Toronto closer to being the 2nd major Canadian City with Bike-sharing

Last night, Autoshare Car-sharing brought Toronto, Canada closer to Bixi Bike-sharing by buying 100 yearly subscriptions to fulfill one of the city government's requirement that 1000 pre-subscribers sign up before proceeding with a bike-sharing program for May 2011. The Toronto plan is to start with 1000 bikes and 80 stations within the Central Business District. Now only another $150,000 CDN ($145,500 US) in yearly sponsorships for each of the next three years must be secured on top of the generous ING three year commitment to fulfill the last requirement before the program can begin.

It will be good to see bike-sharing once more in Toronto!

image: Toronto Bixi

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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Melbourne gets on top of its slow moving bike-sharing

Hats off to Melbourne Bike Share for adding a new dimension to self -service bike-sharing with self-service bike helmet machines. Since it started in June of this year, Melbourne Bike Share has not been as successful as other bike-sharing programs of comparable size, like Denver, Colorado or Dublin, Ireland. Many attributed the slow growth of this system to Australia’s mandatory helmet laws. With these vending machines, it is now easier to use the program without facing a $150 AU ($150 US) fine if you ride without a helmet. In addition, the 24 hour-a-day system has a new agreement with 7-Elevens in Melbourne to sell helmets to users for $5. According the Victorian Government, the helmets can be recycled to the store for $3 cash back. It is hoped that easy accessibility of helmets will encourage greater use of the system.

In other Australian helmet news, there is strong movement to exempt mandatory helmet use for certain types of riding. Over the summer, Sue Abbott won her case in an Australian court not to have to wear a helmet to do her errands in New South Wales. According to bikerumor this could be the start of a “U turn in the Australian helmet law." This would make spontaneous bike-sharing even easier. More Australian news on The Bike-sharing Blog to come.

image: Alta Bicycle Share

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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Where's My Villo?

A group of Brussels residents had concerns about the quality of service that JCDecaux was providing in their town... so they did something about it. On September 6 the group created Where's My Villo? -- Villo! being the name of their bike-sharing service which launched in May 2009 -- to track certain performance measures, including the availability of bikes and parking spaces. The data they use to track performance is that from JCDecaux's Villo! website.

In addition to improving the reliability of the service, Where's My Villo? also asks for JCDecaux "to commit to transparent and easily verifiable service levels" with no station remaining "empty or completely full for more than 60 consecutive minutes." Finally, the team asks for a users' group to assist JCDecaux in evaluating the Villo! service.

Hopefully this will lead to a better service for Brussels. It also can be a learning tool for advocates around the world to assist in pressuring service providers for a better service in their own communities. Soon, maybe Where's My Villo? will no longer need to ask this question as they'll have finally found it.

Budapest's BuBi

Péter from Budapest informs me that Budapest has recently announced the name of its bike-sharing service, set to launch in 2011. The default name of the system had been "KKKR", the Hungarian acronym for Bicycle Public Transport System. The name will be "BuBi", which was selected by a public poll. (That's a much better name. I couldn't imagine asking, "Honey, shall we take the KKKR out to dinner tonight?)

According to the Hungarian News Agency/Greenfo, "The new system will include 1000-1100 bicycles and 70-80 docking stations. It will cover the most densely build-up central part of the city of about 7 square kilometers. The cost of the system is HUF 1.32 billion (EUR 5 million). The system will be installed and managed by Parking Ltd. - a public company in charge of inforcing [sic] of the city's parking policy."

BuBi's beta testing is reported to begin in June 2011 and will be funded in part with European Union funds.

image credit: The Dentist

Switzerland's National Advancement

I had heard of a Spanish effort, either at the regional or national level, to promote bike-sharing that occurred in November 2007. It was a conference solely about bike-sharing. I would have loved to have been there to learn about Spain's advancement of bike-sharing. The country is at or near the top of the list for the sheer number of services it offers, so there's a lot of knowledge individuals there can share.

A new conference was held on September 10 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland called Koordination Bikesharing Schweiz/Coordination Bikesharing Suisse (Swiss Bike-sharing Coordination). According to their website, the organization's purpose is for "The coordination of bike sharing [to] provide an exchange platform around this new bike phenomenon". Switzerland has 30 bike-sharing services using three systems (nextbike, velopass, and Bieler System) in the central and western part of the country (see p.3 of their newsletter).

For more information, check them out. It's great they're being proactive like this. Others countries, including mine(!), should take note.

p.s. - Here's their agenda and newsletter.

Capital Bikeshare - a long road to success

With the launch of Capital Bikeshare today, it’s a day for those of us who worked so hard for so long to celebrate. So much blood, sweat, and tears were put into getting where we are today. Well, there wasn’t any blood, but the sweat and tears will more than make up for this. So many great people worked on putting together Capital Bikeshare and I’m happy MetroBike was able to make this happen for Arlington County and to work with so many great partners, including the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, graphic designers, sponsors, the public, and so many more. It’s also a day for Washingtonians to celebrate. Now a great new way to get around is available. It will help clean our air, lessen traffic congestion, and get folks fit.


It’s so wonderful to see a dream come true. I first learned about bike-sharing in 1995 as a student at the University of Virginia. I was working the graveyard shift as a computer consultant at a computer lab, surfing the Web to pass time until my shift ended at 11pm. It was there that I saw a webpage with two photos of Copenhagen’s Bycyklen, or “City Bikes”, on the screen. The website was very bare -- white background, a couple of paragraphs in English, and those two photos. That was all it took. I found myself studying abroad in Copenhagen the following semester learning more about their 2^nd generation coin-operated system. It was the first large deployment of bike-sharing anywhere in the world. Amsterdam had dabbled in bike-sharing twenty years earlier with a 1^st generation service where bikes were simply left on the street for the public’s use.

Arlington County Board chair, Jay Fisette, speaking at the launch

During my research I kept thinking to myself, “this idea is a win-win -- great for the environment, public health, and in getting folks on bikes. Why hadn’t bike-sharing taken off elsewhere around the world?” When I returned to the U.S., I advocated for bike-sharing, mainly through academic research for my Masters degree, writing some of the very first published articles on the topic. Eventually, just writing about bike-sharing was no longer enough for me. I needed to get my feet wet and begin being more proactive about it. “Be the change you wish to see,” was what Gandhi said, which I took to heart in 2004 when I founded MetroBike, LLC for the purpose of bringing bike-sharing to the U.S. Cycling in the U.S. is only about 1% of all trips in car-dominated America, but why not think big, right? I started The Bike-sharing Blog and The Bike-sharing World Map to continue to educate a wider auidence about the topic and began picking up clients from around the world who heard about bike-sharing and wanted to make it happen in their part of the world.

Paul DeMaio, MetroBike, LLC

When I started the Blog in May 2007, just before Velib’ launched in Paris, there were about 17 bike-sharing services worldwide. Now in 2010 there are about 200. Make that 201 today with Capital Bikeshare! While I’d like to say that The Bike-sharing Blog helped add those 183 new services, I think Paris may have played a slightly larger role with their mega service of over 20,000 bikes. Thank you Paris.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. The same could be said about starting a bike-sharing service. So many people positively shaped this weird idea of renting bikes for a short period of time to take this idea from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and now to Washington, D.C. and Arlington, VA. I guess dreams do come true.

Capital Bikeshare Set to Launch 9/20

You may have noticed that coverage of the launch of Capital Bikeshare has been a bit heavy on The Bike-sharing Blog. My company, MetroBike, LLC, is involved with this new service which will be the largest as well as only year-round and regional program in the U.S., so I've been sharing all the exciting lead up to the launch. I also plan to share data from this service with Bike-sharing Blog readers as it's available.

With the launch of Capital Bikeshare just a few days away, the details are now set and you're invited!

Date: Monday, September 20, 2010

Time: 10:30 AM

Location: Tingey Plaza, located behind the U.S. Department of Transportation Headquarters at 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, D.C. (USA)

Speakers will include D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Arlington County Board Chair Jay Fisette, and likely some yet-to-be-confirmed Federal representatives as well. Did someone say Obama? We didn't invite him as he probably has other things to do (like run the country), but with The White House only about 2 miles away, I think we could add the President to the agenda if he were to show.

After the event, we'll be getting into groups of 5 - 7 Capital Bikeshare members and riding to selected stations to begin populating them with bikes and get back to the office. I hope to see you there!

First Capital Bikeshare Stations Installed

The first two Capital Bikeshare stations were installed today in the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. The remainder of Arlington's 14 stations will be installed over the next three weeks, along with DC's 100 stations.


The installation was seamless with a boom truck arriving to unload the 19-dock station across the street from the Crystal City Metrorail station. Each modular unit was unloaded by the boom operator, while staff shuffled the units into place on the sidewalk. The units were then pushed together and wiring was finished, along with placing the solar panel on top.

Lots of passersby stopped to ask what was going on. Is it a big bike rack? Where are the bikes? How do I join?

Staff in neighboring buildings, people on their way to lunch, and students on their way to class stopped by. Many shared their love of cycling and look forward to using Capital Bikeshare once it's running in late September.


All in all, it was a good day, but hot. It was a Code Red day due to the poor air quality. It's ironic because bike-sharing is one of the tools in the toolbox that will combat climate change in the D.C. region and improve air quality.

TIGER II Redux

This past Friday, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) submitted a request for $12M USD to the U.S. Department of Transportation's TIGER II discretionary grant program for an expansion of the upcoming Capital Bikeshare service. If won, the funding would provide an 80%/20% (Federal/local) match for an expansion of the service within Arlington and D.C., as well as bringing in four adjacent jurisdictions and a large state university into the program.

Capital Bikeshare will launch in September with 1,110 bikes at 114 stations. With TIGER II funding, the service would quickly expand to 3,578 bikes at 431 stations -- a substantial increase -- as early as next spring, making it nearly as large as Montreal's Bixi.

MWCOG's application and cost-benefit analysis can be found online for other regions to benefit from. While MWCOG was putting together this grant application with the assistance of the jurisdictions, it was great to see the region coming together over bike-sharing and bicycling. With many other transport needs, the region chose this project as being our collective future. Now that's exciting.

The TIGER II grant application is a follow-up to the region's TIGER I grant application last year which was unsuccessful at securing funding due to the high demand of projects for the amount of available funding. Hopefully, this time the application will meet with better luck. It does help to include in your grant application a photo of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, giving a thumbs up on one of your demo bikes, like the photo above.

Capital Bikeshare Website is Live

Capital Bikeshare -- Arlington, VA and Washington, DC's upcoming bike-sharing service -- launched its website on August 11 at CapitalBikeshare.com. Memberships are going like hot cakes with over 600 memberships being sold within the first five days of availability.

Membership registration is now available with the first 2,000 month or annual members getting a Founder's Key and Capital Bikeshare t-shirt. Annual membership costs $75 -- with a discounted price of $50 for the time being -- month membership is $25, and day membership for $5, tax included.

With the launch date likely in late September, activity is fast and furious to get everything ready in time. The equipment is arriving at the contractor's warehouse, barriers are being constructed at on-street locations, information panels are being finalized and printed, a demo station and bikes are being showcased at various events around town, and installation in Arlington is to begin next week! I'll be there to record and share here.

It's time to remember what Arlington and D.C. are like now because when CaBi arrives, the urban core of this region will be changed. A new momentum will be in place.

Barclays Cycle Hire - London is Banking on it

This morning at 6 AM, Big Ben, the clock tower over Parliament, chimed the news that London joins other European capitals in the bike-sharing revolution with the introduction of Barclays Cycle Hire. London Mayor Boris Johnson is following the same path as Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë did 3 years ago this month by bringing bike-sharing to his city’s citizens. Although London’s Barclays Cycle Hire is one quarter the size of Paris’ Vélib’, it will be just as transformative.

Following the same formula as most bike-sharing systems, one can subscribe for one day at £1 ($1.55 US), one week at £5 ($7.80 US) or one year at £45 ($70 US). The first 30 minutes are free and then the next 30 minutes of use is £1, and after that the price for keeping the bike escalates very steeply. The cost of the Cycle Hire member “key”, the RFID access card, is £3 ($4.70 US).

For the first month, the system will be open only to members who register online for any level of subscription. To date, about 10,500 people have registered to become "pioneer" members of the scheme. The bikes will not be available for walk-up “casual use” to non-members during this breaking-in period. SERCO, the operator, and Transport for London (TfL) want the bikes to be the very best system possible and to understand how members engage with the scheme. So don’t rush to London and expect to whip out your Barclaycard, Visa, or Master Card at a station and try to grab a bike just yet.

When fitted out, Barclays Cycle Hire will have 6,000 bikes and 400 stations all over central London. Only around 4,800 bikes and 330 stations will available at first (see the map below). The bikes will not have auxiliary locks, so they will need to be re-docked for safe keeping. With the docking stations fairly close to each other, this should not present difficulties. We all know bike-sharing is for short trips anyway!

To help keep trips short, London has just opened up new bike lanes called Barclays Cycle Superhighways to get into and through central London a bit easier and faster. To reduce auto traffic, London’s City Hall sees these new bicycle amenities as a start of many initiatives it can really bank on as is evident by the £25 million (over $39 million US) sponsorship for the bike-sharing and the new bike lanes from Barclays Bank.

Interactive map link

The Cycle Hire bike is similar to the Vélib’ of Paris in size and weight. The bikes are made in Quebec, Canada by Divinci and supplied to London by Public Bike System Company. These same bikes are in service in Montréal, Bixi – BicycleTaxi, Minneapolis, Minnesota - NiceRide, and in Washington, DC and Arlington, VA - Capital Bikeshare in September. The bikes should be sturdy enough for London traffic.

From now on, the streets of London will flow with a new transportation icon: the bike in blue, black, and gray; its place secure with the double decker red bus and the ubiquitous black taxi.

More related London Cycle Hire posts in The Bike-sharing Blog: Banking on Bike Sharing - May 28, 2010, London calling - August 12, 2009, London shifts into high gear - April 30, 2009, Lock up or lock out - April 8, 2009

images: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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Germany's Ruhr Valley Rolling with Metroradruhr

This summer brings a new regional bike-sharing system, Metroradruhr, to ten industrial Ruhr valley cities. Starting on June 18th in Dortmund, Germany the system has now reached five of the cities. Bikes are now or soon will be available in Bochum, Bottrop, Dortmund, Duisburg (site of this week's horrific music festival stampede), Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Hamm, Herne, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Oberhausen. This is not just a series of suburban satellite additions to a larger city system, but a single system connecting nearby cities together. The most similar operation is Italy's Bicincittà, but the cities and stations of Metroradruhr are close enough together to allow bikes to move between cities.

Metroraruhr operates using the neXt bike telephone rental system. As with neXt bike, Metroraruhr has the convenience of reserving bikes for large groups in advance. Registration is required to use the system, but there are no subscriptions. The price is €1 per hour ($1.30 US) for any bike or according to which bike is chosen, starting from €5 per 24 hours ($6.50 US).

Linking an area together with a single bike-sharing system has incredible convenience for the users and strengthens a region's public transit options.

As we all know, Bike-sharing in Germany is really Rad-verleihsystem!

image: Der Westen and metroradruhr

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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First Photos of Capital Bikeshare

The first photos of Capital Bikeshare are in! The prototype bikes look great. Branded to match the D.C. Circulator bus, Capital Bikeshare bikes are red with the Capital Bikeshare logo in yellow on the downtube.


Similar to other bikes in the Bixi Community, your bikes have flashing front and rear LED lights, reflective sidewall tires, adjustable seat post with marked numbers (to help you remember your seat height), and a carrier with bungee cord on the front.

The rear fenders are to be available for a service sponsor of Arlington's 110-bike/14-station portion of Capital Bikeshare, similar to Nice Ride Minnesota's sponsorship by BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota (below). (Prospective sponsors can email me for sponsorship info.)


The launch of Capital Bikeshare is right around the corner in September. The actual launch date is still to be determined. Capital Bikeshare will change Arlington and D.C. forever.


Cross-posted at The CommuterPageBlog.

Capital Bikeshare - D.C. Stations Announced

With Arlington's stations announced in July 7's post "Capital Bikeshare Readying to Ride", Washington's D.C.'s stations were announced today, thereby fleshing out the initial 114 stations of the Capital Bikeshare network. On the District of Columbia's Department of Transportation website, a map of D.C.'s 100 stations is provided covering all eight wards of the city. Downtown is densely covered with stations every couple of blocks with inner neighborhoods also well covered. More distant neighborhoods will have to wait until the service gets more funding, so that D.C.'s network isn't stretched too thin at the launch.

I'm also happy to report that there is a station two blocks from my home. This truly brings a tear to my eye. I lobbied for a station closer to my home, however, didn't want folks entering my living room at all hours of the day and night.

In other news, our temporary CapitalBikeshare.com website is now live. Visit us and leave your email address so we can tell you when registration opens - likely in early August.

Stay tuned... Lots more good stuff happening with Capital Bikeshare!

UPDATE (7/20, 3pm): DDOT will be making live a revised station map later today.

Vélib's 3rd Birthday rolls in with 80 million trips

Three years ago today, the bike-sharing world woke up to a revolution in Paris, France. Although, not the first service in the world, Vélib' was definitely the biggest. It made such a media splash, the entire world started thinking "bike-sharing."

In three years, 80 million trips have been made on these ubiquitous gray bicycles. The system has grown from around 10,000 bikes at 750 stations to 25,000 bikes at 1,800 stations which service all of Paris and its first ring of suburbs. There are 162,000 yearly subscribers to the system, down from a high of 200,000, but subscriber's usage is up over 11% according to Ville Rail & Transport.

There have been growing pains for the system with some maintenance and shrinkage problems. It is no longer the biggest system in the world, that honor goes to the one in Hangzhou, China which has 50,000 bikes. Yet the system is healthy and brings in money to the operator, JCDecaux, and the City of Paris.

The latest statistic show that it is used by everyone from all walks of life: 48% are women and 52% are men, 16% are under the age of 25 and 8% are over the age of 56, and 10% of all users are students. There are rumors of a 30% price increase for the daily and weekly subscriptions this fall, but the price of the yearly subscription is to remain a reasonable €29 ($36.85 US).

Let's celebrate bike-sharing by watching this video on how Vélib' began:

image: AFP/Archives/Philipp Guelland

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org