Last I wrote about Boston’s new bike-sharing program, Hubway, it was about how popular the service was. (Oh yeah, and I shared a test ride blog from someone at Boston University.) Well, the rockin’ and rollin’ on Hubway bicycles has continued.

In four months, 140,000 rides were taken via Hubway. Even compared to several other bike-sharing programs, Boston’s is faring well. “[In] 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),” DC Streetsblog reports.

And, with success comes thirst for more. As reported over on sister site Planetsave, Hubway’s going to boom even more next year — “the city will increase its new bike sharing program by 50 percent, adding 300 bicycles” in the Spring.

Friends

Of course, this all makes me think of one of the many super bicycle enthusiasts in my graduate program for city and regional planning at UNC, a Boston native who loved Boston probably as much as anything. Picturing her now, I can only see her in a bicycle helmet! I imagine this program makes her even more proud of her city and her fellow Bostonians.

Anyway,… Hubway has just gone into hibernation for the winter. It will reopen in March when the weather is a little more pleasant.

Huge 3rd-Generation-Bike-Sharing Fan

Since my first year out of graduate school (where I actually focused on bicycle planning), when I was working as the director of a small non-profit promoting clean transportation options in the Charlottesville, Virginia area and got a taste of such bike-sharing programs (at clean transportation conferences in Miami and DC), I have been 100% behind the quick expansion of them and have seen them as one of the best options for quickly getting more ‘normal’/mainstream people on bicycles. I’m glad others have seen the potential and it has caught on!

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Hubway Bikes & Bike Station in Boston via effelarr & Second Hubway Bike-Sharing Station by Chasqui (Luis Tamayo)