The Bike-sharing World - First Week of September 2012

NORTH AMERICA:
CANADA:

                                     Montreal

As summer comes to a close, the folks at bIXI Montréal have come up with a great new subscription membership plan for the occasional user. A bIXI key is issued with an online registration for $5 CDN ($5 US). Each day (24 hours) in which the key is used the subscriber is charged $5 and gets an initial ride time of 45 minutes with no extra charge for each use. This is a $2 savings over the regular day access rate which only gives a 30-minute initial ride time for each use during the 24 hours. The best part is that having the bIXI key eliminates using your credit card kiosk each time a bike is taken. 

Why has this taken so long to implement!!! When London first started, this was the only way a casual user could sign up for a day pass. This is a great plan for frequent visitors to the city who just can't utilize the value of monthly or yearly subscriptions. What about Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, London again, Minneapolis-St.Paul, Chattanooga, the Boston region, and the Washington, DC region? When do they get this plan?

USA:
                          Various Cities:   Crowd Sourcing Maps

Bike Nation - Downtown Los Angeles

Capital Bikeshare - Washington, DC region

Cincinnati Bike Share

Citi Bike - New York City

Bike Share Philly

Portland Bike Share

As new bike-sharing systems begin or older ones expand, the question of where to put bike-sharing stations needs to be answered. There are formulas that weigh proximity to transportation hubs, shopping areas, and residential density that are used for indicators. Following the in-place bicycling infrastructure as a guide is also used. Since the prospective users are the ones to be served, the best resource for bike-sharing station location is the users! The users know here they need stations at the start and the end of their journeys. Theses crowdsourcing maps are the answer to the question. They ask the users where stations should be placed. Developed originally for Capital Bikeshare in the Washington, D.C. region, their popularity for bike-sharing has grown quickly as shown above.

Quick updates:
Bike Nation will soon be fully operational in Anaheim. They recently won approval from the Long Beach, California, City Council to build a 2,500-bicycle/250-station service to go along with the installations planned in the Los Angeles basin areas of Downtown L.A., Venice, Hollywood, and Westwood.

Greenville, South Carolina has issued a bike-share RFP. The hot summer has made the Southeast USA a hot bed for bike-sharing.

ASIA:
CHINA:
                         Hangzhou

After an exhausting ride with just one minute to spare before those extra charges begin, it's great to know that you can dock your bike-share and get a refreshing drink or a quick snack. Well, the Hangzhou Public Bike Service thinks its users want that. They have commissioned 200 food and beverage kiosks to be installed next to some of the 2260 bike-share stations throughout Hangzhou according to a recent report.

Also out of Hangzhou there have been a few reports of bicycle failures due to rust. According to China Gxnews, a woman was thrown from a bike-share when the front fork collapsed. The report said the metal of the fork was so rusted that it was "paper thin". The oldest of the bikes have been in service for three years. Many are now being replaced.

THE WORLD

The Bike-sharing World Map is the #1 resource for bike-sharing systems. It shows new systems which come online which might not be covered in The Bike-sharing Blog. Keep up with the changing bike-sharing world by frequent visits to The Bike-sharing World Map.


images: bIXI, Food kiosk

Russell Meddin    bikesharephiladelphia.org

Philly's Bike-sharing Demonstration

Hundreds of Philadelphians braved the extreme cold to experience 3rd generation bike sharing. Bike Share Philadelphia demonstrated Public Bike System's bike-sharing station to the public with bikes from both BIXI and NiceRide, Montreal's and Minneapolis' future bike-sharing programs. This is part of a two day celebration of the first anniversary of Bike Share Philadelphia’s quest for bike-sharing. The event also included the screening of videos about bike-sharing and livable streets from Streefilms.org. More information about today's events is at BikeSharePhilly.

image credit: Russell Meddin

Bike Share Philadelphia Hosts BIXI Bike Share Demonstration

For the anniversary of the Bike Share Movement in Philadelphia, an operational solar powered, WIFI enabled 3rd Generation Public Bike Systems station and bicycles from will be on display and available for the public to try. Directions: View Larger Map

In Philadelphia:
Thursday, January 15, 2009 11AM to 6:00 PM
36th and Walnut Streets in front of the University of Pennsylvania Book Store

Friday, January 16, 2009 11AM to 6:30 PM
1900 Ben Franklin Parkway in front of the Academy of Natural Sciences

The excitement continues in Philadelphia with:

SPECIAL MOVIE NIGHT on Friday, January 16, 2009 6:30 PM,

featuring Streetfilms' Bike Share Videos at the Academy of Natural Sciences on Logan Square 19th and Race Streets Philadelphia. No charge.

The creators of Streetfilms, where you'll find an eclectic array of 'livable streets' films from all over the world made to inspire change on the streets of your neighborhood, will show all its bike-share videos and a great selection of 'livable streets' films on the "Big Screen" in support of Bike Share Philadelphia as one of the Academy of Natural Sciences Town Square Series. Streetfilms and Streetsblog are the political mobilizer for the Livable Streets movement. They are part of a growing coalition of individuals and organizations in cities around the world working to transform our cities by reducing dependence on private automobiles and improving conditions for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. They have picked the anniversary of Philadelphia's Bike Share movement to showcase their videos on bike-sharing and livable streets.

Please RSVP "Bike Sharing" to attend. See poster. Directions: View Larger Map

by Russell Meddin, Bike Share Philadelphia

Bike Share Philadelphia Forum an Astounding Success

On a snowy Thursday evening this past week, over 400 Philadelphians converged at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Center City to discuss a concept that's taking North America and the world by storm, bike-sharing, naturally. The capacity crowd listened to representatives of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, who were co-sponsors of the event, and Mayor Michael Nutter, a supporter of green transport, welcome attendees and introduce the evening's speakers. This event in all likelihood was the first bike-sharing conference to be held in the United States. An historic moment.

Speakers at the event included Gilles Vesco, Vice-président Communauté urbaine de Lyon, who oversees the municipal government’s Velo'v; Nate Kvamme, Director of Humana’s Innovation Center, who assisted in developing their Freewheelin' program which is a high-tech bike fleet available for employee use at their headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky; and Mitch Franzos of Friends of the Riverfront, who with Dasani, piloted a high-tech recreational bike rental program called Blue Bikes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia, or Philly as the city is known to its residents and others with an affinity for the place, is the perfect location for a bike-sharing program. One of North America's oldest cities, with many narrow streets, Philly feels like an older European city set on a grid street network. These narrow streets would be ideal to convert into bicycle boulevards, or bicycle-priority streets, with bike-sharing stations placed every two blocks. According to a co-organizer, Alex Doty, nearly a third of Philadelphia residents don't own cars. In addition, Philly is a university town with the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, Temple, and a host of other institutes of higher education, so the potential success for bike-sharing in Philly is enormous.

This kick-off event, which also included a more technical session the following morning directed toward Philadelphia government planners and engineers, was to show the public's support behind bike-sharing. Everything from the Website, poster to encourage event attendance, knowledgeable speakers, to the Take Action Webpage were well done. The Take Action page was created to further the voice of the event participants with an email to bikeshare@phila.gov which is collecting emails on the subject for the Philadelphia government. The event organizers understood how to hold a solid event and use the energy towards pushing for bike-sharing and make it happen now rather than waiting for it to simply happen in the distant future. I advise proponents of bike-sharing in other cities to use Philly's event as a model in developing their own local event.

As Gilles Vesco reported from Lyon's mayor, "There are two types of mayors - those who have bike-sharing and those who want bike-sharing." Mr. Vesco reported that bike traffic is up 80% in 2.5 years since Velo'v was launched and 25% of this increase is from bike-sharing. The remainder of the increase is from an increase in the use of private bikes. With safety in numbers, Lyon residents are all biking more. In fact, every day 40,000 km are biked on Velo'v which is the distance around Earth. While in Paris, with the much larger Velib', a trip around Earth is made every 1 hour 24 minutes.


As Nate Kvamme from Humana, a health benefits provider, said, "You often don't have a choice with your employer-provided health care benefits, but you do have a choice with your health." This statement hit the nail on the head and I have a feeling that within a short time from this conference, Philadelphia will have its own bike-sharing program up-and-running. This will create a greener Philadelphia with less traffic congestion, a healthier environment, and healthier populace.





image credit: Bike Share Philadelphia for the poster, cycling around Earth graphic from JCDecaux, and Andy Dyson of Neighborhood Bike Works for the video