The following video is an excerpt from this morning's press conference with MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas and Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons at the Alewife T Station.
Here's a bit from the MBTA's press release:
"MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas, joined by Mayor of Cambridge Denise Simmons and various bike advocacy groups gathered at Alewife Station on the Red Line to unveil the T’s first ever unstaffed bike cages. Accessible with a swipe of a Bike CharlieCard, two cages constructed to accommodate 150 bicycles each, will provide customers with a safe, secure, and sheltered location to park their bikes. These cages will more than double bike parking capacity at Alewife station to approximately 500 spaces."
I wasn't planning on shooting video of the event since Margaret Desjardins from our NeighborMedia program was covering the story. But, I was on my way to work and had my Flip Mino camera with me so I decided to use it to record this short video.
The video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
While the bike cages are a good idea, I'm not too thrilled with the new rules they imposed when they put them in: signs on all the railings on the ground level of the station that bikes will be removed by T police (even though most of the railings aren't anywhere near where people walk), a ban on motorized scooters, and time limits on the new and existing racks.
Although the cages add bike parking spaces at Alewife, the ban on locking to railings probably removes just as many spaces. And the cages already fill up every weekday.
Thanks for your comment, Anonymous.
I didn't see the sign on the railings when I looked last night, but I also did not do an exhaustive search. If I find one of the signs, I will take a picture and upload it here so other people can see it.
Maybe you should also write a letter to the MBTA about this? If you do, please sign-up for an account on our website and post your letter to your blog, if you would?
Visit "Create new account" on the homepage of our website to get started.
Thanks again.
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