Nice Ride's survey results were released today and the numbers are impressive. According to Nice Ride, there were 100,817 total trips taken within the first season's five months of operating. These trips were taken by 1,295 1-year members, 89 30-day members, and 29,077 taste-testers, or 24-hr members.
Regarding theft and vandalism, it's clear that Minnesotans and Minneapolis' visitors are honest and good riders and drivers. There were only two bikes lost and three incidents of vandalism causing damage greater than $100. Take THAT, Paris with its horrendous theft and vandalism record! (I'm only kidding, j'aime Paris.) Also, there were no reports of injury and only one reported crash.
The survey (found here) covers 1-year and 30-day members and was sent out to about 1,300 addresses of which about 680 responded. There's tons of good data in there, however, what drew my interest was the following question:
"Please recall the most recent trip you took using a Nice Ride bicycle. If you had not used a Nice Ride bicycle, how would you have otherwise made this trip"
| Value | Count | Percent % |
|---|---|---|
| I would have walked | 258 | 37.9% |
| I would have taken public transit (bus or light rail) | 138 | 20.3% |
| I would have taken a taxi | 18 | 2.6% |
| I would have driven a car | 132 | 19.4% |
| I would have gotten a ride in someone's car | 5 | 0.7% |
| I would have used my personal bicycle | 56 | 8.2% |
| I would not have taken the trip | 62 | 9.1% |
| Other (please specify) | 12 | 1.8% |
Nearly 20% would have driven. That's outstanding and is quite higher than other cities' mode shift percentages from bike-sharing, which includes Lyon, France with only about 4% shifting away from driving, according to the NICHES publication on bike-sharing. Not too shabby. The survey should be very helpful to jurisdictions around the world who don't have bike-sharing yet get funding for such services as they really do work.
I would have used my own bike for most trips, but it's nice to not have to worry about my bike when I got places. Sometimes I would ride my bike to the bikeshop to have some work done, and hop on a Nice Ride to get home. I did meet people vacationing in town who skipped renting a car when they heard about Nice Ride. They loved it.
ReplyDeleteI also heard they just received some challange $ from Blue Cross to expand the system, so things are looking up!