MassBike: The new bicycle commuter benefit

By Anonymous on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 11:47am

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We’ve received many questions about the new benefit for bicycle commuters that Congress included in the financial industry "bailout" bill. The bottom line is that bicycle commuters nationwide are now eligible to receive up to $20 per month for commuting expenses, either as a cash reimbursement or a pre-tax deduction, and their employers can obtain a tax benefit for participating in the program. The League of American Bicyclists has provided guidance on exactly what this means for you and your employer.

More HERE including; current guidance on the bike commuter benefit, actual text of the new law, the bill's author's - Congressman Blumenauer - explanation of the bill

Topics:

Driving

Free tagging:

Bicycling

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Comments

hard to bike commute in Boston

By EM Painter
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:01pm

It's very hard to bike commute here. There are a lot of hills, and the weather is optimal only two months of the year, otherwise it's very cold or hot enough to make you too sweaty for work.

Hundreds of your fellow

By anon
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:16pm

Hundreds of your fellow Bostonians commute by bicycle each day. Give it a try.

Hills in Boston are minimal (and I live atop one of the largest). The weather is fine for commuting perhaps 8 months of the year, and tolerable almost year-round if you're willing to prepare for it. Boston drivers are the only major downside.

If you are looking for perfect comfort and unmussed hair, perhaps bike commuting is not for you. But Boston is not a particularly bad place to do so based on weather and geography. (Based on traffic and the lack of city accomodations, of course, Boston is notoriously near the bottom of the list of American biking cities.)

This bill discriminates

By Mr Weebles
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:45pm

This bill discriminates against those unable to ride a bicycle due to physical disabilities.

It's an outrage!!!

can I help it if I'm a sweaty person

By EM Painter
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 1:51pm

I just read a book about colonial America, and how the English colonists were amazed at the weather here, because it was so much hotter in the summer and so much colder in the winter than in their maritime climate. So it's not just me, our forefathers didn't like biking to work either.

sure, I guess

By gribley
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 3:02pm

I get super sweaty too. One infrastructure solution which Boston has avoided thus far is to push employers to install showers (SF has made this a requirement for new and retrofitted buildings). I just bring an extra shirt on hot days and change in the bathroom.

I have heard a lot of folks say they don't want to ride because of sweat or helmet hair, but to me that shows some lack of genuine interest -- these are very solvable problems.

The SF Bike Coalition used to have a sticker that said

BO is better than CO

heck, I'd say that BO is even better than CO2.

For me the obstacle is safety.

By Anonymous
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:39pm

For me the obstacle is safety and not so much the terrain, the weather or having a facility to freshen up before I sit down at my desk.

The city and state have not paid much attention or devoted substantial resources to address issues that concern bicycle commuters primarily safety and right of way. The attitude is that roads are for motor vehicles and everyone else should get the fuckout of the way.

Boston is of the size and scale that could accommodate a substantial bicycling community if only planning and resource allocation for the infrastructure were a priority.

Instead, we're still figuring out to pay for roads and tunnels built for cars to the tune of $13 Billion. Sure, traffic moves through the city now, and underground, and we have a green way in the financial district but very little has been allocated to developing an infrastructure for everyday cycling as transportation.

What if we allocated .5 % of our annual auto roads and public transportation budget for bicycling infrastructure? I would ride instead of driving. Driving kinda sucks in Boston except when everyone is asleep.

Greenway = classic bad example

By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:49pm

The greenway is new construction, has more lanes than it really needs given typical traffic volumes, has absolutely no bike amenities, and bans bikes from the central sidewalk area.

The fact that nobody gave cycling lanes along this corridor any thought speaks volumes about the backwardness of those in charge of planning and lack of thought put into the project. Anybody with any sense would have taken bike lanes as a given for that stretch, as it connects several key areas of the city. Bike lanes would separate pedestrian and cycling and road traffic in an appropriate way.

Ridiculous.

happy talk

By Anonymous
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:59pm

Exactly. The city, state and federal governments commitment to cycling infrastructure is happy talk.

Boston by bike The city is

By Anonymous
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 1:03pm

Boston by bike

The city is gearing up to make much-needed improvements; but even now, it's a great way to get around

By Dennis Fisher, Globe Correspondent | September 20, 2007

Boston is a miserable city for bikers. The roads are glorified cowpaths - rutted, full of potentially lethal potholes, and loaded with sharp curves and odd meanderings. To call the weather inhospitable and unpredictable does not do justice to the 30-degree temperature swings of spring days or the 45-mile-per-hour winds of an early fall northeaster. Boston drivers are a national joke, and the midday traffic downtown is enough to make anyone considering a noontime ride head to the gym instead.

That, at least, is the perception. The reality is not that grim, city cyclists and officials say. And while Boston may not yet be on the level of bikers' paradises such as Portland, Ore., or Berkeley, Calif., there is something of a two-wheel renaissance underway in the Hub, and it's gaining momentum by the day.

Consider the city's new initiative to improve biking in Boston, which could include everything from adding bike lanes, racks, and rental stations to creating online maps that plot bike-friendly routes. On the more immediate horizon, there's this weekend's Hub on Wheels event, a mass bike ride and festival that is expected to draw upward of 4,000 riders, twice the number who rode in last year's edition. The city is closing down Storrow Drive for the ride, which benefits the Boston Digital Bridge Foundation, and riders will bike through some of Boston's more scenic real estate, including the Arnold Arboretum, Stony Brook Reservation, and Franklin Park. At the front of the pack will be Senator John Kerry and possibly Mayor Thomas Menino, a recent biking convert who is now preaching the cycling gospel throughout the city.

"There's no better way to see the city than on your bike," says Nicole Freedman, the organizer of Hub on Wheels and a former Olympic road cyclist who rides all over the city for transportation and fun. "I think it's really key for the future of Boston, too, in terms of the environmental impact and the need to reduce pollution."

Freedman is a passionate advocate of both the health benefits of biking and the virtues of Boston as a biking city. She commutes to City Hall each day from her home in Jamaica Plain and only uses a car as a last resort. "There are places in the city, like JP and Stony Brook, that you might have driven through, but if you see them on a bike you realize how beautiful they are," she says. MORE

Bike path: Cohasset, Hull, Hingham, Norwell, and Scituate

By Anonymous
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 1:06pm

Greenway proposed to connect 5 towns
By Robert Knox
Globe Correspondent / February 17, 2008

To make it easier to walk and bike, including for commuters, environmentalists are proposing a greenway spanning five South Shore towns.

Proponents say a South Shore Greenway would build on substantial progress already made by the towns of Cohasset, Hull, Hingham, Norwell, and Scituate in creating safe pedestrian and bike ways within those towns. The plan would join the corridors and fill in gaps where needed.

Sponsors held a public meeting recently and scheduled a second for March 3 to present a report on the plan by students of the Conway School of Landscape Design.

That meeting will be at 7 p.m. at Cohasset Town Hall.

Its easy to do it in those towns

By Pete Nice
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 7:13pm

because there is so much land.

It would be cool to see them do it along commuter rail lines, or even on/along green lines.

bike lanes bad

By EM Painter
Mon, 02/23/2009 - 1:57pm

I agree with you about the drivers. But the bike lanes continue a practice of segregation. You know, how if you cross a street outside a crosswalk, the drivers feel ok about running you down.

I think there are certain places where the cars the walkers and the bikists should just all be jumbled together, and get rid of a lot of traffic lights, to give the drivers the feeling that they are driving on a sidewalk and need to slow way down, however they won't miss the green light if they do.