Boston Rising: Boston Bikes’ Nicole Freedman
The Boston metro area has always had plenty of cyclists. But other
than some fantastic greenways like the Minuteman Trail, riding along
the Charles, and some ahead-of-its-time traffic calming & bike
lanes in Cambridge, cyclists have had very little to crow about. In
fact, it wasn’t uncommon to hear murmurs that Boston was the worst
cycling city in the U.S.
But that’s all slowly changing. Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino hired Nicole Freedman – a former U.S. National Champion and 2000 Olympian – as his “bike czar” to head up Boston Bikes
in late 2007. Though there is still quite a ways to go, Boston is
rising from decades of bike rust and planning to make its city more
bike-friendly. Recently, the Mayor told a gathering of cyclists at
Boston’s first “Bicycling Safety Summit” in April, “The car is no longer king in Boston.”
While Streetfilms was in town with NACTO
(National Association of City Transportation Officials) we got to spend
a few minutes with Nicole in between her busy schedule to file this
report.
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