A Bike Share program for MIT is a flexible and fast transport
system that increases mobility and access for students, faculty, and staff
within the sprawling 160-acre campus and off-campus destinations. Typical
trips on-campus could be for
• Between dorms-especially those on the outer edges of campus and
classes (students)
• Inter-office correspondence (faculty, staff)
Moving beyond our own campus, destinations include
• Commercial areas-Central Square, Harvard Square, Newbury Street,
Downtown Crossing, Haymarket
• Parks-Esplanade, Fenway, Boston Common
• Living Groups-Fraternities, Sororities, ILGs
These encompass the vast majority of our campus, making a Bike Share Program
a viable solution for flexible and fast transportation. In deciding whether
to use such a program, users would consider two precious commodities-time
and money. Those cases in which users would consider a Bike Share program
useful can be defined as when there is a significant amount of time saved
relative to other transportation methods, including the time involved
in taking a bike out, riding it, and securing it (locking or returning
it), and then walking the final stretch to the destination. The cost to
the user would be nothing in initial stages of the program with support
from grants in order to secure interest.
On-Campus Trips
In determining on-campus and commuter users (for whom options like SafeRide
are not useful) the locations of shared bikes in relation to their user
should prove to be quite important. The walking distances to and from
the shared bike can be expected to determine, to a large degree, the travel
time that a user perceives to have. As the bikes can't be everywhere,
and the renting and locking mechanisms cannot be expected to be perfectly
efficient, the bikes will probably only be used to get across large parts
of campus. Users will most likely be going to and from the main compound,
and thus maximum travel distance would be about 1 mile from on-campus
housing such as Eastgate, Westgate, Next House, New House, MacGregor House,
and Random Hall, for example). Some trips, such as the West Lot to Sloan
School would be greatly reduced by a bike program. The occurrence of heavy
usage times will be a challenge for bike availability. We can expect users
to want the bikes for a shorter amount of time if they are going someplace
on campus, and thus the bikes should be available more often when more
users are commuting or going between dorms. [insert info from surveys]
Off-Campus Trips
For off-campus destinations such as Harvard Square, the Galleria, or Fenway,
the distances are far to walk, making a bike program an even more appealing
option. Current transport methods from MIT often involve more than one
connection and significant walking (such as the walk to Kendall Square
to take a bus to the Galleria). There are two challenges. First, there
is the issue of availability mentioned before. Second, is for those who
make frequent trips off-campus, they likely own a bike already. [insert
info from surveys]
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