At campus, you need a bicycle. Before buying one, I suggest trying out Hubway, a bicycle sharing system in the Boston, Massachusetts metro area. It has about 60 stations and 600 bicycles so you can commute to pretty much anywhere you want.
If you are a Harvard student you get an annual membership at Hubway for only $50 with the ability to use it as much as you like.
1. Hubway stations are sometimes empty. This means you have to walk to the next station (usually ~10 min). This can be a pain when you have told someone you were going to meet them at a specific time.
2. Hubway stations are sometimes ~10-15 minute walk from where you are going. This means you usually have to search on google maps for “Hubway”, figure out where the nearest station to your end location is and decide if you want to take an Uber.
3. Hubway stations are not always in sync with Google maps. At the Kennedy school, for example, there was some construction work taking place at the same location as the “Google Maps Hubway Station”. Turns out there is one in front of the school not on the map. (Note. this usually happens once in each location so not a big deal).
4. Cars on Campus seem ok, but cars in downtown Boston are not aware of Bikers. Be careful of drivers opening up their doors next to cycling routes and the “you can turn on red” rule from bigger trucks. This applies everywhere, but especially in downtown Boston where things seem a little bit more stressful.
5. Hubway Stations are sometimes full. In 10 days, I have been at two full Hubway stations. This either means they are full (which means you can wait for ~5-10 minutes and you can get a slot), or its broken (which means you need to find the next station and walk from there).
Image: Full Hubway station at Peabody Terrace at 20:00 (there is an available slot, but it’s broken).
6. If there is one bike left in a station it has a decent chance of something being wrong with it. Flat tire, broken seat, rusty. In 10 days this has happened 3 times.
$50 for an annual pass is nothing although you can point out a few flaws that will probably improve over the year. Get the Hubway subscription but be aware of its pro’s and cons. I’ll see how much longer I will stick to Hubway until finally buying a bike of my own.
