Arlington Among Top In Greater Boston Bike-Share Usage

ARLINGTON, MA — Some of the highest bike-share usage in greater Boston comes from Arlington, according to a recent report from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The report shows demand for bike-share systems in 16 communities that joined a regional network last year:Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Milton, Needham, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Waltham, Watertown and Winthrop.

The MAPC used trip-level data from Lime to map trip patterns and determine the most-frequented routes from April 2018 to September 2019. Arlington saw 233 trips per 1,000 people over that time, the third-highest rate behind Malden and Everett. One of the most popular paths was the Minuteman Bikeway, especially between Arlington Center and the Alewife T stop, which accounts for about 10 percent of all trips that start in Arlington.

Roadways with high bike-share activity include Mass Ave, Lake Street, Pleasant Street, Broadway, and Mill Street, as well as several neighborhood streets in East Arlington such as Herbert Road and Thorndike Street.

"The regional bike share initiative has clearly been successful in Arlington, and it also has allowed the Town to gain access to timely and useful data about bicycling destinations, route preferences, and activity," Jennifer Raitt, director of Planning and Community Development, said in a statement. "These data show a strong demand for bicycling to get to locations within Arlington, not only along the Minuteman Bikeway, but often along routes that do not have adequate bicycling infrastructure."

The study also found that communities at the heart of the network, such as Arlington, Winthrop, Malden and Everett, saw exponentially more usage than towns on the periphery, as 30 percent of trips ended in a different community than where they started. Ridership also slowed considerably during the winter, prompting Lime to pull its bikes from participating communities this season.

Ridership in 2019 was substantially lower than in 2018 across the board; peak monthly ridership was in June 2019 (21,000 rides) and declined each month through September. Comparison of peak period ridership (April through September) shows a 40 percent decline in year-over-year ridership from 2018 – 2019.

The information comes as a result of a data-sharing agreement between Lime and MAPC, which created the regional framework that allows Lime to operate in over a dozen communities in the Greater Boston region.

Click here for the full study.