Even bike owners will benefit from joining Capital Bikeshare
Photo by Arlington County on Flickr.
Next Monday, I will take to the roads on DC on a brand new bike that is not mine. Despite owning my own bike, I decided to invest in a Capital Bikeshare membership. Other DC bike owners should, too.
The new Capital Bikeshare program kicks off next week and will offer 1,000 bikes at over 100 stations spread across the District and Arlington’s Crystal City neighborhood. At ten times the size of Smart Bike DC, Capital Bikeshare is poised to replicate the success of its predecessor on a much larger scale.
With an increase in both coverage and density of bike sharing stations, the utility of Capital Bikeshare will be astronomically higher than SmartBike ever was. While SmartBike stations were only present in the busiest of areas in central DC, CaBi will include stations on both sides of the Potomac, at most District Metro stations and in many neighborhoods unserved by Metrorail.
“That’s great,” you say, “but I already have a bike. Why should I spend more money for bike sharing when I spent a bunch of green on my own bike?”
It’s a good question, and one I struggled with myself. Around the time that Capital Bikeshare released details on their membership costs, I had literally just bought a new bike, which, after all of the various accessories necessary to make it city-roadworthy and commute-ready, ran me $500.
I had been excited about the new, expanded bike share system for a while and was sure I would join, but when the time came to shell out the money, I hesitated. An annual membership costs $75, currently reduced to $50 for the first 2000 members (DDOT was nearing 1000 on Tuesday), or a monthly membership runs $25. “These things don’t even have rear racks for pannier,” I thought, “why bother spending more money?” Then I started to reconsider.
Capital Bikeshare is not intended to replace long bike trips, particular not those that are made on a regular basis. The service is free for members, but only for the first 30 minutes of each rental. That means, it would not be logical for you to use a CaBi bike for your daily 10 mile commute from College Park to Union Station. Where CaBi can come in very handy is to replace short to medium distance trips.
After some thought, I decided to invest in a Capital Bikeshare membership, not despite owning my own bike, but perhaps even because I own my own bike. The argument should ring quite familiar to many of you, given that we make the same argument frequently for why people should take transit, despite the fact that they own a car and have already invested in that sunk cost.
We tell people to take transit over driving for many trips because:
- Reduced wear and tear on the car, reduces maintenance costs and increases the longevity of your car
- You don’t need to find and/or pay for parking at either end of your trip
- You won’t have to worry about vandalism or theft that may be a concern at some destinations
- You don’t have to drive home, or worry about picking your car up later
The same reasons hold true for using Bikeshare over riding your own bike. With Capital Bikeshare:
You save the wear and tear on your bike. DC’s streets are not great. There are potholes, manholes, asphalt warping, steel plates, gravel, glass, and myriad other obstacles and debris along your ride, all of which take a toll on your bike, the same as it does on a person’s car. By using a CaBi bike, you reduce the wear and tear on your personal bike and save the time and money spent on upkeep and repairs.
You don’t have to find bike parking. In my apartment building, the management has taken a typical car-first stance and won’t allow cyclists who don’t have a car parked in the garage to use their building key fobs to open the garage door.
That means I have to go around the back of my building, into the loading dock, and use the freight elevator to take my bike to the garage where our bike parking is. This adds anywhere from 5-10 minutes on either end of my trip.
Out in the city, bike parking is a crap shoot. I usually spend several minutes at the end of my trip, finding a bike rack or suitable street sign, fence, parking meter, water pipe, or other immovable object to lock my bike up on. With CaBi, if there is a station near where you headed, you know you will have a place to park (except in the rare case the station is full).
You can stop worrying about theft. If you’re headed somewhere less trafficked (or more trafficked as the case may be), you don’t have to worry about accessories, components or your whole bike disappearing. Again, I spend several minutes everywhere I go making sure I’ve secured as many (re)movable parts as possible. On days when I’m running several errands around the city, the time spent locking and unlocking my bike can really add up. And lets face it, no matter how hard you try, something is always still able to be stolen.
You don’t have to bike both ways. If starts to rain while your at your destination, no big deal. If you few too many drinks at happy hour, you don’t have to worry about whether you secured your bike correctly on that rack on the front of the bus, or wrestle with the just-big-enough-for-you-and-your-bike elevators that may or may not be in service at the closest metro station.
You can actually save money on transit. For anyone who lives and/or works close to a CaBi station or spends any significant time in the central part of the District or Crystal City, there is a strong chance you can actually save yourself money with a CaBi membership.
I live near the Foggy Bottom metro station, on the northwest edge of what you could call “greater downtown” DC. I work in Navy Yard, on the southeast edge of “downtown.” In a typical month, I will have anywhere from 3-10 meetings out of the office, usually somewhere in downtown proper. Often times these meetings are at the end of the day and I usually plan to go straight home afterward.
At the end of these meetings I’m usually left with conundrum of how I want to get home. The walk is just a bit too far under all but the best circumstances (weather, temperature, what I’m wearing, what I’m carrying, etc.) and takes a while. It seems both lame and a waste of money to take the metro two or three stops. And, while the bus is cheaper, it’s is probably only marginally faster than walking. Still, because of laziness or any of those other mitigating factors, I have ended up on the bus or the metro many times, shelling out anywhere from $1.50 to $2.50, to travel no more than two miles.
These are exactly the types of trips I expect to use CaBi for in the future. At $50 a year, by the time I replace anywhere from 20-34 short trips on bus or Metro with a trip on CaBi, I will have already made my membership cost back. Add to that the savings on chain lube, tube patches, brake pads, replacing stolen accessories, or worse, and I would argue that a Capital Bikeshare membership could actually save most regular cyclists money in the long run.
Helmet use certainly raises a legitimate issue, but not an insurmountable one. Trips originating at my apartment are not a problem. Because there will a station a block or so from my office, I’m planning to keep an extra helmet at work for those short off-site meetings.
Other, more spontaneous trips pose more of a problem if you insist on wearing a helmet at all times. But I tend to agree with David over at Washcycle that a helmet only reduces the risk of injury assuming you’re going to be in an accident.
Cautious and defensive cycling will reduce your risk of having an accident so much that the increased risk of a handful of short, helmet-less trips a year will only increase your risk marginally. After all, the CaBi bikes include all of the necessary safety features and at probably 30 pounds and only three gears, you’re not going to be able to dash around the city like a bike messenger anyway.
So, after a little thought, and especially considering the inaugural $50 price for an annual members, signing up was definitely a no-brainer for me.