Yesterday in Paris, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that San Francisco will implement a pilot bike-sharing program this year through Clear Channel, the operator of SmartBikeDC. According to a press release from the Mayor's office, "The pilot program will include 50 bikes located at five stations on non-city property (as required by a Court injunction until environmental review of the City's Bicycle Plan is complete). The stations will be in the Financial District, Mission Bay, the Presidio, Civic Center and the City College campus."
Mayor Newsom touring Vélib' facilities in Paris referred to San Francisco saying, “Bike-sharing will help connect thousands of residents and commuters to their workplaces and shopping destinations by providing bikes that they can easily borrow. This bike-sharing pilot project will allow us to test and perfect the bikes and technology that will be used in our citywide network.”
The capital cost of the program is estimated to be between $400,000 - $500,000, while the annual operating costs will be around $450,000.
Using private property in San Francisco's case to expedite the launch of their program is brilliant. Forget Rice-A-Roni, bike-sharing will be the new San Francisco treat. - Editor
by Russell Meddin, Bike Share Philadelphia
Source: http://www.sfgov.org/site/mayor_index.asp?id=97480
Image credit: New Homes Section Blog
2 comments:
Am I reading this right? Start-up costs will be $8,000 to $10,000 per bicycle, and annual operating costs will be $9,000 per bike? Is this Clear Channel's fee? That seems crazy expensive.
well a lot of it is just clear channel's advertising:
http://www.flypmedia.com/content/urban-spin
some of it is also probably infrastructure costs, but i'd assume most of those would be one-time, no?
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