Boston Medical Center is an inner-city hospital that takes a special interest in immigrants and the poor. It also treats patients holistically, offering a referral service for problems that get in the way of good health.
With the support of the City of Boston, Boston Medical Center has added a new item to its medicine cabinet: bike sharing.
Catalina Gaitan writes at the Boston Globe, “The City of Boston has announced a program to subsidize bike-sharing memberships for low-income residents, in partnership with Boston Medical Center.
“The program, ‘Prescribe-a-Bike,’ would allow doctors at Boston Medical Center to prescribe low-income patients with a yearlong membership to Hubway, a bike-share program, for only $5.
“Participants would be allowed unlimited number of trips on the bicycles, provided they use them for 30 minutes or less at a time. They will also be given a free helmet, the mayor’s office said in a joint statement with Boston Medical Center.
“ ‘Obesity is a significant and growing health concern for our city, particularly among low-income Boston residents,’ said Kate Walsh, chief executive of Boston Medical Center, in the statement. …
“Statistics show that 1 in 4 low-income residents in Boston is obese, almost twice the rate of higher-income residents, the statement said.
“To qualify for the prescription, participants must be 16 years or older and be enrolled in some form of public assistance, or have a household income of no more than four times the poverty level.”
I LOVE this news. One of the best parts of my new, more-musically-focused life is riding my bike to and from the music classes I teach four mornings each week. One sees so much more on a bike — more flowers and more birds and more streams (in Belmont and in Arlington) and more faces of passersby, etc. Hurrah for BMC and the city of Boston and all the folks who might start riding a bike on a more regular basis!
I think the article said you could use the prescribed bike for only 30 min. — not enough to really lose yourself in the joy of it. But maybe those who get hooked could get an inexpensive bike at this local nonprofit, https://bikesnotbombs.org.
My understanding of most bike sharing programs is that they flourish when each user has a given bike for less than 30 minutes (thus keeping lots of bikes in circulation for everyone to use all day long). But one can burn a few calories and work up a little bit of a sweat in under half an hour on a bike! And yes, Bikes Not Bombs is a terrific organization getting bikes into the lives of people all over the world.
Oh, I see. I really don’t know much about bike-sharing programs, just that a friend uses Hubway bikes from North Station to South Station in nice weather, definitely under 30 min.
I know someone who used a bike-sharing bike in NYC and rode around on it all day with great glee, discovering parts of Central Park he’d never seen, etc. And it cost him over $100… because he, too, didn’t understand that the price structure of bike sharing programs tends to reward participants for lots of short trips rather than one loooooong rental.
I’m rather glad to know this!