The Bike-sharing World - Second Week of August 2012

NORTH AMERICA:
USA:

      Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville, Massachusetts 

Installation of new station in Somerville

August 8, 2012 marks the first major expansion of The Hubway in the Boston metropolitan area. The Hubway is now a regional system rather than a city system. There are a total of 77  bike-share stations of which 64 are in Boston, two in Brookline, eight in Cambridge and three in Somerville. By the end of this season, the regional system will include 111 stations and 1,100 bikes. To celebrate, according to the Boston Globe, the system had an all day "Rolling Lauch Party" with events in each of the municipalities. With each new area having its own new stations and a new web presence, the system is now just called The Hubway instead of New Balance Hubway.

 

Speaking of expansions, over this summer, both Nice Ride Minnesota and Capital Bikeshare have made extensive increases in the amount of bikes and stations in their respective systems. Nice Ride, now in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, has gone from 700 bikes in 65 stations at its start to around 1,350 bikes in about 145 stations today. Capital Bikshare in Arlington, Virginia and Washington, D.C. started with 1,100 bikes in 114 stations and now has close to 1,500 bikes in 179 stations.

                               Denver, Colorado

Make a reservation for a Denver B-cycle. Is this the start of something really big in the evolution of bike-sharing? For the upcoming Denver Ciclovia, Viva Streets 2012, on August 12, Denver B-cycle is taking advance reservations for annual members to put a bike on hold. Just fill out this form with the number from your B-cycle card. The Bike-sharing Blog would like to hear from people who use this special service about your experience.

                              Chattanooga, Tennessee

An article in The New York Daily News seems to imply that the Chattanooga Bicycle Transit System is where the future of bike-sharing for New York City and even the world will be found. It could be that Chattanooga will be the testing ground for new technologies for systems the same as Citi Bike. So let us sit back and relax and watch what unfolds in this story one transaction at a time.

                             Chicago, Illinois

                                                              photo Lloyd Alter

Bike-sharing will not be coming to Chicago before next year. "Rather than rush to get the bikes on the street … we are looking to launch in the spring so we can ensure that we do this right, and have the infrastructure and planning fully in place so the program is a success from Day One," read the message from Peter Scales, spokesperson for Chicago's Department of Transportation, sent to the Chicago Sun Times. The paper also reports that he denied that the delay was connected to the ongoing investigation by the Chicago Inspector General to the claim, by a losing bidder, that the contract awarded for the City's bike-share system was tainted by a conflict of interest. He also denied that although Chicago is planning to use the same system as New York City, the delay there did not affect the delay in Chicago.

CANADA:
                          Quebec



Although Citi Bikes are not rolling along the streets of New York City so far this summer as planned, they are rolling off the assembly line at a very fast pace. These smiling workers at Devinci Cycles put un peu d'amour (some love) in each of the bikes they are sending to New York City.

EUROPE:
IRELAND:
                        Dublin

Dublinbikes will start to triple its size from 550 bikes to 1,500 bikes by the end of this year. If all goes as planned, according to The Irish Times, 56 new stations will be installed before the end of 2012. This is to be the beginning of a five-year plan to increase the size of one of the most successful bike-sharing systems in the world to 5,000 bikes in 300 stations. This is not bad for city with a population of a little over 500,000 people. There are currently around 46,000 long-term subscribers to dublinbikes. Daily usage is still around 13 times per bike per day according to Cycling in Dublin. That's high by any standard.

images: Somerville, Nice Ride, The Bike sharing Blog, Denver, Summer Stock, Broadway, Performance Bikes, dublinbikes

Russell Meddin         bikesharephiladelphia.org

Dublin City Council Approves Tenfold Expansion of Bike-sharing

The City Council of Dublin, Ireland yesterday approved a tenfold expansion of the Dublin bike-sharing program from 500 to 5,000 bikes, according to the Irishtimes. The wildly successful Dublinbikes is one of the most popular bike-sharing systems in Europe. Many of the current 450 bikes are being used around 10 times a day.

The approval foresees the expansion over five years. The number of bike stations will grow from today's 40 to nearly 300. The JCDecaux system in operation since September 2009, has signed up more than 47,000 subscribers. That is over 100 subscribers per bike. By comparison Paris has around 8 per bike and Washington, DC around 5 subscribers per bike. For many of those Dublinbikers, even with the snow, 5 years can't come soon enough!

image: December 2, 2010 Scholastic Geometry by Mark Dennehy

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Dublin Gearing Up to Bike

According to The Irish Times, on September 13, JCDecaux will be launching dublinbikes in Dublin, Ireland. As the country's premiere bike-sharing program, the program should consist of 450 bikes with 40 stations.

The service will be available between the hours of 5:30 a.m. and 12:30 a.m. This could miss out on the roughly 25% of the uses Velib' receives during the night when other transit services are closed.

With Dublin's population of roughly 507,000, the program's introduction of a fleet of 450 bikes will be significantly less than Paris' fleet of 20,600 in a city of 2,200,000. However, while thinking small, Jim Keoghan from the city council states, "We're hoping it is a success and it will be expanded."

TreeHugger points out, "Dublin isn't widely recognized as a cycling city," however, they want to change this. The service's website notes that cycling "is up 30% in recent years and [dublinbikes] can only make it easier for people to make more sustainable transport choices." In addition, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, a Green party member, has been keen on improving the city's cycling infrastructure and number of people commuting by bike" with a promise of €5 million being spent this year on cycling infrastructure improvements.

image credit: dublinbikes

In Time for St. Patrick’s Day?

The Irish Sunday Times is reporting that Dublin will open its bike-sharing program in March. The system will be a JCDecaux Cyclocity program with 450 bikes and 50 stations in central Dublin.

There has been controversy with this advertising-financed program. Many of the advertising panels' 120 locations were met with opposition by citizens throughout greater Dublin. However, enough of the panels have been approved by the Dublin City Council to let the bike-sharing begin. So with the “Luck of the Irish”, bike-sharing will be a hit on the emerald isle.

by Russell Meddin, Bike Share Philadelphia

Image credit: About.com