Posts about Bike Sharing

If you're the nation's largest city, you'll probably have the nation's longest bikeshare station.

Imagine what it will look like once it's filled with bikes. One of the most popular styles of Capital Bikeshare photograph is the one looking down a long row:

Photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr.

New York will launch Citibike on May 27, Memorial Day. Annual members will be able to use it for the first week, and then daily and weekly memberships go on sale on June 2.

Speaking of a lot of bikes, I've seen no announcement yet about whether New York will do a big launch event like DC's, where all the bikes started in one plaza and groups of people rode them out to the various stations:

Photo by DDOTDC on Flickr.

Now that would be a lot of bikes.

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.

In addition to Broad Street BRT, the plan calls for 4 other priority bus lines, including one on the important Main Street/Cary Street corridor.

Richmond transit plan. Image from City of Richmond.

The draft plan also identifies bike improvements. Richmond is a natural biking city. It's dense and walkable, and the urban areas are small enough that it's easy to get to them all with a bike. Among proposed improvements, the plan calls for a bike sharing network, and identifies locations for cycle tracks.

Richmond bike/ped plan. Image from City of Richmond.

Right now Richmond doesn't have enough non-car transportation options. Even though the land use is already there to support multimodalism, most people rely on cars for most trips. Hopefully these proposals become reality, and transportation choice becomes more practical.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

The size and scope of measures to promote bike sharing equity vary, but all types of bike sharing systems are working to lower access barriers.Whether a large established system with significant government investment like Capital Bikeshare, a new small nonprofit system searching for funding like Kansas City B-cycle, or a for-profit system like Decobike Miami Beach, operators are expending the effort to lower access barriers. Here some highlights of how they are doing it:

Station siting: Lowering access barriers starts with placing stations where they primarily serve low-income communities. For example, systems might consciously place stations adjacent to affordable housing, or prioritize expansion to minority neighborhoods disproportionately underrepresented in bicycling.

Many systems reported doing this, including NiceRide Minnesota, which placed 30 stations (or approximately 20% of their system) in areas identified by the community as necessary for equity.

Community-specific marketing and outreach: By reaching out specifically to low-income communities, or by targeting marketing and outreach to the concerns and communications channels of minority communities underrepresented in bicycling, bike sharing systems might be able to tap into latent demand in those communities.

In Arlington County, VA, the largest low-income group is Latinos with limited English proficiency. Arlington is planning a special Spanish-language outreach program for all of the county's sustainable transportation programs, including Capital Bikeshare.

Financial assistance: Providing some variety of financial assistance was the most common way bike sharing systems promoted equity. Many lower-income people cannot afford the full cost of the annual membership at one time. To deal with that, several systems offer (or plan to offer) installment payment plans.

Bike sharing systems are also partnering with organizations to help qualified recipients obtain a bank account and debit/credit card. Capital Bikeshare introduced its partnership with Bank on DC over a year ago. This program combines a reduced membership fee with access to a credit card, and now has 90 participants.

Another measure that can relieve the financial barrier to bike sharing is not placing a temporary "hold" against a user's credit or debit limit. Many systems put a hold on the full replacement fee for a bicycle, to guard against bikes not being returned. For people with little money in their checking account, this can make it impossible for them to buy necessities. Arlington is investigating ways to allow for cash payments, which would obviate the need for a debit/credit card entirely.

Boston's Hubway provided over 550 annual memberships to qualified low-income recipients at a cost of $5 each, along with longer-than-normal free trip durations. Boston also investigated (but ultimately had to cancel) an idea dubbed "Prescribe a Bike," where medical providers would refer at-risk patients to subsidized bikesharing memberships. The Boston programs are administered and funded by an obesity prevention public health program.

Economic contribution to communities: Bikesharing potentially provides intrinsic economic benefits to all communities by reducing the personal costs of travel for users, and increasing economic activity by generating more trips overall.

But beyond this, I asked systems about ways the bike sharing operations might be directly contributing to the economic well-being of low-income communities, such as actively recruiting employees from low-income communities, locating facilities (and their associated jobs) in places easily accessible to low-income neighborhoods, and partnering and subcontracting with community-oriented nonprofit agencies.

Denver B-cycle partnered with a local Goodwill Industries nonprofit agency to recruit employees from low-income communities. Motreal's BIXI worked with a youth-service program to provide maintenance labor. Montgomery County, which is soon joining Capital Bikeshare, gave a preference for minority-owned small businesses in subcontracting procurement.

Safe places to ride: With the federal government investing fewer dollars for active transportation infrastructure in low-income neighborhoods, one possible barrier to using bike sharing could be the absence of safe places to ride a bicycle. I asked bike sharing systems to describe any efforts to encourage and promote installing new bicycle travel facilities near residents with lower incomes or disproportionately underrepresented in bicycling.

Kansas City B-cycle, a nonprofit bike sharing entity receiving less than half of its capital funding from government transportation funding (and among the smallest systems in the survey sample) is actively pursuing Safe Routes to School and other grants to directly institute bicycle travel facility improvements themselves.

Membership media: One way to make it easier to pay for bike sharing would be to integrate bikesharing payment media with other accounts that low-income people may already possess, including transit farecards and household utility billing accounts. A number of systems reported plans and efforts for farecard integration, but the hardware is not generally compatible, and there isn't money available to retrofit the stations.

One system to watch is the planned San Francisco system, which requested in its RFP that bidders discuss whether their systems could be compatible with the regional transit Clipper Card.

Overcoming bicycling barriers: If people have little experience bicycling or don't own helmets, it can create barriers to bicycling and bikesharing use. Several systems described programs to provide subsidized or free helmets and bicycle safety instruction workshops to communities they want to reach. They worked with bicycle shops, community colleges, and local bicycle advocacy organizations to deliver the helmets and provide the classes.

Boston's Hubway offers reduced-cost helmets in retail locations in close proximity to stations, and gives free helmets to subsidized low-income members. It also offers instructional bicycling safety classes, though one Boston official characterized attendance at these classes as "low."

For more details about the survey methodology, details on measures that each system is pursuing address access barriers, caveats, and some suggestions for further research, please take a look at the full paper (PDF). I hope that the report serves as a useful resource for existing and emerging bikesharing systems to broaden participation in this exciting new transportation mode.

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.