Over the years I’ve lived here, I’ve developed more and more respect for our Mayor, Tom Menino. Now it turns out he’s discovered cycling and goes for an early morning ride in the Hyde Park neighborhood every day. That can only be good news for those of us who brave the potholes and insane drivers of Boston as we try to bike commute. I would not characterize Boston as bike friendly, but it is a very bike-aware city. Drivers are familiar with cyclists, they just don’t like them. Here are some lifesaving tips for cyclists.
I enjoy riding my bike to work for two reasons. First, I like the activity…it is just fun to be able to ride a bike for a couple of hours on days that I ride in and out. Second, it gives me a different perspective on the city than I would have otherwise. I don’t claim to relate to the people of all the neighborhoods I ride through, just because I’m on a bike, but I see parts of the city I would never notice if you just got in your car and rode the MassPike from suburban Westwood in to work downtown. My daily ride takes me through Dedham, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, the South End, and parts of Southie. Sometimes I ride home through the Back Bay, out past Fenway and BU, Allston-Brighton, through Newton, Brookline, Needham, etc.
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I’m considering almost the same commute. I currently drive or take the commuter rail from Pawtucket, RI to BU, where I’m an engineering grad student.
I hate the energy usage of driving, so I have a diesel VW and I use biodiesel as often as I can. Or I take the train, but with very irregular hours (frequent nights past 12am in the lab), I can’t rely on it.
I’m sick of the last 10 miles taking an hour due to traffic if I have a morning class. And since I’m already wasting between 40 an 120 minutes a day each way, I’d rather get some exercise out of it.
So I’m thinking of bicycle commuting from the University Ave station in Westwood. I’ve been checking out possible routes on Google. They have a fantastic feature where you can drag around the line they draw when you ask for driving directions. However, even the satellite map doesn’t fully expose the elevation changes. As I’m not in great shape (yet), I’m kind of concerned about that information.
I’d love to see the routes you have picked out in your commuting experience. On Google, if you do use the drag-route function, you can then capture and share it by clicking the “Send” button as if you were going to e-mail it, but then just copy the link. Here’s an example:
(looks ugly, but only because I becaues I couldn’t put it in as a link, and I put in linebreaks to prevent it from messing up the formatting.) This can be pasted directly into your browser address.
Thanks!
Alex