Many a Boston company touts a “work hard, play hard” motto. But with Governor Patrick’s announcement of extended weekend T hours Monday night, young professionals and entrepreneurs all over the city will at last be able to play just as hard as they want once the week is through – without having to pay a penny more on cab fare.
Longer T hours till 3 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays means more than less money spent on rides, however. Holistically, it means a better professional and personal life balance for everyone in Boston, especially those toiling away the majority of the week, but also wanting to get a bit rowdy in the evening – a desire typically voiced by members of Boston’s innovation community.
Lack of easy public transportation has oft been cited by entrepreneurs and business folk as detractors from Boston as a place to found a company. In addition to being responsible for sluggish daily commutes, limited transportation offerings hinder meetups, events and similar community-building happenings taking place post-workday. When it comes to catering to the desires of the city’s startup ecosystem, this addition appears to be a step in the right direction for City Hall.
Fortunately, City Hall and Boston entrepreneurs are taking this as an opportunity to band together and scrounge up some solutions on December 13th. hack/reduce, Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Massachusetts Big Data and the Massachusetts Tech Collaborative announced Tuesday a new, free event dubbed MassDOT Visualizing Transportation Hackathon, designed to put the city's brainpower toward solving such problems within the public sector.
But for now, concerns over accessibility to the Innovation District still remain, making day-to-day life difficult for employees all over Boston. South Station stands as the sole train connector within bounds of the Seaport and Fort Point area. While the Copenhagen bike may be rolling into the Hub soon, the city still has many miles to go in making Boston ultra bike-friendly. Parking downtown? Don't even think about it.
We reached out to Boston’s entrepreneurial community in a number of notoriously tough to get to neighborhoods to gauge opinions on the extended hours, asking the question: What, if any, impact will the extended T hours have on the city’s startup community?
South Boston
Seaport/Innovation District
Fhiwa Ndou, MassChallenge startup concierge:
Boston will instantly become a more desirable place to be, and more credible as an urban epicenter, thus attracting more startups to its thriving community. Public transportation only stays open in a city that stays awake.
Startups work abnormal hours, including weekends, and extended T hours will give them the opportunity to take public transportation home late at night, without having to disrupt their work to drive home (or pay for parking, for that matter).
The news of the T's extended hours is incredibly exciting, and is evidence of the fact that Boston is cognizant of its evolving population of lively innovators, and the evolving nature of work today.
Fort Point
Arian Radmand, Co-founder and CTO of CoachUp:
For one, I think [the longer service] will allow entrepreneurs to lead a healthier and safer lifestyle. There have been many times where I've worked late at the office and missed my last train home. That resulted in an uncomfortable night spent sleeping under my desk.
Honestly, a lot of work/life balance falls on the entrepreneur themselves. Boston has a lot of resources (both natural and man-made) available for people to leverage, so taking advantage of the city is really up to us. Keeping the T running later is a step in the right direction, but I think there is more to be done. Public transportation is still inconvenient, and people still need a car to get around the city in a timely manner. Until we do something to solve this issue, I don't think people are going to be able to truly leverage all that Boston has to offer.
The biggest thing City Hall can do is to remove red tape and make it easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses in the Hub. Other states, like NY, have passed laws allowing angel investors to deduct investments in new companies based in NY. I'd love to see Boston move in this direction.
Harvey Simmons, Evertrue
I saw the announcement last night, and to be honest, at first, I thought it was a joke! (Wasn't this an April Fools joke!) This is something that a lot of young residents have been pushing for since they discontinued the "Night Owl" bus, which was kind of a legend when I went to school at Boston College.
Whether it's retaining talent from Boston's top-notch schools or allowing for founding teams to keep at it longer on the weekends, I only see extended T hours having a positive impact on our startup community.
People get into startups, often, because they're chasing a vision that they really care about — and that has definitely been the case for me at EverTrue. Because of that, your startup team can often be a family of sorts that you can be proud of. The conception of work/life gets turned on its head when you see the "office" as a place to kick it with your friends and to do work that you brings you joy.
Somerville
Breanna Barry, CEO and Co-founder of Helmet Hub, working out of Greentown Labs:
In my perspective, extended T-hours on weekends will lead to stronger startup communities. It not only allows for companies to work later, longer, but it also will keep them [those areas, thereby supporting neighborhoods’ economies and communities] throughout the evening. For instance, if I stay later in Union Square, I'm more likely to eat dinner there, which helps feed the growing community. The first thing that comes to my mind is that it'll foster the growth and further development of local communities – and that I'm excited for new restaurants!
Jules Pieri, CEO and Co-founder of The Grommet:
Having moved the company to Davis Square to get on the Red Line, any extension in T hours is great news to me as a CEO of a tech startup. My team works all hours of the day and night. I want to be sure their public transportation coverage is as flexible as I am!
...[but] "startups' work/life balance" is an oxymoron.
Let us know how you think the new T hours will affect Boston’s innovation ecosystem in the comments below.
