A Decade of Bluebikes in the Boston Region

The Boston region’s largest bikeshare system, Bluebikes, has been in operation for a decade. Since its start in 2011, the system (called Hubway until 2018) has expanded from downtown Boston to neighborhoods throughout the city and to ten other municipalities, giving many more people access to a low-cost, sustainable mode of transportation. This StoryMap traces the history of bikesharing in the Boston region and the distribution over time of Bluebikes stations in communities with high shares of minority and low-income populations—referred to collectively as environmental justice (EJ) populations.

The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) monitors the availability of bikesharing to EJ populations through the  Needs Assessment  of the MPO’s  Long-Range Transportation Plan . Since the first analysis in 2017, more stations have been added to the Bluebikes system, prompting another review to find out if the expansion of Bluebikes has increased access to bikesharing for EJ populations. 

Bikesharing allows for a short-term rental of a bike, often for rides of less than one hour throughout a rental period. Rental periods can range from a single ride to multiple rides over several days, or a person could have an annual membership. Public bikeshare systems often provide web-based, real-time information about the location and demand for bikes at docking stations.

There are two main forms of bikesharing:

• Docked systems allow riders to pick up and return bikes from docks or stations located throughout a service area. Usually, riders can check the availability and unlock a bike through a phone app or rent it directly from a station. This is the most widely used form of public bikesharing. 
• Dockless systems do not require a station in order to pick up or return the bikes, but they often must be parked in a pre-determined area. Riders can find available bikes and unlock them using a phone app.

Bikesharing has a number of benefits:

• Often, bikesharing is a low-cost transportation option.
• Bikes are easy to rent.
• Biking is faster than walking to public transit and other activities. 
• Bikes may fill in gaps in the transportation network where public transit is unavailable. 
• Biking reduces dependence on automobiles.
• Biking is environmentally friendly.Biking promotes physical activity.
• Docked bikeshare is a more efficient use of street space for the movement of people than, for example, on-street parking.

While docked bikeshare is the most successful form of bikesharing in the Boston region, dockless bikeshares have operated here as well. Of particular note, in 2018 the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) collaborated with Lime to launch an 18-month pilot program for dockless bikeshare in several communities in the Boston region. (See MAPC's  First Miles StoryMap  for an analysis of the results.) Since the pandemic began, several dockless bikeshare providers, including Lime and Zagster, have suspended bikeshare operations in the region either temporarily or permanently. This StoryMap focuses on Bluebikes because it has been the longest operating system in the Boston region.

Bikesharing in the Boston region has evolved and expanded significantly since it was first established in 2011, when Hubway debuted with 60 stations in Boston. Within ten years, the number of stations—now all Bluebikes stations—increased to 393 in eleven municipalities, representing a 555 percent increase.

Bikesharing can address transportation inequities experienced by EJ populations related to access (including both access to destinations and to transportation options) and exposure to harmful emissions if bikeshare stations are well located, users have access to safe bicycling infrastructure, and the system is affordable. Public education and engagement are other important factors that can make a bikeshare system successful and benefit users. 

To explore whether access to Bluebikes stations has increased for EJ populations since the system’s launch in 2011, the MPO analyzed how many people who identify as minority or who have low incomes live close to at least one station. This proximity-based analysis was a proxy for overall access—it assumed that if people live near a station, they can use it. However, it did not account for whether bikeshare bicycles can get riders where they need to go, whether there is sidewalk infrastructure that allows the riders to safely reach the station, whether the cost of the bikeshare is affordable, or whether there is safe bicycling infrastructure in the neighborhood. These are all crucial factors that affect whether a bikeshare system truly serves a population. While these other factors were beyond the scope of the MPO’s study, they remain important factors to assess when seeking to understand if a bikeshare system is equitable.

The three maps below show the growth of Bluebikes in the Boston region overlaid on communities with high shares of EJ populations. Each map shows the stations in operation at the end of each year—2011, 2016, and 2021. The shaded areas are those communities in which the percent of either minority or low-income populations exceed the average for the region. (The definition low-income can be found in the notes at the end of this document.) The average for the minority population is 28.2 percent and the average for the low-income population is 23.0 percent. The maps show transportation analysis zones (TAZs), units of geography used by the MPO for many analyses; they are approximately the size of census block groups.

An analysis was also conducted to identify the number of minority or low-income populations that had access to Bluebikes stations in 2011, 2016, and 2021. People were considered to have access to bikeshare if they lived within one-quarter or one-half mile of a station. The analysis focused on access for the minority and low-income populations in the municipalities that participated in Bluebikes during three sample years:

• 2011: Boston
• 2016: Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville
• 2021: Arlington, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Newton, Revere, Salem, Somerville, and Watertown

With the expansion of Bluebikes since 2011, the share of EJ populations living within one-quarter or one-half mile of a station, out of the total EJ population that lives in participating municipalities, has increased significantly. As of 2021, more than 50 percent of the minority or low-income population lives within one-quarter mile of a station, and more than 75 percent lives within one-half mile. This compares favorably to the approximately 20 percent and 30 percent that lived within one-quarter and one-half mile, respectively, of a station in 2011.

The data used to identify the minority population are from the United States Census Bureau’s 2010 Decennial Census, and the data used to identify the low-income population are from the 2010–14 five-year American Community Survey (ACS). It was necessary to use 2010–14 ACS data because one year must overlap with the Decennial Census in order to produce accurate TAZ-level demographic data. To maintain consistency, 2010 Decennial Census data were used for the minority population. Once 2020 five-year ACS data are available, the analyses in this StoryMap will be updated using that data for the low-income population and 2020 Decennial Census data for the minority population. 

Future analyses could focus on other demographic groups that the MPO considers as transportation equity populations and that are covered by civil rights mandates: people with disabilities, people ages 17 and younger or 75 and older, and people with limited English proficiency. Other analyses could incorporate a broader definition of “access” to account for the presence of safe bicycle infrastructure nearby, equity of costs to users, and the ability of bikeshare to provide access to various destinations such as jobs and essential services.

This project was funded through the MPO’s federal fiscal year 2021 Unified Planning Work Program. The information in this StoryMap is current as of August 27, 2021.

People who identify as minority are those who identify as Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and/or Hispanic or Latino/a/x.

People who are considered low-income are those whose family income is at or below 200 percent of the national poverty level for their family size.

Data sources: Bluebikes, US Census Bureau’s 2010 Decennial Census and 2010–14 American Community Survey, and Central Transportation Planning Staff. 

Reference sources: FTA, “Shared Mobility Definitions,” last updated February 28, 2020,  https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and-guidance/shared-mobility-definitions .

Questions or comments? Contact Betsy Harvey, Transportation Equity Program Manager, at eharvey@ctps.org