Capital Bikeshare - Less Driving, Money Saved

The Washington, D.C. region's Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) service released the third-party analysis of its 2011 member survey yesterday and it has some impressive results. Analysis shows that members save an average of $891 per year and collectively reduce their driving miles by 5 million annually.

Other highlights include:

• 83% of respondents said they were more likely to patronize a business that was CaBi-accessible
• 82% of respondents reported increased bike use since joining Capital Bikeshare and 70% said CaBi was an important reason for this
• CaBi was a major or main factor for 56% who reduced car use

Over 5,000 CaBi annual members responded to the survey questionnaire during November - December 2011. The survey and executive report have been made available by Arlington County and Washington, D.C., which administer the bike transit service.

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Nice Ride Minnesota Survey Results

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.