A few weeks ago I went to a talk by Nicole Freedman, the head of the Boston Bikes program, on the state of biking in Boston as of the end of 2011. She talked ab

A few weeks ago I went to a talk by Nicole Freedman, the head of the Boston Bikes program, on the state of biking in Boston as of the end of 2011. She talked about the enormous changes Boston has been making, like going from 180 feet (!) of total bike lanes a few years ago to over 50 miles now [1]. For instance, they removed 70 parking spaces from Mass Ave to make a bike lane there. Most of the people at the talk seemed to be hard-core cyclists, who tend to be a pretty tough crowd to please, but there were so many standing ovations that it could've been the State of the Union address. Have you ridden in Boston lately? I'm curious to see if the changes are as big as most of those people seemed to think. As to getting around, there are certainly trips in the Boston area that are easy by public transit and others that aren't. I live in Somerville and getting to Allston is a pain (I'd probably use the 66 bus [2]). I generally only drive outbound from Somerville, since I find driving in Boston stressful and of course the parking is expensive. [1] http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Annual%20Report%20-%20FINAL%202011_tcm3-31029.pdf http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Annual%20Report... [2] http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/bus/routes/?route=66 http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/bus/routes/?route=66