How the Best Bikeshare in the Country Does Business

 

The first plan of its kind for bikesharing in the United States has just been published. It is a comprehensive 6-year plan for Capital Bikeshare in Arlington County, Virginia.

Arlington County Capital Bikeshare Transit Development Plan 2013 to 2018

It took more than a year to finalize the report because we wanted extensive public input at all stages. This included open forums with regional partners, the business community, all Arlington civic associations, and the general public. Opportunities for public input were plentiful, both online and at in-person forums. The Capital Bikeshare crowdsourcing map was also used.

Listening to the public provided:

• General direction for the program (such as, should we remain focused on the urban core and transit corridors or should we expand more to neighborhoods that are further from the transit spine?)
• General weighting between geographic areas for quantity of bikes and stations needed, and
• Specific direction on exactly where the stations should be placed.

The Transit Development Plan represents a major step towards establishing bikesharing as a legitimate transit mode. The plan will be submitted to the State of Virginia in the same way a local bus service would be submitted. The hope is that bikesharing will be considered for funding through the same channels. Capital Bikeshare is an integrated part of the transportation fabric in the Washington D.C. region, and it should be treated as such.

The plan spells out how people are using Capital Bikeshare in Arlington and the region and also how people will use it over the next six years. Trip quantity, trip type, motivations to ride, expansion plans, revenue, funding needs, life cycle and replacement costs are all outlined.

A must-read for anyone working on bringing bikesharing to their city or municipality – or anyone with local interest in the Capital Bikeshare program – we are excited to have this resource and to all the great years of bikesharing ahead.

Chris Eatough is BikeArlington's program manager.

Cross-posted on The BikeArlington Blog

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

The Bike-sharing World: First Days of Summer 2011

Asia:

Korea - The first day of November 2010, Seoul, Korea officially began an experiment in bike-sharing with a one year pilot program called SeoulBike. Serving just two small areas of this huge metropolis, this month the system with only 440 bikes in 43 stations surpassed 110,000 trips according to Seoul's City Government. Even in such limited areas, each bike is used 1.7 times a day. It would be more, but the initial "no charge" usage period is 4 hours! Each additional 1/2 hour after that is 1,000₩ ($1 USD). The subscription rates are: 7 days for 3,000₩ ($3 USD), 30 days for 5,000₩ ($5 USD), 6 months for 15,000₩ ($15 USD) and at the beginning of the pilot, the 1-year subscription was 30,000₩ (about $30 USD). We'll come back and take a look at this system as it moves on from its pilot status and grows throughout other areas of Seoul.

China - It's getting interesting with China's two mega systems. It was announced by the Hubie Daily News that Wuhan, China's system now has 51,500 bikes, which is about same number as Hangzhou, China's system. Wuhan plans to expand its system to 70,000 bicycles by the end of this year. Hangzhou currently with about 53,000 bikes and expects to have 61,500 bikes by the end of this year. By 2015, Hangzhou projects to have 100,000 bikes according to China's TLNews. In this bicycle race, which of these cities will claim the "Maillot Jaune" (or yellow jersey, to borrow Tour de France parlance) of the largest system in the world at the end of the year? Speaking of the Tour de France, the entire country of France has less than 42,000 bikes in all of its public bike-sharing programs! China is again the Kingdom of Bicycles.

Europe:

France - Last week the 100,000,000th trip was taken on a Vélib' in Paris. As proof that bike-sharing is such a global phenomenon, the event was celebrated by the Japanese television show "Yatta" which means "You did it!"

Australia:

Australia - Brisbane started CityCyle at the beginning of October 2010. There are around 100 stations and around 1,000 bicycles. Washington, DC started Capital Bikeshare at the end of September 2010 with also around 100 stations and 1,000 bikes. Both cities have low lying central business districts and hilly residential areas. Both cities get hot in the summer. The City of Brisbane has three times the population of the city of Washington, but as a region, only one-third the population of the DC-area. A more striking difference is the respective bike-sharing usage numbers. Over about the same period of time Washington has had over 550,000 bike usages and Brisbane has had around 50,000. There are 5,200 subscribers to CityCycle and 15,200 to Capital Bikeshare. Both cities are planning large expansions of stations and bikes for their respective systems during 2011.

We at The Bike-sharing Blog have to ask: What is going on "down under" that has put the Washington system so much on top?

images: Hi Seoul, Brisbane Times, The Bike-sharing Blog, video: Vélib'

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Watching the Shift

Many cities around the world have been transformed by bike-sharing programs; any resident of Paris, Barcelona, Lyon, etc. could tell you that. Bike-sharing in some cases has led to a doubling of the number of trips by bike, increased use of private bikes, and improved the bicycle’s public relations from that of a toy to that of a sensible tool for transport. Data is necessary to support the costs and benefits of a bike-sharing program, but what does this look like on the street and in the minds of the city’s inhabitants as the bicycle goes from toy to tool?

With the Washington, D.C. region creating an expanded program, I plan to write about the physical and mental shift in the urban core of the D.C. region that’s going through a paradigm changing moment in time towards what will likely lead to more cycling for everyday purposes. What will the urban core of the D.C. region experience as our bike-sharing program expands from 120 bikes to that of a legitimately sized system? Will the program be well used? Will private cycling increase as it has in other cities with bike-sharing programs? Will the public image of the bicycle improve? What spin-offs, both positive and negative, will occur during this period?

Stay tuned, bike-sharers...

Washington Bike-sharing Survey Results Are In

The Washington, D.C. SmartBike program survey results are now complete and the District of Columbia Department of Transportation is kind to share them with The Bike-sharing Blog readers. The SmartBike D.C. program is nearly one year old with its birthday coming up in August. Of the 1,000 or so members of the program, 333 responded to the survey. The SmartBike D.C. program is in its pilot stage with 120 bikes, so these results may not broadly apply to other programs, but the data is interesting nonetheless.

A few points I found particularly interesting:

Question #2: A majority of the respondents use the bikes less than once per week (62%). This is likely due to the lacking availability of stations. With only 10 stations in the pilot program, most of the respondents find their needs not met as station coverage is poor. However, about a third use the bike 1 - 3 times per week (28%).

Question #3: A majority of respondents use the bikes for social purposes (48%) while commuting is the second most common use (41%).

Question #4: Nearly 70% of bike-sharing trips would have been done by foot had the bikes not been available. However, bike-sharing pulled 16% of the respondents away from driving a personal car for their trip and 19% away from a taxi.

Question #7: Trips combining bike-sharing and the subway or bus was low. A smartcard usable on all three systems, like the D.C. region’s SmarTrip card, could improve these numbers. Also, more stations at transit-accessible and non-transit accessible locations could improve this.

Question #8: 60% already own a bike and 40% don't own a bike. This affirms the belief that people with bikes would use the system. Also, with 40% not owning a bike, bike-sharing is creating bike trips that otherwise wouldn't be made.

This first survey of a 3rd generation bike-sharing program in North America is helpful in guiding its growth and that of other programs. Overall, it says that bike-sharing is working on this side of the pond too and that’s good news.

UPDATE 7/12/10: The results are now here.
image credit: Gwadzilla

FLYP's Urban Spin

FLYP has a fun interactive report about SmartBike D.C. and bike-sharing in its piece called Urban Spin.

Washington, D.C. Launches North America’s First Bike-sharing

It’s official! North America’s first high-tech bike-sharing program has launched! SmartBike DC opened for business today with 60 of its 120 bikes and 10 stations becoming available to the public. According to The Washington Post, Jim Sebastian, DC’s Bicycle Program Manager has said that the service will only be available to registered customers. The launch should provide the D.C. government and the program’s operator, Clear Channel Outdoor, sufficient time to expand and adjust the program for a larger program next year.

Today marks the beginning of a new era for bicycling in the United States. Due to fuel prices and the resultant affects such as the beginning of a contraction of exurbs (or distant suburbs) and shifts away from single occupant vehicle travel to transit and biking, a colleague has said that the U.S. is beginning to renegotiate the social contract we have with public space.

For a video on the bikes, local TV station NBC4 has this.

Upcoming launches in North America should be as follows:

Aug:
Democratic National Convention (Denver) - Freewheelin' by Humana

Sept:
Republican National Convention (Minneapolis & St. Paul) - Freewheelin'
St. Xavier Univ. (Chicago) - Veolia
Montreal - Public Bike System by Stationnement de Montreal

It's going to be a busy fall, bike-share fans!

image credit: Getty Images

July Update on D.C. Bike-sharing Program

There continue to be delays with the electrical hook-up of the bike-sharing stations by the local energy provider, PEPCO. Seven of the 10 stations are completed, however, three still remain unpowered, stalling the launch date of SmartBike D.C. to August.

For a sneak peak of how the bikes will be checked-out, here's a piece on bicycling's rise in America by NBC News.

Rebirth of Bicycling in the U.S.

D.C.'s Bicycle Program Manager, Jim Sebastian
at a new SmartBike DC station

Forty years ago at this very intersection of 14th and U Streets Northwest in Washington, D.C., riots broke out after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. The commercial corridors of both streets burned for three days. This neighborhood finally has been rebuilding itself from the ashes of the riots to recapture the hope and dreams it once had. Today the U Street neighborhood is one of the hottest neighborhoods in D.C. with some of the best restaurants, bars, and entertainment the city has to offer.

At this very same intersection is America's first bike-sharing station and the rebirth of bicycling in the United States. With this I hope we can rebuild American society from the auto-dominated car culture we've developed since World War II into a progressive and eco-friendly society that is transit-dominated and pedal-powered, not fossil-fuel powered.

The 10 SmartBike DC racks are popping up throughout the city with a soft launch expected in April (maybe Earth Day?) and the full launch in May. The stations are not powered yet, nor are bikes available. This, and the future of bicycling in the U.S., should all change in the next few weeks.

image credit: Jim Sebastian

Wheels4Wellness in the House

Dan Beard, Chief Administrative Officer of the
U.S. House of Representatives, with Representative
Earl Bluemenauer (Oregon) in background

This past week saw the National Bike Summit here in Washington, D.C. where advocates, transportation professionals, and others came together to discuss all things bike-related and share ideas. There, the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives made an announcement about their plans for an employee bike fleet. BikePortland.org
reports:

"Just hours after news outlets reported that oil prices have hit an all-time record high, at a rally for the National Bike Summit on Capitol Hill this morning, Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Dan Beard, Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, announced a new [employee] bike-sharing program. Dubbed 'Wheels4Wellness,' the new program will initially place 30 bikes at three locations around the U.S. House offices on Capitol Hill and will be available for free to the House’s 7,000 DC-based employees."

"Beard says they hope to have the program in place by Earth Day (April 22) and that 'Plan B' would be to have it ready by National Bike Week (May 31st)."

While not of Velib' size, it's an important start for the nation which will lead to bigger and better things, such as the 435 elected representatives and their staffs taking the concept with them back to their home jurisdictions.

The audio of the House announcement can be found here.

photo credit: Office of Representative Blumenauer

SmartBike DC Program Website

At a recent presentation about the SmartBike DC program, it was announced the program will launch in Spring 2008. The program had been set for a March launch, however, there had been some minor setbacks due to the local power company wanting to meter each individual station rather than charge a flat rate per station.

According to the new SmartBike DC Website, bikes will be available from 6am - 10pm daily. While equivalent in operating hours with a bus or rail transit system, these hours are curious for an automated system and I could only guess what the rationale is - alcohol, crime? The bikes are certainly equipped with dynamo lights on the front and rear for safe night riding. As The Bike-sharing Blog reported on February 8 with data from Paris officials, a quarter of Velib's use is during the hours of 9pm - 3am. So it would seem prudent if D.C.'s program were kept open at all times with the goal being to encourage greater use as 25% is a substantial portion of ridership.

Customers will be able to use the bikes for up to 3 hours at a time. If returned after 3 hours, a penalty point will be assessed to the individual's account. After 3 penalty points, the customer is prevented from checking-out another bike. Additionally, there will be a $200 replacement fee for lost or stolen bikes. This is a generous policy for customers as it's more time than most of this program's sister cities offer. The downside of a longer check-out time is less turnover of the bikes and therefore fewer uses. Velib' data reports the average trip duration is 20 minutes for their 30-minute free period.

Stations will be located at Logan Circle, Metro Center, Dupont Circle, U Street, Shaw, Foggy Bottom, Gallery Place, McPherson Square, and Mt. Vernon Place. The closest distance between adjacent stations is about 0.2 mi (0.3 km), the furthest distance is 0.9 mi (1.5 km).

image credit: Wikipedia

Update on DC SmartBike Program

The goal for launching Washington, D.C.'s bike-sharing program, "DC SmartBike" is in March 2008. This will likely be the first 3rd generation (high-tech) bike-sharing program in North America. The pilot will include 120 bikes, 10 stations, and is to be run by Clear Channel Adshel, the provider of Bicing.

The annual membership fee is likely to be $39 and the first 3 hours of each rental will be free. This fee seems reasonable, however, with 3-hr rentals, turnover and therefore ridership will be limited as individuals will likely keep the bikes longer.

The proposed station locations include: Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, Dupont Circle, U Street, Shaw, Mt. Vernon Square, Metro Center, Logan Circle, McPherson Square, and Gallery Place. The District Department of Transportation has produced a map of the proposed locations for more detail.

As the program is a pilot with fewer bikes and stations, there is a need to space the stations out more to cover a greater area and serve a larger population. However, I'm concerned that the stations will be spaced out too much. The service area is about 4 square miles (10.4 square kilometers) and in some cases the nearest station would be 1 mi (1.6 km) away. If I'm riding and my destination station is full, I'd be frustrated if I had to return the bike at the next closest station and figure out how to get back to my original planned destination. European programs aim to have stations every .2 mi (.3 km) and the DC program will have 5 times this.

I predict that DC SmartBike will be popular with Washingtonians, however, I'd like to see a few tweaks to make it even moreso.

image credit: Washington, D.C. District Department of Transportation