Bikeshare and the Boston Marathon

I’m wring my capstone paper this week. My research question is, “How does bikeshare impact civic culture?” One part of my work is a reflective essay, here is an excerpt from a draft.

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I rode in Boston a bit my freshman year, and when I came back for my sophomore year, suddenly there was Hubway. I was totally impressed by the idea of a bikeshare, had never thought of such a thing, my own ignorance. I would take bikes out for a day at a time now and then, with locations around my campus it was an easy decision. When friends and family visited from home, I would put them on a Hubway bike and tour them around Boston. It was the best way to get around and to see Boston and Cambridge.

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And later…

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This [Paris’s bikeshare] meant that I was visiting markets, stores, and cafes all over the city, paying taxes with each purchase, and sharing bikes with people from all over Paris and the world. I was participating in a sustainable, city-wide collective action.

An anecdote – one night I was walking home from a movie theater when I saw a man ride a Vélib’ to a full dock. I walked up, told him, “no problem,” and unlocked a bike. He got the spot he needed and I had a nice ride home.

When the Boston Marathon was bombed, I was checking my Facebook at 9pm. I had never been so upset, and I could not pull my attention away from my city and my friends who I loved very much. Anxious and obsessed, I was following the news out of Boston constantly. Messaging and calling friends and family, refreshing Twitter every minute and checking Boston media always. It was a depressing and destructive cycle over those days. I could only interrupt it by taking out a Vélib’ bike and riding. I couldn’t be on the Internet, I had to focus my attention, and I could reflect on what was happening. I dealt with the bombing and the manhunt in this way. The mental health benefits of cycling are as impressive as the physical.

Friends visited later in the spring and I toured each of them around on the Vélib’ bikes. We would easily cover the entire city in a few days. Some guests became so comfortable with the bikes that they rode off on their own while I worked. With bicycles everywhere and a smartphone in hand, the city is immediately open to visitors. I was so easily able to share Paris with my guests, to integrate them into the city.

These impacts that Paris’s bikeshare had on me were opportunities which the city provides to all residents. It is an impressive feat of civic action.

I returned to New York in June, took my old mountain bike out of the garage, and road to the Staten Island Ferry and over Manhattan and Brooklyn every weekend. Citi Bike had just launched, and the density of cyclists and infrastructure were almost Parisen. I was happy to be home and I felt welcomed back to New York by its steps towards becoming a safer and more accessible city.

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We’re getting there.

Boston by Bike

I put this video together in 2013 and shared it in class today. Everyone loved seeing green grass in Boston again.

I’m going to do more writing about my videos here soon.

Surrealism Realized

What follows is an attempt at a written representation of a uniquely bizarre  contemporary circumstance – one hour and a half of interacting with Comcast customer support.

For the past seven months, our wireless internet service has been poor. Occasionally, no one in the house can get online, usually it’s just been one of us disconnected at a time. We’ve survived, but, as students, internet access is an essential resource in our home, and we’re paying seventy dollars a month for this.

17 days ago, I call customer service. After two hours of troubleshooting and running speed tests, interrupted once by a dropped call, the representative suggests that I return our rented Comcast modem/router combination and buy a third party dual band set up. Sounds reasonable, saves us the monthly rental fee. I hunt around Amazon and find a pre-owned Motorola device that looks good, I order it.

Boston is in the midst of a Fimbulwinter.

The delivery is delayed a few times.

Some days after placing this order, our modem stops receiving any internet connection at all. I call Comcast and they can not fix it remotely. The representative thinks it is broken and wants to send a technician over in the next few days. I decide we will just wait for the new modem to arrive and won’t have to bother waiting around for a tech during the blizzard.

It arrives today.

I plug everything in, setup the wireless network, and call Comcast to activate the modem. I expected a quick process.

The first representative I speak with takes his time, but eventually I get to give him the MAC address for the new modem. He puts me on hold. He returns to tell me that someone else has this MAC address registered to their account, someone in Savannah, Georgia, the previous owner of this device. So it seems someone in Savannah, Georgia returned this modem to Amazon, then surely registered another modem with their account, but Comcast failed to erase the old MAC address from their file. I can not use this MAC address while it is on their file. He is going to try to get it deactivated from their account so that I can use it and will transfer me to someone who will help us to do that.

I am disconnected as he transfers me.

The second representative I speak with tells me that he can not deactivate the MAC address and that I need to go to the Comcast service center to reassign it. I don’t believe him, I was just told that it could be handled over the phone.

I call again and get the same representative from my first call. After struggling to remind him that we had just spoken five minutes ago, he attempts to once again transfer me so that we can reassign the MAC ID, and, laughing, reassures me that I will not be disconnected. The representative puts me on hold – a distorted piece of classical music begins to play, so badly disfigured by the low bit rate of a phone line that all that is audible is an unidentifiable cacophony of piano keys. The phone line disconnects.

The third representative I speak with listens to my tale of frustration with empathy. She wants to help me. The phone line disconnects.

The fourth representative I speak with has no empathy. He tells me that it is impossible to reassign a MAC address over the phone, for customers’ security, that I have to go to the service center. I plead my case. Transportation in Boston this winter is Hell – the T is not running above ground. Buses are on limited schedules and packed like so many cans of sardines. Roads are backed up and flooded in heavy slush. Cycling is not safe. Each 20 degree day brings a new snowfall. I can take a photo of the modem in my hands and send it to him. I can prove my ownership of this device.

The representative begins to berate me. I move the phone away from my ear.

No, the ability to remove the MAC address from a customer’s account was removed from the representatives’ systems two years ago.

He tells me that with some pride, a disturbed individual.

All hope is lost. I am going to march to the service center, not tonight though, they close at 5.

I call RCN and ask if they provide service in my neighborhood. They do not.

Inanity like this only exists when corporate monopolies are allowed to reign. There is no human service, only rigid liability-protective terms and conditions that jerk you around from bill to bill.

Some competition, such as Google Fiber or municipal internet, is badly needed in Boston and wherever an internet provider dominates a market.

Sprained Ligaments and Victory Laps

Today I realized that I had sprained, torn, or somehow damaged a ligament in my right foot. It must have happened sometime Saturday afternoon. Every step caused compounding pain. I could walk, but I could not smile at the same time. This could be very bad, as I am visiting D.C., touristing, seeing friends, and hitting some events tomorrow. I’m dealing with it, walking funnier than usual.

There is one way I’ve been able to keep off my feet, and still cross from Arlington, to the Mall, and to southeast D.C. That’s via the top-class Capital Bikeshare. I started my 24 hour ($7) membership today after meeting a friend at his parents’ apartment in Arlington. We had some tea, chilled, chatted, and listened to Ethiopian jazz. Brie sandwiches. Say what you want, that’s the way to live. So he leaves for a job interview and I leave for the bike dock. It’s the same system as the bike shares in NYC and Boston, so a few taps and an understandable security deposit later, and I was on my way. Crossing the Potomac was harrowing. But riding in D.C., passed the White House, and along the Mall was priceless.

I appreciate how bike shares reshape experiences of urban environments, both for residents and visitors. My mobility and comfort multiplied thanks to this network. Stations were well spaced and always had a few bikes and docks available. It was effortless. I took a late night victory lap around the Mall, because on September 9th we beat John Tierney and on November 4th we made a congressman.

D.C.

I’ve been down in the District the past two days, visiting a dear friend, dragging a bum foot around, and getting excited for Seth Moulton’s swearing in this coming Tuesday. Travel is a liberating experience, responsibilities are cut out and the inspiration to explore and go beyond the typical limits of your day is always present. New scenery, different friends, the nature of being away-from-home, it’s all very exciting. Without a “home”, you don’t get to comfortably sit inside engaging yourself in traditional passtimes.

I always try to bike whenever I visit another city. I’ve never biked in D.C. before, but it seems as manageable as any east coast metropolitan area. The congestion over the weekend has been scarce, though I expect wholly different traffic conditions starting tomorrow. I think I will get a day or 3-day pass for Capital Bikeshare tomorrow. I just glanced at the station map and it is impressive, the network seems dense. Justin says this might have been the first major bikeshare in the U.S. and that it started with a large fleet. That would make a lot of sense and place it in contrast to Boston’s Hubway which started very small, but in just 3 years has expanded out into the neighboring cities and towns and has helped to further connect the region. Hubway still lacks the density that makes a bikeshare an absolute success (Paris’s Velib’) and winter station closures in Boston are frustrating. Then again, most Boston Hubway riders probably do not want to ride those slow bikes in the bitter cold. Though I do.

Capital Bikeshare is open all winter. It isn’t even cold here, though I think that’s going to change tomorrow. I didn’t pack my heavy duty winter biking gear, but the call of a bikeshare system in a new city is one I won’t want to ignore.

Writing

I love writing. That’s my art. I can put my thoughts into some physical representation. A blog is the obvious direction for this new year. Some time later than I would have liked to have started. But here it is, the first day, just in time.