The Bike-sharing World Mid-November 2012

NORTH AMERICA:
USA

San Diego, California:

Decobike at Petco Ball Park San Diego

San Diego is to be decorated with bike-sharing from Decobike.

Today the City of San Diego announced in a press release that it has picked Decobike, the master of ocean side bike-sharing, to provide the city with a new program. Covering the area stretching from La Jolla to Downtown San Diego along the coast, there will be 1,800 bikes in 180 stations to start. Projected schedule to launch the system is Fall 2013. It is to be a comprehensive system with about 4 stations on average per 2.5 km² (one square mile) and a bicycle to resident ratio of about 1 to 155 in the areas served.. This will position San Diego to become one of North America's most utilized bike sharing programs. With Decobike picked for San Diego, Southern California is no longer being considered a reservation of Bike Nation.

Fullerton, California:

Speaking of Bike Nation, more of the Los Angeles basin will be covered by Bike Nation. This week Fullerton, California picked Bike Nation to develop it's bike-sharing pilot program of 165 bikes in 15 stations. It hopes to expand this program to 515 bikes in 50 stations in two phases. No start date was stated in the announcement. Bike Nation now has programs planned for Anaheim, Fullerton, Los Angeles, Venice and Westwood California.

Long Beach, New York:

Green Decobike Station on shattered boardwalk

Speaking of DecoBike, when Hurricane Sandy hit Long Beach, NY, it tore up the ocean side boardwalk, but left this green Decobike Station standing. Before the hard hurricane winds, Decobike removed the bikes and put them into safe storage. All the stations have survived, but it will be a little time before the boardwalk is replaced and the Decobikes will begin rolling again.

New York City, New York:

Citi Bike Storage Building 293

Speaking of Hurricane Sandy, reports in the New York Times and New York Post indicate that the first floor storage area of the Brooklyn Navy Yard building where the hundreds of bikes and stations for New York's Citi Bike program are housed, took in between 1.5 and 2 meters (4 to 6 feet) of water with the Hurricane's ocean surge. A NYCDOT spokesperson indicated that there was damage to the equipment, but it was too early to determine the extent of the problem.
We all hope that there will be no further delay in deployment of Citi Bikes.

Update: According to the Montreal Gazette, a spokesperson for the equipment supplier to the Citi Bike program said that hundreds of bikes and many stations suffered damage from the hurricane. The article also indicated that before the hurricane, ongoing test of the program's software, which had delayed the start of Citi Bike in July, were not going well.

Boston, Massachusetts:

Boston's regional bike-share, The Hubway, held a contest to determine the best visualization of the trip data for 500,000 of its rides. The Hubway Data Visualization Challenge has announce the winners. The First Place award goes to Ta Chiraphadhanakul. All the other winners can been seen on the Data Visualization web page. There were 67 entries all of which are very good. We're sorry our friend Ollie didn't make the top 10!


images: NBC 7, Decobike, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Hubway, Bike Nation

Russell Meddin       bikesharephiladelphia.org

The Bike-sharing World - Mid-September 2012

EUROPE

United Kingdom:
London:

Barclays Cycle Hire is planning to increase its size by 25% with an expansion into west London next year. Speaking to the press, Mayor Boris Johnson said, "Every Londoner should be able to take advantage of our hugely popular and iconic Barclays Cycle Hire scheme which has already brought untold benefits to London's commuters, businesses, and visitors alike." The plan will bring 2,400 more bikes in 200 new stations to boroughs of Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Lambeth and Kensington, and Chelsea according to Transport for London.

France:
Strasbourg:

A colloquium, "Bike-sharing: Where are we now?" was held in Strasbourg this week. Representatives from all over France as well as parts of Germany and Switzerland participated. One of the interesting concepts that was discussed is the idea that bike-sharing is a new form of communication. The economist Frédéric Héran, who teaches at the University of Lille, posits that bike-sharing is a way our cities "communicate" about themselves showing that they are vibrant and "trendy." There were also discussions on the change bike-sharing has brought to adhering cities. Most of which were very positive. There were also lively discussions on the relative cost of programs to cities.

Paris:

A Paris police spokesman said that "a large number of investigators" were working to solve a reported form of "class warfare" vandalism to Paris' wildly successful bike-share system. After 50 Vélib' tires were slashed, according to the report, a group claimed that it planned to vandalize the bikes in all areas of the city that were not in working class districts. The police do not view these claims to be inflated and are working tirelessly to stop any more incidents. 


NORTH AMERICA:
Mexico:
Mexico City:

Seventy-two more Ecobici stations are up and running in Mexico City this week as the system opens the start of its Phase II expansion. By the end of the year there will 275 Ecobici stations with 4,000 bicicletas rolling around more areas of the City. On Wednesday, the Head of Government for the Federal District of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, cut the ribbon to open this huge expansion of the Ecobici system according to a city press release. With that one snip of the scissors, Ecobici more than doubled its size. It is hopeful that the ridership will almost triple to 73,000 trips a day with this expansion. The system is open only to residents of Mexico City and had been limited no more than 30,000 subscribers. Phase II is expected to allow up to 100,000 subscribers according to Iván De la Lanza of the Ministry of Environment of Mexico City.

USA:
Madison, Wisconsin; Denver, Colorado and Boulder, Colorado:

The B-connected Reciprocity Initiative now includes three B-cycle Cities. Annual subscribers to the Madison, Wisconsin, Boulder, Colorado and Denver, Colorado can use their membership card to take bikes in each other cities. The overage time charges, if any, are at the renting location rates. According to the press release, B-cycle hopes to extend this B-connected Reciprocity Initiative to more of the B-cycle systems in the USA.

Long Beach, California:

Bike Nation the dominate bike-sharing force in the Los Angels Basin has debuted its second generation bike-share bike even before its first generation has hit the streets. In a press release this week Bike Nation shows its new "Made in USA" bike. It expects to create more than 150 new jobs making these bikes to fulfills its plans for the 2,500 bikes in 250 stations for Long Beach, California and the 4,000 bikes in 400 stations for Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Westwood and around Venice Beach, California.  Bike Nation's first deployment of a system which was to begin in Anaheim, California at the end of July, should actually begin operation this month but using the older Bike Nation bike. In Anaheim, there will be 100 bikes in 10 stations to begin, with a goal to increase the size of the system as demand warrants. 

Washington, DC:

For all of you who just can't get enough bike-sharing information, the Pedestrian and Bicycle  Information Center just released the report: Bike Sharing in The United States: State of the Practice and Guide to Implementation. This 68-page report is a good read. The report is available here in PDF form.

ASIA:
Israel:
Tel Aviv:

Reports out of Tel Aviv are that it will not be fun to use Tel-O-Fun on Wednesday, September 26th. Although there is now a compromise, according to The Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Minister of Transportation threatened to stop all funding to Tel-O-Fun if it did not close down for the religious holiday of Yom Kippur -- an important Jewish holiday, on that date. The Jewish religion forbids work on Yom Kippur. The compromise is that on Yom Kippur only annual subscribers will be allowed to use the system; casual members will not.


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: TfL,Strasbourg, Mexico, B-cycle, BikeNation, Tel-O-Fun

Russell Meddin    bikesharephiladelphia.org