines: Christmukkah Edition

We took yesterday off to celebrate the many holidays and to see the new Bob Dylan movie. But there was lots of news.

December 26, 2024

On Christmas, Let’s Consider the Successes of the Livable Streets Movement

Here's a short, heartwarming film about the successes experienced this year by the livable streets movement.

December 25, 2024

And the Winners Are…: It’s Time for the 2024 Streetsie Awards!

Let's start our annual year in review series with a broad roundup of the heroes, scoundrels and debacles of 2024.

December 24, 2024
See all posts