Arlington's Interactive Mapping Tool for Capital Bikeshare

Arlington County, Virginia, USA has a public process where it provides many opportunities for Arlingtonians to contribute to ensure the best possible results are created in providing public services for its citizens. Time-consuming, but thorough, "the Arlington Way", as the County calls it, is being used for the selection of the County's next round of 30 stations, growing its share of the regional Capital Bikeshare service to nearly 50 stations. MetroBike, LLC is the program manager for Arlington's fleet, so I wanted to share what we're doing to generate public comment, so that the new stations will best service folks who live, work, or play in Arlington.

The public process includes a public meeting, to be held tomorrow (6/27) for the general public to comment on locations in the dense urban corridor where the stations are planned for this fiscal year. Next month we will present again the locations to civic associations for those neighborhoods which will receive a Capital Bikeshare station. We'll also notify businesses and residents who are near proposed station locations through a letter.

An innovative public outreach tool that I'm excited about is an interactive map, developed by BikeArlington, which will allow the public to comment on our proposed locations and suggest locations of their own. On the interactive map, County-proposed locations are shown in yellow, community-proposed locations are in green, and existing stations are shown with the Capital Bikeshare logo. The public may like or dislike any location and comment with their reason. All comments for any respective proposed location are shared with the viewer by clicking on a proposed station. With over 150 comments since the webpage was launched last week, the interactive map is proving popular.

Through all this public feedback, we'll be sure to install our stations where people will use them most.