We had 38 people take our online survey – 24 had a Dorchester zip code and most of others were in bordering neighborhoods like Mattapan, Roxbury, South Boston and Jamaica Plain – and here is a short summary of some things we learned.

Most people, 58%, said that commuting was the primary reason they rode with the remaining categories of errand running, work, exercise and recreation fairly evenly split between the remaining answers.  Everyone who responded said that they do ride a bike – perhaps not surprising but you never know.

A typical ride for people is somewhere between 1 and 10 miles -15 people said they usually ride between 1 and 5 miles and another 15 ride 5 to 10 miles.   A half dozen typically rode more than 10 miles a pop.

What did you think that DotBike should be focusing on?  A whopping 80% of respondents thought that advocating for neighborhood cyclists should be DotBike’s top priority.  Rider education and holding community rides were the second and third in rankings.

As far as improvements you’d like to see, on street Bike lanes was the most desired improvement with 62% of respondents rating this their top wish and 85% ranking this as very important (first or second choice).  Education of cyclists as well as drivers and getting more off road paths were also highly desired.

What about fun?  Everyone is interested in various types of community rides, which is great!  Themed rides were a popular idea and we got some great ideas for themes at the kickoff party so I hope to see a number of rides happening this summer.

Both the survey and the kickoff event provided lots of ideas and information and DotBike will move forward keeping these things in mind.  As we are a community-based organization the most important things is to have people involved.  Thanks to all who responded to the survey.

Let us know if you’d like to get more involved.  If you  want to help out in planning and organizing rides and activities just use the form accessed via the ‘Contact Us’ tab at the top of the page and let us know.