The City of Cambridge is looking to take a page out of Boston’s playbook in hopes of affording lower-income residents a chance to enjoy all of the benefits of a bike-share membership. On Monday, October 20, City Councilor Dennis Carlone will be filing a policy order to bring a subsidized Hubway membership program into fruition.
Councilor Carlone, Chair of the Transportation Committee, will be filing the order along with his constituent councilors Denise Simmons, Leland Cheung, and Nadeem Mazen. The only issue with Carlone’s endeavor, however, is convincing City Manager Richard Rossi of the program’s bountiful advantages.
The City of Boston similarly offers a low-income Hubway membership subsidy, as well as a low-income membership for obese Bostonians as “prescribed” by the Boston Medical Center. And bike-friendly Cambridge wants to show that these assistances actually work and can do some good across the Charles River.
“The City of Cambridge has a well-deserved reputation as one of the nation’s best cities for biking, but as we continue to develop our multi-modal transit infrastructure, we ought to look at ways of expanding access to the Hubway program in an equitable fashion,” said Councilor Carlone.
In January 2013, Rossi’s predecessor, Robert Healy, dispatched a memo that read, in part, “Boston’s program – which is limited in time and numbers – is the only one that provides a direct, income-based subsidy and its effect is yet unproven.”
Boston Bikes Director Nicole Freedman, though, compiled data that actually shows the opposite. Subsidized Hubway memberships have, in fact, proven themselves beneficial to those who aren’t able to afford standard bike-share costs: Approximately 83 percent of those memberships were sold to people earning less than $35,000 per year. And, perhaps most impressively, prior to enacting the subsidy some 25 percent of low-income respondents reported exercising less than once per week. That number dropped to 14 percent after the subsidy.
Of the roughly 1,481 memberships sold, more than half of those came in 2014 alone.
BostInno reached out to City Manager Rossi’s office for a comment but have yet to hear back. We’ll be sure to update this article upon receiving a response.
Cambridge, like Boston, is taking a number of steps to make alternative modes of transportation, like biking, a safe and viable means of getting from A to B.
In light of several recent bike collisions that have resulted in serious injuries and, sadly, death, Councilor Carlone also proposed adding vehicle side guards to heavy city-owned trucks, a program Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is piloting as well. The side guards are a preventative means of keeping cyclists and pedestrians from being pulled underneath the trucks.
According to a recent Boston Globe article, Cambridge has seen a massive 237 percent increase in miles traveled by bike. With such a substantial increase in cycling, and the Grand Junction Bike Path coming ever closer to completion, it’s important the city implements more safety measures to accommodate the likely influx of cyclists per the potential subsidy program.
The City Council meeting will take place Monday, October 20, in the Attles meeting room at CRLS, 459 Broadway at 5:30 p.m. You can read the policy order here.
