“It’s been wildly successful,’’ said Mary McLaughlin, Hubway’s general manager. She initially hoped to sell 2,000 memberships by Thanksgiving, shortly before the bicycles get taken in for winter.
Nicole Freedman, director of the city’s Boston Bikes initiative and who helped create Hubway at Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s request, said the bikes are used for as many as 2,000 trips a day.
For now, the curiosity factor remains high, with the distinctive silver-and-green bikes and solar-powered stations drawing stares. Strolling the waterfront the other day, Stephen and Julia Haggarty stopped to inspect the bicycles and study an ATM-style kiosk terminal in the Seaport District. The bikes have not yet made it to the couple’s Savin Hill neighborhood in Dorchester.
“They look comfy,’’ said Julia, 44, a student.
“Where do you drop it off?’’ said Stephen, 36, a Harvard Medical School scientist, as his wife moved toward the map. He splits time between Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute in Kendall Square, a cross-river trip impractical by car and never quite fast enough on foot or by MBTA.
“You would use it, especially after they put them in Cambridge,’’ she said. “Oh,’’ he said, eyeing a map with ample room for expansion, “that’d be a dream.’’
In addition to annual members, more than 10,000 tourists and casual riders have signed up for one-day ($5) or three-day ($12) memberships to ride the nearly 600 bikes scattered among 53 stations. An annual membership costs $85, but has been discounted to $60 until Oct. 1.
The “doomsday scenario’’ envisioned by critics - crashes, graffiti, theft - has not materialized, said David Loutzenheiser, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council transportation planner who helped Boston plan Hubway and work out its contract with Alta Bicycle Share, the Oregon company that installed the system and maintains the bikes and stations.
