Posts about Capital Bikeshare

Capital Bikeshare can't meet everyone's commute needs, and shouldn't

Other riders have stopped using Capital Bikeshare for commuting because there isn't enough capacity at the peak. Ravindranath interviews Aaron Ordower, who gave up trying to CaBi from 16th and U to the World Bank because he couldn't count on finding a bike. But in this case, while it would be nice for CaBi to be able to serve his needs, it's less reasonable to expect that.

Officials point out that Capital Bikeshare isn't really meant to be a commuting tool for large numbers of people. Jim Sebastian said, "This is why many members buy/use their own bike if they know they are going to work and back, or on a similar round trip." Ordower decided to walk to work instead. And that's fine.

One follow-up question for Ordower might be, why not bike using a private bicycle? Does he just not have one? Does the World Bank not provide good enough bike parking?

Capital Bikeshare leads to more private bicycling

I personally started biking a lot more often around DC once Capital Bikeshare launched, since it provided an easy way to take a spontaneous or one-way trip and not have to feel forced to then bike home. In later years, while I've kept my membership (it's still cheap and useful on occasion), I hardly use it. Instead, I use my own bike.

I'm not the only one. Chris Eatough, Arlington's bicycle program manager, says that according to a survey of Capital Bikeshare users last year, "82% of respondents reported increased use [of their personal bikes] since joining Capital Bikeshare, and 70% said that Capital Bikeshare was an important reason."

Bikeshare serves as an introduction to bicycling for many people. That's why it's a shame that Simon Pak, who manages The Bike Rack at 14th and Q, had more critical words for bikeshare riders. "Since Capital Bikeshare started, any incident [I've witnessed] in bike-to-bike collisions have been with Capital Bikeshare riders. They're the most inexperienced riders emulating more experienced riders," he told Ravindrath.

Though Pak also says 1 in 10 of his customers are looking to move from Capital Bikeshare's heavy bikes to a lighter and faster personal bike. It sounds like bikeshare is a great source of potential business for bike shops.

Bikeshare's strengths complement transit

Still, bike sharing is not the same as bicycling. This is why a lot of people get confused about bikeshare if they aren't familiar with it. Some New Yorkers expressed shock that a 4-hour ride would rack up $77 in late fees on their Citibike system. As those of us who've used bikeshare know, people don't ride a bikeshare bike for 4 hours, or if they do, they just return it every half hour and reset the clock.

Bike sharing is, in many ways, more like transit: it transports you from fixed stations to other fixed stations. However, it's also different from transit. Transit has more capacity at peak times when there are more vehicles. It costs money to run a vehicle, so you run it when there's demand. Therefore, bus lines in particular are far more useful at times when there are a lot of buses. At some times of day, they don't run at all.

Bike sharing is the opposite. It has a fixed capacity that fills up quickly, but is always available. Bike sharing is most useful off-peak, when the stations aren't filling up or emptying out so fast. It's always available at night.

For this reason, we can think of it actually as a complement to short-distance buses. Someone who lives on a bus line might find that the bus is a better choice during rush, but bikeshare is better middays. Bikeshare also offers more flexibility, since you can ride to any other station, but isn't as good to travel long distances, because it takes physical effort.

New York's Citibike will launch next weekend, and many observers predict the silly arguments against it will mainly evaporate, as they did here in DC when Capital Bikeshare launched. Even so, some people will always be adjusting to what kinds of travel bikeshare works well for, and where it's less ideal. That's the case for every mode of travel.

Thanks to Capital Bikeshare, we have another mode, one that neatly fills in some needs that transit and walking don't perfectly serve. It happens to be a mode that's been especially cheap to deploy. Personal bikes, Zipcar, car2go, street hailed taxis, Uber, buses, trains, and walking all meet some people's needs and not others, and that's natural.

Plus, even though for regular members, Capital Bikeshare is primarily about getting between point A and point B quickly, it's also a great way to show visitors the city. You can ride around for hours from neighborhood to neighborhood, and just have to remember to dock the bike and take another one out every 30 minutes.

What's annoying about that, however, is that while as an annual member I can just dock my bike, wait a couple of minutes, and take another one with my key, the visitor has to dip his or her credit card, get a new code, and type the code into a dock. (I could give the visitor the key and do this myself, I suppose, but it's still a pain.) The daily key could dispense with this chore.

Michael Perkins and Rob Pitingolo shared another suggestion on Twitter: a key that gives individual, one-way rides for a lower price, like $2. Michael wrote, "Sometimes I'm with my wife who doesn't have a key." She might want to come along for a single trip, but "right now it's $7, which is pretty steep."

Rob said, "I'm in the same boat. Wife doesn't have a key but would pay $2 per ride. $7/day is too high. Example: last mile from Union Station. $2 for that is fair, $7 too high. Currently $7 only option."

Michael added, "A weekend with activities planned would include our two kids, so no bikeshare possible. However, last mile for getting from church to shopping while kids are in CCD, etc. is more likely need."

On the other hand, CaBi might be reluctant to offer this for fear that too many people would switch from annual memberships. I don't know if I ride 35 times a year any more. I started bicycling a lot more once CaBi launched and provided an easy option, but then started riding my own bike instead.

A $75 membership is not that costly for unlimited access to a great service, and there's value in having members who know they can grab a bike whenever they want instead of people always weighing whether to spend a couple bucks or not. A $2 per trip option might mean CaBi would lose a lot of occasional annual members.

On the other hand, non-members won't ride at all if there's no good way to pay for a ride and they don't want to drop $7 for a whole daily membership. What about a spare key that offers $2 rides, but only in tandem with an annual member? You can only use it on a dock just after the linked annual member takes out a bike; otherwise, it's a $7 daily pass. Or do you have other ideas?

"Every other city uses dedicated sponsors to cover operating costs, but not Alexandria," she states in a letter to the Alexandria Gazette-Packet on April 12, citing New York's Citibank-sponsored Citibike, which is still under construction. Papp notes that Alexandria also no longer receives federal grants to pay for bikeshare and will instead use $50,000 in development impact fees and $70,000 in revenue from real estate taxes.

In another letter to the Alexandria Times, Papp questions whether the city should pay for a service operated by Alta, a private company, in partnership with Alexandria, Arlington and DC. She claims that a financial dispute between Bixi, Alta's equipment maker, and the city of Montreal and a lawsuit from Bixi's software vendor makes Alta unfit to work with. Instead, she proposes that Alexandria use CaBi funds to reverse a proposed cut in library hours.

Conflating the problems of Bixi with Alta, the private company that operates CaBi, ignores the real question of whether it's actually working for Alexandria.

Alexandria is getting the same deal as Arlington, DC, and other cities with bikeshare systems. Like Denver's B-Cycle and Boston's Hubway, CaBi is a public-private partnership in which the city owns the equipment and contracts out operations to a for-profit company.

As with Minneapolis' Nice Ride system, CaBi lists a number of major sponsors on its website, though Nice Ride covers its operating costs with user fees and sponsored stations. Capital Bikeshare could partner with a corporate sponsor, but it's a regional system, and all of the jurisdictions involved should make that decision together.

Despite what Papp says, Capital Bikeshare also saves money. Capital costs of the proposed eight-station expansion are about that of a single DASH bus. Operating costs per ride are well under a dollar for CaBi, versus over a dollar for Metrorail and over two dollars for DASH. System-wide, CaBi moves about 8,000 people per day, almost as many as the 11,000 that DASH moves.

Papp complains that CaBi will get some financial support from local taxes, but Alexandria recently chose to dedicate 2.2¢ of its real estate tax rate to a Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), including 3 designated transit corridors and supporting infrastructure for biking and walking. Given that 2 of the 4 busiest Alexandria CaBi stations serve nearby Metro stations, CaBi clearly fits in with the program's stated goals.

Besides, Alexandria can't simply move the funds to support libraries. TIP money must be spent on transportation, and since it's a new program, raiding TIP funds for libraries would only weaken it as a funding source. Just as CaBi is a transportation service that should be evaluated in the context of Alexandria's transportation program, libraries are a social service that should be evaluated in the context of Alexandria's other social services.

Capital Bikeshare has proven its worth to Alexandria, but a few detractors want to discredit this valuable service. The City Council should listen to the facts and support bikeshare funding. They will be voting on the budget next Monday; you can contact them here and voice your support.

Capital Bikeshare: The mayor is funding 10 more Capital Bikeshare stations beyond the ones that area already supposed to be going in. In December, DDOT announced 78 locations, of which it had funding for 54 and was going to install those by March. Unfortunately, it's late in installing most of those. That list also identified 24 future locations, so this budget funds 10.

Buses: The budget office's presentation did not discuss the Circulator or other bus projects. I will follow up to find out whether any Circulator expansion in that master plan have funding. Streetcars are important, but they are one of several modes we need, and for many neighborhoods, better bus service is the better way to help people get around.

Bridges: The South Capitol "racetrack" project and new Frederick Douglass Bridge gets $622.5 million, which would fully fund the project.

Taxes: The budget imposes no new taxes or fees, maintains DC's fund balance, and keeps the debt cap at 12%. The administration also wants to get rid of the tax on out-of-state bonds, which they say primarily impacts seniors and is far and away the biggest complaint they get about taxes. Gray chief of staff Chris Murphy said they "always felt it was ill-conceived."

Affordable housing: As promised, the administration is putting a one-time $100 million into affordable housing. $86.9 million goes into the Housing Production Trust Fund, ($20M in FY 2014 and the rest in FY 2013). The rest, $13.1 million, goes to other smaller initiatives that the recent Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force recommended. He is also promising to keep the 15% of the Deed Recordation and Transfer Tax, which is supposed to go to the HPTF, in there; previous budgets raided that to fund other programs.

Parks: The capital budget provides $50 million for parks (likely a few different small parks) in NoMA: $25 million to acquire land, and $25 million for development. DC made a mistake when it upzoned NoMA without any plan for parks, which is why this is going to be expensive. However, NoMA is generating a lot of tax revenue.

Other parks capital spending includes $20 million fro the Fort Dupont ice arena, $26.4 million for Barry Farm, $2M to renovate and improve athletic fields and parks, $18M for the Southeast tennis & learning center, and funding to modernize 32 play spaces in 8 wards including Fort Greble, Palisades, Macomb, and Takoma which will start in April as well as already-underway work at Noyes, Raymond, and Rosedale.

Libraries: Gray is expanding funding for DC Public Libraries so that every library can be open 7 days a week. Most will be open until 9 pm Monday to Thursday as well as afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. They also get $2 million for books and e-books.

Further, the budget provides $103 million to renovate and, as part of a public-private partnership, expand the MLK Library. There is $15.2 million to renovate the Cleveland Park library, $21.7 for the Palisades library, and $4.8 million for Woodridge's library.

Trash: Residents who want to replace their trash cans are in luck: the administration wants to replace everyone's trash cans over 5 years, for free. If there is money available, they also hope to let people replace stolen or damaged cans without the fee residents have to pay today.

Flooding: Bloomingdale residents hopefully will see some relief from their flooding problems with $1.5 million in the budget to pay for recommendations from the task force studying those problems.

Police and fire: The public safety budget pays for 4,000 sworn officers, replacing police and fire vehicles, cadet training programs and maintaining domestic violence programs that are seeing federal cuts. In general, the budget officials say, they are replacing all federal from sequestration across the board, even assuming sequestration will continue throughout the year.

Raises: DC employees will get their first pay raise in 4-7 years, spanning both union and non-union employees, and DC will fully fund its pension obligations.

We'll have more analysis and further details in upcoming posts.

This is yet another consequence of Capital Bikeshare's excellent decision to provide anonymous trip data. People have done all kinds of useful things with the data, like MV Jantzen's similar video and interactive visualization tool.

Most often cited, and enormously deserving of credit, is Gabe Klein, former Director of Transportation for the District, Planning Director Harriet Tregoning, and then-Mayor Adrian Fenty, all cycling enthusiasts.

Dan Tangherlini and Mayor Anthony Williams catalyzed many of the transportation innovations we enjoy today, including SmartBike, our first foray into bike sharing that primed the pump for CaBi (and also the first hard investments in streetcar which will soon return to our streets).

But all these leaders, of course, stood on the shoulders those who worked under them and advocated to and for them. These work horses often go unnoticed, pleased just in the fruits of what they produced.

Among these are "Active Transportation Manager" Jim Sebastian and planner Chris Holben. When Jim joined DDOT over a decade ago, the city had scarcely a bike lane, let alone cycle tracks cutting through the downtown, a gorgeous glassy bike station, or the nation's most successful bike sharing program. He and his team worked below the radar (some say a little too far below) and within the system to gently bring about the miles of bike lanes, segments of world class facilities on the Anacostia, Metropolitan Branch, and Rock Creek Trails, the award winning Bike Station at Union Station, and enviable cycle tracks on some of the nation's most prominent corridors.

Jim and Chris literally spent sleepless nights fretting about bike station locations and public safety concerns. In the end they have succeeded in shifting bicycle travel in the District from a mode fit only for the spandex crowd to a general form of transportation for all ages.

And there wouldn't be a Jim if there weren't Ellen. That's Ellen Jones, now Transportation Director for the Downtown BID, but way back when the Executive Director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Ellen pushed to create a bicycle program within DDOT and the city's first (and so far only) comprehensive Bicycle Master Plan—a literal roadmap for bicycle infrastructure projects, many of which have materialized over the past decade.

Many people aren't aware of Arlington County's role in Capital Bikeshare. In fact, the contract the region has to run Capital Bikeshare is not DC's, but Arlington's contract. It's the Arlington County transportation Department (led by Dennis Leach), especially Commuter Services head Chris Hamilton and bicycle manager Chris Eatough, who put out the bike sharing contract, while the Transportation Planning Board's Ron Kirby helped DDOT ride along on it. This accelerated the program by more than a year.

Arlington County Board members Chris Zimmerman and Jay Fisette worked closely with Gabe Klein to make Capital Bikeshare happen. Angie Fox at the Crystal City BID put up the money for the first Arlington stations.

There are scores of others who deserve more than just passing mention for their roles (but unfortunately will get just that here). DDOT's Public Space Policy Manager Alice Kelly managed the bus shelter contract and held Clear Channel accountable for delivering SmartBike. Then-Associate Director Scott Kubly was then smart enough to kill that element of the contract to enable a new model of bike sharing for the city.

Let's not forget then-Associate Director Karina Ricks who oversaw the bike program, providing staff and leadership support to push the program through; Councilmember Tommy Wells, who stewarded the program through the Council and has been a booster before and since; and Eric Gilliland, who led WABA at the time and has since joined Alta to deliver the system and service at the quality we enjoy today.

And then there are the army of front line transportation and planning staff who spent countless hours laying out the stations, permitting them, attending public meetings from Chevy Chase to Congress Heights, negotiating with federal agencies, and rapidly striping a bicycle network that could support the legions of new cyclists about to hit the streets.

Although the list is sure to be incomplete, honorable mentions should go to Mike Goodno, Heather Deutsch, George Branyan, Jenny Hefferan, Jeff Jennings, Allan Fye, Chris Ziemann, Anna Chamberlain, Anna McLaughlin, Gabe Oneador, Charles Thomas, Jamie Henson, Gabriela Vega, Colleen Hawkinson, Will Handsfield, John Lisle, Megan Kanagy, Karyn LeBlanc, James Cheeks, Juan Amaya, and Kevin Kovaleski at DDOT; Office of Planning staff Alex Block, Andrea Limauro, and Joyce Tsepas; Arlington's Bruce Kimble, Maryam Zahory, Euan Fisk, Bobbi Greenberg, Jay Freschi, Lois DeMeester, John Durham, and Howard Jennings; and undoubtedly countless others.

The tool looks at the trips in the third quarter of 2012. Click on any station to see what other stations people ride to and from, as lines of varying thickness. Click on any line to see how many trips there were between that pair of stations, and how "unbalanced" the trips are (whether the number of trips in one direction is close to that in the other, or if one direction dominates).

This isn't Jantzen's first interactive tool. He made one earlier this year for Metro ridership patterns. Around the same time, graduate student Rahul Nair made a tool for CaBi that has a lot in common with Jantzen's new one.

What do you notice with the tool?