Posts Tagged ‘Bixi’

Modest proposals for MBTA alternatives

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Since our beloved and normally only sporadically dangerous T has decided to be more reliably and consistently terrifying, and since everybody deciding to drive to work en masse would end life in Greater Boston as we know it, what are your alternatives? Even better, what are your science-fiction-y alternatives that won’t really be available any time soon? MHT Blog is here to help.

Terrafugia's Transition

Terrafugia's Transition

Let’s start with the outrageously impractical: If you’ve got about $150,000 burning a hole in your pocket — and these days, who doesn’t? — you could buy a flying car. But that would really just amount to driving, since Terrafugia insists its Transition is a “roadable aircraft” — you drive to the airport and fly to LaGuardia, you don’t just take off while stuck in traffic on 128.

Rail-Pod

Rail-Pod

You absolutely cannot use automated, personal train cars to get to work — but it would be cool if you could. Rail-Pod, started by four UMass Amherst alumni, wants to build feeder lines to the existing fire-and-crash-prone train lines on unused tracks — but even if they accomplish their goals, that’s a ways off. (more…)

Boston chooses Bixi for bike sharing, BikeNow looks to Baltimore

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

The city of Boston has chosen the company that runs Montreal’s Bixi program to implement bike sharing in the Hub. It’s like Zipcar for bikes — bikes would be stationed at racks throughout the city, where a user would swipe a card to rent a bike, which they could return at a station near his or her destination. The AP reports: 

Boston officials are hoping to reach a decision with the Public Bike System Co. in the next 60 days to install a network of 2,500 bikes and 290 stations across the city by next summer, with the option of expanding to a 5,000-bike system encompassing the neighboring communities Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville.

It might be good news for bike-enthusiasts, but it’s a setback for BikeNow, a Boston University spinout which had been hoping to do the same thing. Amy Trus, a co-founder of the BU $50K Business Plan Competition finalist, said via email she knew BikeNow had a 50/50 chance at the contract.

BikeNow’s plan included a lower rental rate subsidized by advertising, which the city of Boston didn’t want, Trus said. Plan B for BikeNow, which based its service on Paris’ Velib program, and would act as local operators for the B-Cycle organization’s technology, is to roll out the service in Baltimore, said Trus, a Maryland native.

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