Pulled up from the comments: Chris Hamilton, Commuter Services Bureau Chief for Arlington DOT, writes
A station at Court House should be going in within a couple weeks. Three more stations should be going in up to Clarendon before Thanksgiving. And that's it before next spring.
Another twenty-five stations (about) will be going in during the Spring. Yes, these stations were originally hoped to have been installed in calendar 2011 and the funding for most of these (other than the ones being approved by the Board on Tuesday) were approved in May. However, Arlington is still awaiting a signed contract from VDOT to use the Federal CMAQ funds. Federal rules prohibit us from even ordering the equipment without a signed agreement. Despite the best of intentions, the bikeshare stuff seems to be confounding our friends at VDOT - especially their Richmond office. When the County Board approved the agreement in May we thought VDOT could turn around a contact in the summer. We are still waiting.
Once we receive a signed contract we'll issue a purchase order (already waiting) and it will take 3-4 months for the stations and bikes to arrive). We hope to receive the contract soon.
At this point, its just as well that we not install the stations in the middle of the winter and rather do so in the Spring.
We hope, after having been through this round, that the Stations the Board is approving Tuesday night (also Federal CMAQ money through VDOT), will go more quickly and that the new round of stations, after a public input process in the winter, can be installed by the Fall of 2012 bringing Arlington's stations up to 70. That's a lot of stations. And a lot of work.
How much money is Arlington spending on this project?
Posted by: Bob | October 18, 2011 at 07:53 AM
Great news. I thought the bike stations were being funded from the increae in the car tax sticker this year.
Posted by: charlie | October 18, 2011 at 08:45 AM
Bob, Arlington is spending about $1.25M in federal/state CMAQ money for the first expansion and probably the same amount for the second. No local funds will be involved.
Posted by: washcycle | October 18, 2011 at 10:13 AM
Is there a map of the locations that have been selected for installation somewhere?
Posted by: dcbrewer | October 18, 2011 at 11:06 AM
@charlie Great idea!
Posted by: Jonathan Krall | October 18, 2011 at 11:33 AM
Why not install the stations in the middle of the winter? We proved last year that people will still use them in the cold weather.
Posted by: IMGoph | October 18, 2011 at 11:45 AM
dcbrewer, there are a couple of maps linked to on the left side here.
Posted by: washcycle | October 18, 2011 at 11:45 AM
Is there anything we citizens of the Commonwealth can do to get these contracts moving? Who should we write letters to?
Posted by: GMB | October 18, 2011 at 01:12 PM
Hmm. If Babs had a brain, she would be bashing Caren Merrick on this.
Posted by: charlie | October 19, 2011 at 08:45 AM
If you all wanted to see a map of all the proposed locations from DC, Arlington, and Alexandria, I've put them all together here:
http://g.co/maps/7eey4
Posted by: Corey | October 19, 2011 at 09:50 AM
We just received word that the contract has been signed and the Purchase Order has already been submitted to Alta for the stations and bikes. This order was for $894,000 worth of bikes and stations. The $200,000 in Decal Fee bikes were already ordered (those are the Court House and Clarendon ones going in shortly). A map showing the locations of all the bikes bought or on order, going out to Ballston, should be on BikeArlington.com shortly. Again, the stations and bikes approved by the Board last night will be ordered in a few months - once we've completed the public input process for the stations sightings and gone through the VDOT contracting process, which this time should go more quickly. You can tell us where you'd like bikes to go at bikearlington.com.
And regarding winter installation, if the bikes and stations come in during the winter and there isn't snow on the ground, we'll start installing. We agree that our area is good for bike transit 12 months a year.
Chris
Chris Hamilton
Commuter Services Chief
Arlington DOT
chamilton@arlingtonva.us
Posted by: Chris Hamilton | October 19, 2011 at 10:56 AM
Regarding the map Corey posted, it should be noted that the Alexandria stations are DRAFT locations at this point. The King St Metro and Braddock Rd Metro stations will most likely remain as-is, but there's a fair chance the other four locations will move...potentially by 1-2 blocks in any given direction. The Alexandria part of the map also doesn't take into account either the "Harris Teeter" location or other locations where developers/employers have expressed interest.
Posted by: Froggie | October 19, 2011 at 11:38 AM
@Chris Hamilton; thanks for the update. I wish you had been more, well, open, in the past few months since your meeting on the delays. But better late than never.
In terms of winter, well, I think everyone ynderstand that weather is variable and it is hard to predict which day is good to install a station. I'd like to see a station that doesn't require a semi and a big crane to put int place, but we'll have to wait on BIXI for that.
Posted by: charlie | October 19, 2011 at 12:33 PM
@Froggie Correct, it's just the draft locations in Alexandria. In Arlington, there are A/B/C options for some stations. I just marked the A choices from http://www.bikearlington.com/tasks/sites/bike/assets/File/Map-list5.pdf. Some of the A/B/C choices are a couple of blocks away from each other. And none of the interest from the various projects in Montgomery County in noted either.
Posted by: Corey | October 19, 2011 at 01:02 PM