Washington DC Gets Bike Sharing - Where's Ours?

I'd definitely take advantage of a bike sharing system, even if own my own. It's nice not having to worry about locking your bike up with 5 different locks. But I think the key for it working is to have it as widely available as possible. If they only have it in a few places, I can see it failing badly.

Dublin are finding out the hard way that when you get in bed with the ad companies you get bitten, not least when city staff advice is questionable.
http://www.village.ie/Ireland/Environment_&_Planning/Controversial_billboard_deal_with_Dublin_City_Council/
http://ireland.archiseek.com/news/2008/000134.html

It's unlikely that Toronto will be able to negotiate a deal with any company other than Astral because of their 20 year contract, unless it was done by having the bikes stored internally to TTC stations or something, and that would mean dealing with TTC's advertiser.

If bikesharing is important, fund it from a levy on parking spaces - don't hand it to the ad lobby who have screwed us enough already.

Checking the math. It says Paris has "20,000 available bikes (...) and it's been cited that the program has resulted in a 10 time increase in bike usage across the city.

So Paris previously had fewer than 2,000 bikes in use?

A 10x increase in USAGE does not necessarily mean that there were 10x fewer bikes.

Thanks Jerrold, you beat me to it. Don't look for errors in the numbers just for the sake of it :)

The point is that that the system over in Paris is getting people *using* bikes. It's raising awareness that getting around by bike is not only quick, but economical as well.

Then don't quote erroneous numbers just for the sake of it. :)

Diane, you're bad at math.

If there are 20,000 additional SHARED bikes, and say ten different people ride each one, that's 200,000 new cyclists. That puts the number of cyclists pre-implementation at 20,000 for a 10x increase. I'm guessing there are way more than ten borrowers for each bike, but you get the idea.

A major reason why it's so successful in Paris is because the city actually has dedicated bike lanes, unlike Toronto.

Until our city makes it safer to bike around the core without the fear of slamming into an opening car door, I don't see it being a viable alternative to the subway for most commuters.

Thanks for the link to Take The Tooker.

Carl, if you're concerned about the lack of bike lanes, you should join the Bells On Bloor Ride May 25th.

Here's more info on the stats:

From the Velib website (en francais)
Translated on the BikeSharing Blog

# Trips to date: 20 million
# Average trips/day: 70,000
# Average trip time: 18 minutes
# 190,000 annual pass holders
# 42% of users are female, 58% are male
# 1/3 of users come from outside the central city
# 17% of users are 46+ years old
# 94% of users like the service

joe, thanks for clearing this up.

If the program accounts for an additional 70,000 trips a day, a tenfold increase means that there were almost 7,000 trips a day previously.

(This still seems a tad low, but I haven't been to Paris since the '80s, so the balance may have shifted to cars in the interim.)

Very impressive! Anybody know how many bike trips Toronto can boast?

the city of toronto did have a bike sharing program up until a few years ago, the bikes where painted yellow and where at various locations in the downtown core, unfortunately just like every other city program it was under funded and the bikes were not well maintained and eventually they killed the
program

I'm just wondering if the city's topography has an influence on the use of bicycles.

The hill that separates the lower town from the St. Clair area and the gradients of some of the streets would have an influence . . shouldn't they?

Paris and Dublin don't have the grades or slopes that Toronto has and that should be an underpinning factor that influences some persons' decision to bike to work.

John, yes as I mentioned above it was called BikeShare and was funded by OPG (privately).

David I firmly believe this is one of those "if you build it they will come" kind of circumstances. If you check out Paris and DC's implementation, it's dead simple and really slickly implemented with automated stations.

If you make the barrier to entry easy enough, people will be all over it.

Where's our bike sharing program? It got repainted and sold for $30 at 3 am outside Union station.

Victoria found they had that problem to an insurmountable extent, how are these successful cities avoiding it? Bike Sharing in Toronto sounds like iPod Sharing or Car Radio Sharing or Sexy New Nikes Sharing or Wallet Full Of Money Sharing or...

My brother lives in Paris. There have been 2 or 3 Metro (public transportation) strikes in the past 10 months. He joined the bike program and that's how he moved around on those days. This may have had an influence on the increase in average number of trips.

What if they made the bikes structurally different than a standard bike. A differently shaped cross bar or something. What would be more expensive, having bikes custom built for the program, or losing bikes to theft?

Ryan are you saying that giving them a unique design, they'd be less likely to be stolen? The only possible way that would happen is if thieves were deterred from stealing it by knowing that they presumably wouldn't be able to get them serviced at their local bike shop.

I think the electronic tracking systems in place in these cities is an effective way of curbing theft. With DC's system, riders are responsible for the bikes and are charged $200 if it goes missing.

As long as the stations are secure enough to prevent theft, I like the idea of putting the onus on the rider.

Who would steal a bike that would be instantly recognized as a stolen one as they rode around? (Assuming they didn't leave the paintjob the same and let people think they are just taking part of the program) Also, who would buy a bike they knew was a stolen rideshare one knowing they'd be instantly recognized?

No bike (or car or house, etc) is theft proof. You just have to make it less desirable for them to steal your stuff than other peoples'.

If someone is going to steal a bike, would they rather take one that is easily accessable, but difficult to sell or use for themselves, or one that is harder to steal, but easier to sell or claim as your own?

I think that depends a lot on the factors involved. If a bike is unique enough and if the city really goes to town advertising the service (so people would recognize the bikes when they saw them), then I think it would be just a deterant as electronic tracking systems, if not moreso.

Who is to say that the tracking system can't be physically removed from the bike or that people wouldn't be able to use fake credit cards (much like the green P parking)?

Maybe those rickety, fenderless, chainguard-lacking yellow crapola bikes left a bad taste in my mouth, but...

I'd much rather see the energy go into promoting cycle-friendly road improvements and mass OWNERSHIP of simple bikes.

Or maybe I just don't like to share.

Ryan L: I'm not sure how I'd recognize a cycling theft as opposed to a legitimate user cruising the roads. As you say, they could just leave it as it is and people would assume they're simply participating in the program.

Unless shared bikes MUST be parked at a designated station only, and not simply locked to a ring post. That, however, would make them not terribly useful -- cyclists might still need to dash in somewhere on the way to a more prominent destination.

Reading over the usage agreement for DC, there's nothing that specifies where you can lock up the bike during the time where you're renting it - only that you're penalized if it's lost or stolen.

So it's really up to you. That's why I say making them visually distinctive for the purposes of deterring theft is not a particularly effective strategy. Doing so to raise awareness about the bikes is though.

Actually, I believe in Paris you can only park them in their designated places. But apparently they're all around anyway.

Having a bike available for little or no cost would be great. The cost can be raised by selling ad space, an extra levy on parking lots, whatever - just do it!
It would be easier than building hundreds of lockable bike stations, carrying a folding bike on the train or using bike racks on buses - you just drop it off.
It has to be done on a grand scale like in Paris, don't give us crappy junk like those ugly yellow bikes we had.