As April comes to a close and springtime in Boston continues to warm up, more and more people will be filling the city’s bike lanes. To keep Boston’s growing bike crowd happy while trying to accommodate all of its bike regulation needs, the city will be hosting Bike Friday next week to rally support for better Boston biking and kick off Bay State Bike Week.
The Bike Friday fiesta will yield similar events on a designated Friday morning each month of the summer, starting May 9 and continuing on June 27, July 18, and August 29 from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.. Attendees will be rewarded for participation not just with the warm and fuzzy feeling of advocating for a good cause, but also with a free breakfast and coffee courtesy of Boloco. Music will also be blaring throughout City Hall Plaza.
The big draws for each Bike Friday are the bike convoys which will depart from Boston’s neighborhoods — Needham, Newton, Brookline, Lexington, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Watertown — and traverse through the Greater Metro Area only to end at City Hall Plaza. You can check out the times and the routes right here.
Every aspect of the event is free, but registration is still required. You can reserve a spot at Bike Friday by signing up here.
As Boston continues to free itself from the stranglehold of winter, bike events are increasingly becoming commonplace. Over the weekend, residents enjoyed the Dorchester Bike Festival which similarly promoted bike safety and best practices while offering up free cycle tune-ups to all of those who attended.
Hubway‘s bike-share stations are also coming out of hibernation, being continuously open to the public for those who don’t own a bike but enjoy cycling.
BostInno spoke with Nicole Freedman, Boston’s Director of Bicycle Programs, who gave us insight on this year’s event which traces its roots back to 2008.
The idea, Freedman told us, is “to help get new riders out cycling and to celebrate the existing bike culture that we have. One of the things we’ve learned is that something like 25 percent of the people who come out to bike week continue cycling.”
In the past, Freedman and her constituents have been able to preach best practices by, for example, taking attendees into trolley cars and pointing out blind spots conductors deal with on a daily basis.
Though City Hall Plaza is currently under construction, it will still serve as the site of Bike Friday. Due to limited space, though, Freedman tells us that highlighting safety will unfortunately not be included. Still, as construction continues on and opens up space along the concrete concourse, it’s possible safety measures may be included during the later days.
