Charlie on the Hubway

Am I the only person utterly perplexed by Hubway? My long-standing feelings about bicycles aside, I just don’t get the point. The one bona fide use case would seem to be a trip where you take the subway as close to your destination as you can, then pick up a bike for the remainder. I confidently predict that all five times someone actually does this, it will be some gear-grinding cycling activist. Unlike an automobile, which has a huge carrying cost, owning a bike for trips near home is virtually free, and if you can’t afford one, then the odds that you have the credit card required to sign up for Hubway are close to zero.

Not that any of this is a problem though, because the real purpose of this program is vanity. Tom Menino, who has as much business lecturing us all on healthy living as he does being a speech therapist, has decreed that Boston should go “from worst to first” in terms of bike-friendliness, and bike-sharing programs are all the rage in Paris and Montreal, which gives it the progressive hat-trick of being pro-mass transit, anti-individual ownership, and best of all, inspired by the French. The sight of Hubway rental stations will set aflutter the hearts of the farmers-market regulars on Beacon Hill and the South End, who, apart from the occasional post-Sunday brunch cycle along the Esplanade, will otherwise rely on the 3-series in the off-street garage to satisfy their transportation requirements.

If this were merely a fashion statement it would be one thing, but this one comes at the cost of $4.5 million to taxpayers, and it is worth asking whether that is remotely close to the optimal way that money could be spent. If the City truly wished to promote less reliance on cars, I would propose that this sum could be put to far better use making the MBTA network more user-friendly by delivering train and bus arrival and route information by smartphone apps, to give just one of many possible ideas. (And yes, I know the MBTA is not a Boston agency, but funding is fungible). Unlike bicycles, a large portion of the metropolitan area makes daily use of the mass-transit network, and no one who rides it regularly would accuse it of being well-operated.