Tag Archives: Boston

Every city has its own traditions and Boston is no exception. Ranking right up there with the Red Sox home opener, Patriot’s Day (a.k.a. Boston Marathon), and the Head of the Charles (which is technically more of a Cambridge thing) is September 1st.

The universities that call this city home have shaped Boston’s reputation and play a major part in forming our identity. Literally tens of thousands of students have returned to Boston this weekend and along with them came moving cars, vans and trucks of all sizes.

The upside to this temporary insanity is that Boston (which is a sleepy hamlet from early May through August) suddenly jolts back to life. No city (but especially one as tiny as Boston) can ignore the impact these students have on city life. They revive the nightlife, crowd the restaurants and fill the sidewalks.  While I am not ready to say goodbye to summer, the students have returned and it is the start of another academic year.

The Boston Globe reported this week that since the MBTA began their one year trial of late night MBTA service that keeps subways and some bus routes open until 3AM has already exceeded 400,000 trips.

Each weekend the MBTA averages between 15,000 to 17,000 trips, dispelling critiques complaints that the Late Night service was a novelty that would see the city’s late night service wane and run with empty subways and buses.

Heading out late this weekend? The MBTA remains the most affordable way to get around.

Smart Growth America has issued their annual report that analyzes how walkable the country’s top 30 metropolitan areas.  Boston (again) ranked in the top five – ranking 3rd – joining:  Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. You can read more about this on Smart Growth America’s website.

Last fall Curbed Boston shared a heat map showing how walkable different neighborhoods in Boston are. North End, Chinatown and Bay Village earned a walk score of 98; the South End received an impressive score of 95.  Check out your neighborhood’s walkscore here.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to either take public transportation or walk to work since 1999.  My neighborhood also makes it very easy to get around without needing a car which is great.

BosGuy + Not Needing a Car = Happy

Earlier this summer Uber briefly test-marketed a water taxi service in partnership with BHC and according to their blog post on Tuesday, the program was a success. In the image below (I swiped it from Uber’s blog), arrows point to UberBOAT district destinations. The thicker the arrow, the more trips took place.

Uber’s blog shares a number of findings from this test run but the stat that impressed me was they say demand was about 7x greater than supply and remained consistent through out the trial period.  Based on that stat, it would seem to me that there is a good possibility this service could return on a more permanent basis. You can read more about the trial run here in Boston in Uber’s blog post, here.