Hello, San Francisco!

I have been unforgivably bad about posting on this here blog lately. So much has changed since June I don't even know where to begin, so let's just start with the elephant(s) in the room:

I've moved to San Francisco, CA! No need to worry about this blog having a Seattle bias any longer, as we are now broadcasting from the beautiful City by the Bay. Moving to SF was something I'd talked about several months ago, and I'm happy to report this dream is now a reality!

Matt accepted a job at VolunteerMatch, a non-profit clearinghouse that systematically connects other non-profits with volunteers and interns. Located in San Francisco's Chinatown, they are a Craigslist of the non-profit world, if you will. He started this job in mid-July and has been loving it! Seeing him truly enjoy his work and find his niche is so terrific to see.

I finished up my work with SBM on August 4th, after finishing a major safety compliance audit that was like a capstone to my year of employment there. Though due to various circumstances I may not work in the EHS field ever again, it feels good to have both acquired valuable skills through my work with SBM and to have left the position on such a high note.

We made the move down on August 15th and are now living in a kick-ass apartment on Valencia Street! The location of our place could not have been more perfect. Within walking distance of our place are literally hundreds of restaurants, some of the world's best Mexican food, bike shops, renowned fair-trade coffeehouses, more than a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries (not that I intend on visiting them), a major porno film studio, a chiropractor, churches/temples of Greek Orthodox, Vietnamese Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Bahai faiths, and a bar called Zeitgeist which serves San Francisco's best Bloody Mary. For all you real geeks out there, our apartment has a Walkscore of 91 out of 100, above the average San Francisco of 86.

None of this would have happened without the help of our good friend Elyse, who was the previous tenant of our apartment. I happened to stumble upon her Facebook status randomly several weeks ago, where she posted "does anyone want my 2 bedroom apartment on Valencia Street?" I called her immediately and told her to take down that posting right fucking now...and as luck would have it, the place has worked out beautifully! I'm so happy we were 1) able to find a place that met our budget (not an easy feat in the 2nd most expensive rental market in the country); and 2) able to help her move into an even better apartment not two blocks away. Our place has 2 bedrooms, a large kitchen and bathroom, hardwood floors throughout, and my personal favorite feature: the fire escape :) Call me cheesy, call me a stupid boho romantic, but our fire escape kicks ass! I'm still getting used to the noise factor (a.k.a. sleeping with earplugs) and the tight quarters, but what better intro to city living could you ask for than living in a traditional San Francisco apartment in the heart of the city's action?

In the week and a half since moving here, I've made it my personal mission to savor as much of the city as possible before I resume my previous existence as a boring white-collar professional. If there is one San Francisco trait that overwhelms me more than anything else, it is the sensation of being a completely square country-bumpkin surrounded by sophisticated city people. I'm learning more and more that Seattle only thinks of itself as cosmopolitan, and San Francisco is truly its muse. Even the densest Seattle neighborhoods of Capitol or Belltown hardly scratch the surface of San Francisco's great urban environments.

Nearly everyone I've met here thinks I'm a moron for bringing my car into the city. With public transit so good and such high density, wouldn't having a car be too much of a liability? They do have a point, as the meter maids here are ruthless; I managed to get three parking tickets in one week the last time I was here! Granted, I was able to find a parking spot in the Castro for $100/month and my car is paid off, so I'm not complaining too much. The car is at least a 20-minute walk from our apartment, so it adds an extra inconvenience for daily commuting. But regardless, I think there is a certain freedom that having a car nearby offers you. What if I need to travel to a Bay Area suburb not covered by BART? What if I want to make a weekend trip to Muir Woods or Santa Cruz?

Or perhaps the most relevant question considering we just moved in: how the hell are you supposed to get to IKEA without a car? You can't say you've broken your apartment in until your first trip to IKEA! We got a bookshelf, end table, and bathroom cabinet there this past weekend so we're golden on that front. On the other hand, the ability to not need to drive on a daily basis here is quite liberating; the city is compact enough to make nearly everything no more than a twenty-minute walk away. Am I guilty of wanting to have my cake and eat it, too? You be the judge.

In matters more pertinent to this blog, I tested out a key piece of San Francisco bike infrastructure today, also known as the "Wiggle". The "Wiggle" is a highly-trafficked bike corridor leading directly from my apartment on Valencia Street through Duboce Triangle, Lower Haight, Panhandle, and finally Golden Gate Park. The genius of the Wiggle is that it completely avoids the otherwise daunting hills of San Francisco that are a major obstacle in certain neighborhoods. The route is safe and includes a special left-turn lane dedicated to bikes, something I'd never seen before. Streetfilms does a great piece on the Wiggle; what makes the route unique is that it's officially designated with signage throughout, almost like a dedicated path cutting through the heart of the city.



I'm looking forward to volunteering with the bicycle culture here locally, perhaps through the SF Bike Coalition. San Francisco is set to select a vendor for its bike-sharing system sometime this fall, so I'll be sure to keep you updated on that. Despite the temptation of multiple bike shops on Valencia Street, I will NOT be getting a fixie anytime soon. Very happy with my Bianchi, thank you!

On a more practical note, I have an interview with Eventbrite tomorrow for a CSR position. After several weeks of intensive job searching, I can say there is definitely no recession in this city! Wish me luck!

Here's to new beginnings in an incredible new city :)

Five Things Every Mayor Should Know Before Starting a Bike-Sharing Program

With all the focus I've given on this blog to bike-sharing programs around the world, I figured it would be good to share this piece on what city leaders need to do to make sure their bike-sharing program is a success. The author, Paul DeMaio, is the founder of MetroBike, LLC, perhaps the world's only "bike-share consultant." As I'm looking into graduate schools for a Masters in Urban Planning, bike-sharing is emerging as one of the most important trends sweeping across the world's cities. It's definitely something I'd like to become more involved with as the programs grow from their incubation periods into a fully mature part of our transit infrastructure. This post originally appeared on Shareable:

Interest in bike-sharing services is growing around the world. With each successful service, there is more interest from communities within a region, state, province, and country for more bike-sharing services. Before implementing a bike-sharing service, it’s important for public officials and staff to consider the following:
1) Be a bike-friendly community first.Your community should be bike-friendly first with a dense network of bike facilities, such as cycle tracks, bike lanes, and trails. This network of bike facilities will enable bicycle riders and your future bike-sharing customers to easily and safely travel through your community by bike. The League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly America Yearbook offers examples of what other communities have done to become bike-friendly. Many communities with bike-sharing services also have high Bicycle Friendly Community ratings and include: Arlington, VA, Washington, DC, Minneapolis, and Denver. As you implement a bike-sharing service, your community should strive to be at least a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community.
2) Bike-sharing is not cheap, so secure sufficient funding.By implementing a bike-sharing service, you’re launching a new transit service. It may be less expensive to purchase and operate than a bus or rail service, but sufficient funding is required to make it successful. While the types of bike-sharing systems vary, costs can be up to $5,000 per bike for capital and operating expenses can range from $100 - $200 per bike per month. A service with a couple hundred or thousand bikes is pricey. However, while implementing a service is not cheap, bike-sharing can be a cost-effective public transport option.
3) Size and density matter.A bus service with a solitary bus or just a couple of stops will only be accessible by a limited number of people—those living, working, or playing near the stops. The same can be said for bike-sharing, as the greater the number of bikes and the wider the network of stations translates into a more successful service. Station density should be such that a customer can find a station every couple of blocks. In fact, a bike-sharing service’s usefulness will increase geometrically with each additional station as each station expands the reach of your service by better connecting places into this new transit system.
4) Get private sector sponsors.Bike-sharing lends itself to public-private partnerships. Private organizations can assist the implementing agency by sponsoring the service or purchasing a station for outside of their worksite. They also find bike-sharing good for providing their employees a healthy commuting option, making their location more accessible to customers, being environmentally healthy, and promoting a green service. The public benefits by having some of the costs of buying and operating a service covered by private organizations. Whether the implementing agency is a local government or non-profit, both have successfully taken advantage of sponsorship to help expand their service’s reach.
Barclays Bank sponsored Barclays Cycle Hire in London to the tune of $40M. BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota sponsored Nice Ride Minnesota in Minneapolis with $1.75M and has offered up to a $1.5M match for expansion of the service. For bike-sharing implementers, private engagement can expand a service in a cost-efficient way -- creating a win-win for both parties.
5) Don’t do it alone, work regionally.Bike-sharing can produce the greatest benefits when done regionally, which is why the Paris and Washington, DC areas have regional services. For commuting trips, bike-sharing is ideal for the first-mile/last-mile challenge of getting folks to and from longer haul transit services. Implementing a service takes a lot of work, but sharing the workload, and expenses, among multiple jurisdictions helps a great deal. Additionally, it’s important that jurisdictions within a region have the same, compatible service, so riding from one jurisdiction to another is smooth and makes for a pleasant customer experience.
With the number of bike-sharing services in the U.S. and worldwide rapidly increasing each year, bike-sharing has proven effective at serving the public well for short urban trips as well as complementing other modes of transit. However, like any other transit mode, there are pitfalls both shared with other transit modes and unique to bike-sharing which should be avoided to ensure a successful and well-used service. Following this advice will get your jurisdiction rolling in the right direction.

Via: The Bike Sharing Blog

Bike-Only Boulevards: This Would Be Portland's Idea...

In Seattle, late February marks the unofficial start of biking season, because let's be honest, everyone except the most hardcore bike commuters and Critical Mass-types among us has pretty much had their bike sadly rusting away in storage since late October.

So in honor of this, I dusted off my 15-year-old Trek hybrid bike, which had been sitting in my apartment's front doorway almost unused since I moved here in...gulp....September! I'm a terrible cyclist - terrible, terrible, terrible. Bicycling used to be a big part of my life, the one type of exercise I never wanted to quit, the way I discovered new neighborhoods anywhere I went. Hell, a 60-mile ride around Lake Washington was a "training ride" at one point for me not so long ago. I promise to redeem myself this year by doing two things:

1) Train for and do STP, the annual 10,000 rider-strong race from Seattle to Portland. I did STP two years and absolutely loved it!!! There's free food and drinks every 20 miles (a drop in the bucket compared to the 200 miles between the two cities), and my favorite part about it - getting tranced out on my iPod the whole f*cking way there. Wouldn't do it any other way :-)

2) I will devote more space on Green My Fleet to bike-related issues, like bike infrastructure, bike sharing, upcoming rides and events, and bicycle cultures from around the world.

Riding through one of my favorite cities in the entire world - Valencia, Spain

In deference to ultimatum #2, I found a pretty interesting trend that's emerging among the more left-leaning green circles of - where else ?- Portland, Oregon: bike-only boulevards. What's that, you ask? A street where only bikes are allowed - in America??? Impossible. It has to be the psychotic dream of some deranged  hipster twat with chronic anomie and gauged ears! (see below in case you missed the latest episode of Portlandia):



You'd be wrong in thinking that bike-only boulevards are doomed to be an idea of the loony fringe, however. Portland happens to the be the US city with the largest bicycle mode share of 7% (planner-speak for the proportionate ways we get from point A to point B), but it pales compared to bike-friendly cities internationally. European cities take the cake on bicycle population - some 30-35% of all trips are made by bike in most Dutch cities, as well as many cities in France, Germany, and Scandinavia. That most US cities, including Seattle (2% bike mode share), fall way behind Portland is an indictment of our unsustainable transportation system in general.

Portland achieved the success it did by allocating more bike infrastructure - bike lanes, sharrows, bike racks on buses and light rail trains - than any other American city for many years. Portland pioneered the neighborhood bicycle boulevard and the traffic-separated bicycle track that were a first in the US, though hardly elsewhere. A large portion of Portland's large biking population is due not only to its relatively flat geography and outdoorsy culture, but also its 15 neighborhood bicycle boulevards, where traffic is calmed to the point where cyclists almost begin to take precedence over cars.

Recently installed traffic-separated bike track on Manhattan's 9th Avenue, photo courtesy of Seth Holladay of http://www.nycbikemaps.com

Recently, though, Portland's bicycle hegemony may be slipping. Portland was bested by Minneapolis as the most bike-friendly city in America by Bicycle Magazine this past spring. New York City has laid 250 miles of bike lanes in the past three years alone under the partnership between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Meanwhile, bike-sharing systems are sprouting up like weeds across the US, from Washington DC to Denver, San Francisco, and Miami, and Portland is nowhere to be found on this important trend.

Bike-only boulevards represent one of the great bits of uncharted territory for bike infrastructure that Portland and other cities are now looking to tap into. How exactly do you make the transition to a street completely dedicated to bikes? This is something no city in the US can match, and only the densest parts of Amsterdam have any experience with. One of the most important ways to encourage more people to hop on their bikes is to eliminate the threat of riding in traffic, a danger that deters an estimated 60% of "would-be cyclists", that is, people who say they would like to ride their bikes as their primary mode of transport but choose not to.

So by this measure, all of the previous bike infrastructure we've ever experimented with doesn't even come close to meeting people's needs. Bike lanes are often narrow, rarely continuous, and provide zero safety if cars are speeding just inches away from you at 40 miles an hour or more. Most streets lack the space for a dedicated bicycle track, so this option does little for us. Bike paths built on railroad spurs, like Seattle's Burke Gilman, are fun recreational spaces but impractical as commuting paths because they are difficult to integrate with the street network and can only be built where there was once a railroad. Sharrows don't even pretend to give you any space as a cyclist - rather than allocating any street width for bikes, they just paint a bicycle on the asphalt to "warn cars" that bikes might be nearby. Big help that is...

There's already a great deal of evidence in support of bike-only boulevards. The city of Bogota, Colombia, regularly sees almost two million people use its 100-mile plus system of bicycle boulevards that are closed on Sundays as part of its Ciclovia (Spanish for "bike-highway"). Los Angeles copied the event with its own CicLAvia series and likewise saw a huge increase in people out on their bikes. Why? Because the bike-only boulevards remove car traffic and finally make people feel safe being on their bikes.

As cities grapple with how to become more sustainable, we're set with some very big goals to achieve. San Francisco aims to have 20% of its residents moving by bike in just ten years, by 2020. Portland is aiming even higher, 25% bicyclists by the same year. It might just take something otherwise considered radical to hit targets like these. The San Francisco Bike Coalition is lobbying the city's Board of Supervisors to install 27 miles of bike-only boulevards that connect the most important commercial and transit hubs. I can only suspect a proposal like this would cost far less than what the city has spent so far on who knows how many bike lanes.

The bike-only boulevard trend is even spreading to cities as ass-backwards as Seattle. A "neighborhood greenway", borrowing Portland's granola terminology, is planned for the NE 45th St. corridor in Wallingford.

Will these bike-only boulevards work as truly functional transit arteries, and not just a fun Sunday recreational pastime? If the two boulevards installed in London recently are any indication, we needn't worry about that. Bicycle traffic went up 70% in less than a year since installation, which speaks volumes about the difference good infrastructure makes in our transportation choices.

In case you needed any more motivation to be on the look out for bike superhighways, check out this statistic:

According to a report from the Political Economy Research Institute, a think tank based out of the federal Department of Transportation, construction on bike and pedestrian infrastructure creates TWICE the number of jobs per dollar spent than road construction. Take that, Tea Party assholes!

Moving Beyond the Automobile

I'm discovering an untapped resource for all things nerdy and dear to my heart :)

The folks at Streetsblog, through their film organ, Streetfilms, have been releasing films for years that get to the core of many of our most pressing urban problems in a fun and visually stimulating way.

Many of their subjects are ones I've already tackled here at Green My Fleet, like car-sharing, bike-sharing, electric cars, congestion pricing, walkability, and public transit. Others are more far-reaching and poignant than I could possibly get on this blog.

My favorite part about their new series, Moving Beyond the Automobile, is their roundtable of celebrity (kind of :p) panelists who talk about the steps they are taking to move their cities in a progressive, less car-dependent direction.

Here's their promo:

Today is an exciting day here at Streetfilms as we are officially announcing the debut of our 10-part series "Moving Beyond the Automobile" (MBA).  Each Tuesday over the next ten weeks, tune in to Streetfilms as we'll be posting a new chapter about smart and proven strategies to reduce traffic and improve street safety for all users. 

We'll be tackling many fascinating topics in the next few months from "Bus Rapid Transit" to "Congestion Pricing" to "Car Share" to show how each can help people to use cars less - or not at all. 

We've been out talking to the experts.  Well-respected voices like former Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa, Tri-state Transportation's Kate Slevin, Commissioner of NYC Department of Transportation Janette Sadik-Khan, Portland's Mayor Sam Adams, former 4-term Mayor of Milwaukee, and President of the Congress for New Urbanism John Norquist and dozens of other transportation authorities across the country to get their input and advice. 

At about the halfway point of the series, we'll also be posting a MBA curriculum that includes lessons and discussion points for each of these fun and important films. Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

MBA_Trailer from Streetfilms on Vimeo.


If you have a spare moment, I'd definitely encourage to check out their weekly web series, starting every Tuesday on February 15th!

Seattle Bike Share Comes Closer to Reality

In the past six months, there's been a wealth of attention devoted to starting a bike-sharing system in Seattle. In November, I wrote about the first feasibility study done for bike-sharing in Seattle, a collaboration between SDOT and the UW.

The UW study divided the city into 10-square-meter cells and ranked them based on factors like residential population density, job density, retail density, proximity to transit, and existing bike infrastructure.

The result is a detailed portrait of where bike-sharing is most likely to succeed in Seattle. The results of their analysis suggest that bike-sharing should first be rolled out in the downtown core, Lower Queen Anne, and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. These neighborhoods both have very high residential density and walkability, extensive bike and transit infrastructure, and are full of retail and tourist destinations.

Photo courtesy of Publicola and the UW Bike Share Studio

Phase 1 of the proposed bike-share system begins with the green zone of downtown and its immediate neighbors Lower Queen Anne and Capitol Hill, along with parts of the Sodo stadium district. Continuing down the hierarchy of density, the system would be later expanded in Phase 2 to include Upper Queen Anne, Eastlake, the Central District, Beacon Hill, Ballard, Fremont/Wallingford, and the U District. Lower density neighborhood centers, known in City of Seattle parlance as "urban villages" would be the last to be added in a Phase 3. 

According to Seattle Transit Blog, King County is currently seeking a $150,000 federal grant to get the pilot Phase 1 off the ground. The program would launch first in the green downtown areas with between 800 and 1,000 bikes, with a capital cost of $3,500 - $4,500 per bike. Operational costs would average $1,200 to $1,600 per bike, which would be paid through monthly or annual user subscription fees in the range of $45-$75 per year with an hourly rate after the first free half-hour.

The King County planners STB interviewed seemed to indicate that Redmond (with its large high-tech workforce) be included in the Phase 1 and the suburban centers of Bellevue, Kirkland, Renton, and Kent would be included in the Phase 2.

The UW study explicitly recommended against this approach of including outlying population centers in the initial phases so as to not create a disjointed, less functional system. They even recommended not including the U District in the initial Phase 1, despite the high student population and retail density, because of the lack of bike connectivity with the downtown center. We'll have to see if King County follows this reasoning in their final proposal.

Also unclear is whether the County would require helmets on users of the bike-share system - most European systems have done away with their helmet laws completely to boost their ridership, and this approach seems to have been its saving grace. Will our litigious American culture subside enough for helmet laws to be relaxed? Or worse still, will there be vending machines at the bike stations to sell helmets? That just sounds like nanny-state ridiculousness, but with Seattle you never know!

A second interesting study was done in April by an STB writer, Adam Parast. He did a GIS analysis of the current bikeability of Seattle versus Portland. The project compared factors of street connectivity, existing bike infrastructure, slope, land use (proxy for density) and barriers (like a freeway interchange or an impassable slope). The result? Not surprisingly, Portland takes the cake on bikeability in nearly every respect.

Due to a combination of our more challenging geography (Portland has it easy lying in a mostly flat river valley) and our comparative lack of bicycle infrastructure, Seattle is reduced to "islands of bikeability" in a hostile, car-centric sea. One of the more surprising and extensive bike-friendly areas is Ballard. Should this area be included in Phase 1? It's about 10 minutes away by bike from the downtown core via 15th Ave. W and Elliott. Also in its favor: its fast-rising residential density, numerous tourist attractions, and largely self-sufficient retail district.

Current bikeability comparison, blue = high bikeability, red = low bikeability

Potential bikeability comparsion

More good news for bike sharing: bikes travel faster than cars during rush hour in most cities! According to a study out of Lyon, France's bike share system, bicycles are faster and more direct than cars in high-density areas during rush hour because of the complications of circling the block to find parking and then finally walking to your destination. Intuitively, this makes sense in Seattle - you can ride your bike between Downtown, Capitol Hill, and the U-District faster than rush hour car traffic.

King County is looking to launch the Seattle bike-share system by summer 2012, so there's sure to be a lot more going for bike-sharing locally, and a lot more reporting to come from Green My Fleet!

Via: Planetizen and Publicola

San Francisco Bike-Share Makes More than a Few Enemies

Last month we took a peek at a bike-sharing pilot project in the works in the San Francisco Bay Area to nearly 1,000 public bikes on the streets of San Fracisco and points south by late 2011.

The system is aiming to replicate the success of European bike-sharing, with automated charging stations and annual, daily, or monthly subscription fees for users, along with hourly rates. Like many of the most famous systems, the first 30 minutes would be free of charge, to encourage riders to use the system for short trips close to home.

The pilot program would begin with about 500 bikes and 50 stations in the San Francisco city center, focusing on the City Center, Tenderloin, Market Street, and Transbay Terminal areas. An additional 400 bikes would go into the urban centers of CalTrain corridor south of the city.

Now that we have a better take on the foundations of this exciting program, it bears asking the dreaded question of all multimodal projects in the US: will people use it? will we look like assholes for thinking this type of bike transit infrastructure was even a good idea?

Is this what San Francisco was going for? So hipster...

In a scathing critique of the San Francisco bike share program, Matthew Roth of SF Streetsblog argues that the city is setting itself up for failure with an inadequate starting number of bikes that won't serve people's needs.

According to Roth, "bicycle sharing program’s greatest assets are ubiquity and ease of use." The Paris Velib program, considered the vanguard of bike-sharing worldwide, began with 750 stations and 10,000 bikes before quickly expanding to 1450 stations and 20,000 bikes, enough to make the stations more than three times as ubiquitous as the city's subway network, also the world's most dense. The Velib program is surprisingly inexpensive to run, even given the city's notorious problem with theft and vandalism of the bikes. User fees pay for the city's expenses of running the program, and the remaining $4.3 million is paid for in advertising space.

With only 50 stations at its inception, San Francisco's system would be the smallest in North America. When DC Bikes opened in the capital two years ago with 120 stations, a spokesman for the District DOT regretted that the system had not opened with more stations: "Knowing what we know now, we would've launched it bigger."

So just how many bikes would San Francisco truly need to have an effective bike-share system?

According to Colin Hughes, a planning grad student at UC Berkeley, exactly 5328 bikes. Colin first suggested that any bike-share system should be thought of as a form of mass transit, like light rail or a bus route. Without regular, intuitively placed stations and high frequency, no one is going to use the damn thing!

The Paris Metro is the densest subway network in the world, with 300 stations within the city. The trains run from about 5 am to midnight, and users might have to wait about 20 minutes for a train in off-peak hours. In comparison, the city also has 1451 bicycle stations - a transit network almost 5 times denser than its subway system. Users can access these bicycle stations 24/7, they can ride them wherever they like, and the cost is free for the first 30 minutes.

Paul DeMaio, one of the world's only "bike-sharing consultants" based in DC, writes that the ideal bike-share systems need approximately one bike per 150 residents of the service area. This equates to 5328 bikes at 605 stations if we're using the Paris-based metric, or 2960 bikes at 484 stations if we're using more modest metrics from the Barcelona system.

The San Francisco bike-share system was originally announced back in 2009 with only 50 bikes at 5 stations - now the most recent plan calls for ten times that number, 500 bikes at 50 stations, at a cost of $7.9 million.

Bixi bikes from Montreal, on display at Golden Gate Park in a recent expo promoting the SF bike share program

Hopefully more public pressure on the city to make a truly workable number will get things in gear. If you are asking SF residents to ride 50-pound bikes through the rain, you need to make the system easier than catching a bus, hell easier than catching a cab! There should be enough stations that riders won't have to worry about finding a place to park their bike at the end of the ride. 

Via: SF Streetsblog

Even Santa Claus Likes Bike-Sharing

The Santa population of London has taken to the streets in favor of the new bike-sharing system there, Boris Bikes. 



Nicknamed after London's mayor, Boris Johnson, the system began this past July, with 5,000 bikes at 315 stations in Central London. Boris Bikes has the enviable distinction of being the only public transit program in decades to actually make a profit. So far the program has been exceedingly popular - over 90,000 Londoners are now members, and one million rides were taken by the end of September - a great start for this brand new program.

If you are with your family this Christmas season, you may want to hide ya kids, hide ya wife...because there's no good way to explain 30 Santas riding bikes to your six year old!

Drury Lane station, with 27 bikes

My Senior Thesis - The Real Deal!

Green My Fleet - An Analysis of Puget Sound Clean Air's

View more documents from dperl88.

New Electric Bike Models to Make Waves in California Bike Share System

Last week I described a bike-sharing pilot project that will put 10,000 bikes on the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area by 2012. An unintended consequence of bike-sharing systems, both in California and elsewhere, is that they may well end up being a boon for an electric bike industry surging across North America.

San Francisco's green neighbor to the north, Sacramento, is now experimenting with a four-week trial of a bike sharing system using the innovative BionX electric bike as a featured model. The bike features a battery, electric motor and handlebar control panel, all connected with sophisticated energy-management software. The electric motor system can even be custom-installed on non-electric Trek and Diamant bikes.

Forgive me, but this picture of a corporate doucher should have been a headline for Stuff White People Like

The testing period of Sacramento's bike sharing program will be among employees at the California division of the EPA, hardly a tepid audience for bike sharing. Adding to Sacramento's unsung appeal as a bicycling capital is its rate of bicycle commuting that is among the highest in the country.

If this Sacramento bike sharing project goes smoothly, it could easily lay the groundwork for other smaller and medium-sized cities to get their bike sharing systems up and running. I'm talking to you, Portland :). The ability to step onto a bike and pedal (or not) around the city for pocket change is all the more enticing with electric bikes thrown into the fray.

Another model that will hopefully join the bike-sharing menu is this badass piece of machinery right here, the M55 Beast Hybrid. This powerhouse of a bike can reach speeds of 40 mph, as good as any vespa or scooter, and can go for 75 miles on a single charge. Upon further investigation, the bike is made of carbon-fiber and titanium alloys, which probably means that like the Tesla Roadster, it is a beautiful unicorn of a machine that mere mortals will never get their hands on. Sadness....

Via: Inhabitat

An Interview with the Woman Behind New York City Bike-Sharing

A few days ago I wrote about New York City's plans to create one of the largest bike-sharing programs in the United States, with up to 10,000 bikes available 24 hours a day by 2012. The program is just the latest of a string of revolutionary projects from the NYC Transportation Commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan. 

After creating a miraculous transformation in Times Square by converting major stretches of Broadway into pedestrian plazas, installing hundreds of miles of bike lanes throughout the five boroughs, and enrolling tens of thousands of city workers into car-sharing programs, she has been called the most influential New York bureaucrat since Robert Moses. 

A parklet on San Francisco's Castro Street, inspired by similar open space projects in New York

As press coverage from Esquire to The New York Times has attested, if Sadik-Khan's sustainability projects on as grand a scale as New York succeed, they can be replicated anywhere and everywhere. 

Transportation Nation posted an interview with the ground-breaking New Yorker herself, with more details about the bike-sharing program in the city. I'm posting the full interview below:

NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, in the now car-free plaza at Times Square

NYC transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan spoke with WNYC’s Richard Hake this morning about the city’s plans to operate a bike share program. (The RFP can be found here.) You can listen to the interview here; the transcript is below.

____________

Richard Hake: New York City today takes the first step toward launching the largest bike-share program in the country.  New Yorkers will be able to rent bikes one-way for short term rides all over Manhattan.  The idea is that the program will  be entirely privately run, but the city will share the revenues.  Joining us now is the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.

Tell me how this program would work. If I get off work today, I’m here on Varick Street and I want to take a bike up to Union Square, would that be possible?

Janette Sadik-Khan: The system would be similar to the bike share format we’ve seen in Paris and London and Washington where heavy-duty bikes would be located at docking stations every few blocks throughout the system, and they can be ridden and dropped off at any other docking station in the system. So we’re asking for companies to come in and give us their ideas where the best place would be to site a bike share system.

RH: So where would these docking stations be? Would they be in major sections like Union Square? Would there be one in Times Square? Have you investigated how that would work?

JSK: Well, the RFP does not specify the number of bicycles or the precise geographic area to be covered. But we do have preliminary research that says south of 60th Street in Manhattan in the central business district would be an ideal match for New York’s geography because we’ve got high density and a growing bike infrastructure there.

RH: Now are you looking at this more for tourists, for people who just want to leisurely go around the city or could this be done for people who want to go to work and get some errands done?

JSK: We expect it to serve bothgroups. Bike share would give New Yorkers many more transportation choices as the city’s population continues to grow and as traffic congestion increases. And it would be privately funded, so taxpayers will not be on the hook for coming up with dollars to support this, but they would share in any profits. And we think this is really the best deal in town for on-demand travel and a nice complement to our transit system.

RH: So when you say privately run, does that mean, there would be different companies or maybe one large company would actually purchase the bikes, maintain those bikes and actually rent the bikes out to people that want them?

JSK: Yes, the RFP specifies that a private company would bear all the costs and responsibilities with the system during the initial five-year period while sharing revenues with the city. No taxpayer funds would be used for the system’s implementation or for the upkeep or for the maintenance of it. And in fact, we expect significant revenues from user fees and sponsorship and we will negotiate a city share of that revenue.

RH: One of the big problems of riding a bike in New York City is actually where to put it and the risk of theft. Now I know you’ve investigated the other programs going on in Europe and the other cities in the U.S. What have they been doing with the risk of theft of the bicycles?

JSK: Modern systems are much more sophisticated than they used to be. And security and technology on bike systems has really improved significantly. Theft and vandalism hasn’t occurred in places like London. I think something like five bikes have been stolen because the contractor failed to lock them properly. Even judging Paris as it applies to New York, in 2008, Paris’ larceny and theft rate was more than four times that of New York and more than double that of Boston and Washington, D.C.  And overall property crime such as theft and vandalism is much more frequent in France than in the United States.

RH: I know since you’ve become the Transportation Commissioner, we’ve seen lots and lots of new bike lanes all over New York City. Are there enough bike lanes now for this program to be actually safe?

JSK: We’ve built on an extensive system in line with Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative. The idea is we’re not going to be able to battle traffic congestion and continue to grow and thrive unless we provide New Yorkers with some more options. What we’re looking to do is build on the safety record we’ve got here. New York city cycling is getting safer as more people are riding bikes and the network expands. Cycling has more than doubled from 2006 to 2010. But at the same time, cycling injuries and injuries to all users, where we’ve put down bike lanes, has gone down from 40 to 50 percent.

RH: Janette Sadik-Khan is the city’s transportation commissioner.  Commissioner, thanks so much for joining us.

JSK: Thanks, Richard.

Via: Transportation Nation 

Bike-Sharing Hits New York, San Francisco, and Everywhere In Between!

Back in March of this year, when this blog was a wee babe, I wrote about bike sharing programs that have become wildly popular in Paris, London, Barcelona, Boston, and Washington DC.

Bicycles are one of our oldest and most enduring forms of carbon-neutral transportation, but it is only within the last five years or so that they have been re-evaluated as key pieces of our urban transit infrastructure, rather than fun recreational toys.

Bike-sharing programs embrace the budding concept of "collaborative consumption," in which traditional capitalism is replaced by networks of consumers who band together via the Internet to provide shared needs.

Examples of collaborative consumption abound, especially in more progressive and tech-savvy cities. On Craigslist, people shop for used furniture, job postings, and even casual sex! The free, minimalist, and communal nature of Craiglist and other online classifieds has spelled death for the local news business. ZipCar provides a shared, publicly available fleet of cars for short trips in urban centers, so regular people can avoid the expense and hassles of car ownership. Travelers increasingly use Couchsurfing instead of booking hostel rooms, creating a stable network of peer-reviewed, intimate accommodations, and even lifelong friendships along the way. Urban gardeners aching to get a plot of land and frustrated by the lack of public garden space have taken to "garden-sharing", where homeowners advertise their open space via iPhone applications.

A full history of the collaborative consumption movement is available here, via GOOD. 

Let's go around the horn and take a look at some of the big developments taking off in American bike-sharing sytems:

SAN FRANCISCO

A $7.9 million pilot project is set to provide bikes in San Francisco and along the Caltrain corridor in San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Redwood City for use by registered subscribers. Over 1,000 bikes are scheduled to be available in late 2011. 

The system is aiming to replicate the success of European bike-sharing, with automated charging stations and annual, daily, or monthly subscription fees for users, along with hourly rates. Like many of the most famous systems, the first 30 minutes would be free of charge, to encourage riders to use the system for short trips close to home. 

The pilot program would begin with about 500 bikes and 50 stations in the San Francisco city center, focusing on the City Center, Tenderloin, Market Street, and Transbay Terminal areas. An additional 400 bikes would go into the urban centers of CalTrain corridor south of the city.

After the program is fully operational by 2013, the bike-sharing system in the Bay Area is planned to expand to over 13,000 bikes! 2,750 of the bikes would be in San Francisco and another 10,000 in Santa Clara County. This is on the scale of the famous Velib system in Paris, which boasts 20,000 bikes.

NEW YORK CITY

New York is taking steps to create the largest bike-sharing system in the United States, one that eventually will turn a profit through advertising with a public-private partnership. According to Transportation Nation, the system will have 10,000 bikes available 24 hours a day by 2012. 

“New York is made for bike share,” said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives,” so this announcement is very exciting. The characteristics that make bicycling an everyday form of transportation, New York has in spades: density, flat terrain, temperate climate, lots of short trips and an on the go lifestyle. This nimble and inexpensive way to get around will fit easily into New Yorkers’ constantly shifting errands and schedules.”

By using wireless technology, including a searchable map of solar-powered bike stations using GPS, New York believes it can replicate the success of the London system and quickly turn a profit.

WASHINGTON, DC

In our nation's capital, an earlier bike-sharing system run by SmartBike DC will be replaced by a newer expanded system, offering 1,100 bikes and 114 stations in the District and Arlington County. This is a dramatic increase from the current 120 SmartBike stations. 

Treehugger has more details on the upgrade:

"The new system will allow a wider range of membership opportunities. Annual memberships will cost $80, double the current SmartBike rate of $40, though for a much better service. People can also purchase monthly memberships for $30 or daily ones for $5. All memberships allow unlimited bike rentals, free for the first 30 minutes with usage fees (levels not yet specified) after 30 minutes."

MINNEAPOLIS

Minneapolis has just launched Nice Ride, the largest bike-sharing system in the US to date. It debuted in June 2010 with 700 bikes and 65 stations, where riders swipe a credit card, take out a bike, and go. As with other popular programs, long-term subscriptions can be purchased online for the low price of $60 per year. That's lower the cost of Netflix, people!

DENVER

Denver's program launched in April 2010, with 400 bikes and 42 stations. Already, it has logged 8,000 registered users and 800 annual members. 

One important byproduct of the rise of privately-funded bike-sharing systems is that they help point to the overwhelming lack of bike infrastructure in most US cities. Simply by creating a critical mass (no pun intended) of everyday cyclists, cities are quickly made aware of where the street networks need the greatest improvements to accommodate them. 

MIAMI

Miami, or as I like to refer to it, the "whitest city in Latin America," has started its "Deco Bike" system in posh Miami Beach. The program boasts 100 solar-powered stations and over 1,000 bikes. It claims that a single station can meet the needs of up to 200 commuters who would otherwise travel by Lambourghini. Not bad, Miami! You just might redeem yourself after your stint as Jersey Shore South. 

SEATTLE

Seattle is predictably falling behind in the race to provide public transit alternatives. We are good at one thing, though: Feasibility Studies! The City of Seattle commissioned a feasibility study through the UW Department of Urban Design & Planning. The study identifies possible corridors and phases where stations could be installed, potential ridership, and limitations. Any chance we could expedite this process we are so infamous for, Seattle?

Electric Bikes May Ease China's Urban Air Pollution - For Now

The BBC reports a dramatic rise of Beijing residents who commute around the city by electric bike. China was, until the mid-1990s, an almost monolithically bicycle-driven society. Along with a decade of spectacular economic growth, however, Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai have vastly shifted from bicycles to private cars. The result, not surprisingly, has been unprecedented problems with urban air pollution that threaten both the environment and public health.

With car traffic congestion at all-time highs in many Chinese cities, many residents have chosen electric bikes as a commuting option offering both speed and the opportunity to escape the traffic quagmire.

Legally, "electric bikes" are bikes that are smaller and lighter than motorcycles, traveling at speeds under approximately 15 miles per hour. Electric bikes have been so popular that their popularity in the past year has grown even faster than the leading Chinese car companies.

How long this boom in electric bikes will last depends on long-term Chinese cultural trends. If the Chinese continue to invest in a growing consumer car culture through highway spending and tax incentives, then these bikes may lose cachet with the status-conscious Chinese middle class. However, cities in China and other countries -even those in the developed world - can make use of these electric bikes by integrating them into established bike-sharing programs and improved bicycle infrastructure. If bike infrastructure becomes as lasting and integral a part of the built environment as highways and arterials, then we will be able to forge a path to long-term solutions for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Massively Popular Bike Sharing Programs Spreading to Cities Around the World

While the vast majority of public and private agencies' attention goes to directly reducing number of vehicles purchased, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), gallons consumed, or greenhouse gas emissions, an equally valid (an quite inexpensive) option for larger and denser cities is bike-sharing to reduce emissions. 


Bicycles are one of our oldest and most enduring forms of carbon-neutral transportation. But why are they not more widely used as a way of getting around urban areas? 


First, there is the expense factor. Many people would rather not pay for the expense of owning a bike, particularly a bike that will last. Owning a bike incurs maintenance costs that some would rather not take responsibility for. Also, city-dwellers often live in cramped apartments with no room for a bike. Others are worried for their safety when they are cycling in the streets, as often there are no shoulders or bike lanes to accommodate them. Finally, many people simply do not find it convenient to ride bikes to their destination.


Public agency fleets can lead by example by first starting their own bicycle fleets available to employees (for light-duty tasks) free of charge. Public employees are often highly visible in the city center, and an agency bike-sharing program can help promote safe bicycling practices as well as build a rapport with the community.  As soon as the city develops a good relationship with a bicycle manufacturer, it can develop a bike-sharing program for the general public for a small fee. Bicycles would be a fixed public amenity available for temporary use by residents or tourists throughout the city, like library books.

After resounding success in Paris, London, and Barcelona, bike-sharing has finally caught on in the US. Washington DC and Boston now both boast highly-regarded bike-sharing programs.