Paul DeMaio of CaBi Arlington presents at December’s Transportation Techies Meetup.
This month’s Transportation Techies Meetup group, at the WeWork co-working space in Washington D.C., was all about what we know from the growing catalog of studies on bikeshare systems.
The World’s Best Bikeshares
When Colin Hughes and Jacob Mason of the Institute for Transportation and Development Planning (ITDP) asked the attendees which system is the best, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare was applauded. But, in fact, based on ITDP’s 2013 bikeshare planning guide, CaBi fared poorly against European systems, was outpaced by Boulder for station density, and beat by New York City for rides per bike. Mexico City was the most dense bikeshare system in the world and Barcelona scored the highest for rides per bike.
Compiling, studying, and communicating data will encourage bikeshare trips.The bottom line: CaBi’s got some room to grow!
Make a Plan
Using existing data is essential in planning where exactly new bikeshare docks should go for maximum use. In a recent study, Paul DeMaio, program manager for CaBi Arlington, found that 54 percent of CaBi users were riding to or from the Metro, with an average distance of between .25 miles and 1.25 miles. This data has allowed CaBi Arlington to identify a “hot zone” around each Metro station for where new docks would likely be in high demand.
Fun Mapping
One of the most interesting graphics of the evening came from Mathias Hansen, who found a way to allow users to log in to CaBi online and map all of their trips. Hansen’s wife, a prolific rider with more than 200 trips mapped in a six-month period, had a clear pattern of use stemming from her home bike dock, near Dupont Circle, and nearly every neighborhood in northwest DC. DeMaio remarked that Hansen’s wife used CaBi more than he did – and he works there!
Mathias Hansen presents at Transportation Techies.
Originally, Mathias planned for all users to be able to log in to his site with their CaBi details and create their own maps. Unfortunately, CaBi couldn’t agree to allow an uncontrolled site having that much access to user information so the public site was shut down. However, the idea lives on. By being able to map your routes, it allows users to also identify alternative stations that they could use for common destinations if they notice issues with dockblocking or lack of availability. It’s also just neat to visualize one user’s year on a familiar-looking red bike.
Bikeshare and the Economy
But what the mapping of existing data also revealed is how much we don’t yet know about how bikeshare drives economic growth. Is offering bikeshare enough to open up areas of cities not well-served by currently existing public transport? Are restaurants and coffee shops drawn to open at locations with currently existing bikeshare?
Matthew Wigginton Conway, who recently moved to the D.C. area, started chipping at bikeshare’s wider accessibility possibilities by comparing the number of jobs within a 30-minute walk from a bikeshare station with or without the use of bikeshare. When a bikeshare possibility was added, thousands of additional jobs, particularly on the edges of the District and in Arlington, were now within 30 minutes of a given Metro stop.
He’s currently in the process of looking at bikeshare locations in relation to restaurants and shopping centers to see if there is a correlation between popular docks and their ability to make previously less-accessible areas more reachable by Metro and bikeshare. He expects there to be a strong correlation based on CaBi’s most recent user survey, in which members said that access to entertainment options was key in their decisions to use CaBi.
More Questions Moving Forward
Another important finding from CaBi’s 2013 user survey is that 63 percent of users are under the age of 35.
- What happens when these individuals edge closer to their 40s or have kids?
- Will their needs lead bikeshare to offer more cargo-bike and kid-friendly models?
- Will these riders sustain their bikeshare usage as they age or is bikeshare a predominantly young person’s transportation?
Many of these questions will be answered as the quality and breadth of data available from bikeshare systems are expanded. It’s also a question of time. Bikeshare is still the new kid on the block for urban transportation. The data can only get better with more miles on those thousands of bike tires.
Photos by M.V. Jantzen.