Wednesday Morning Commute - 5 minutes

Good morning

• Portland's Mayor rides CaBi and likes what he sees. 
• "America's capital city is the number two city overal [for biking and walking], the Alliance says, and is the sixth best city in terms of fatalities (if you can still use a term like "best" when talking fatalities)"
• More CaBi data. Most bikes get used about 1300-1400 times a year. None as often as 1600. And some get used much less often. I suspect those are ones at less popular stations that get "stuck" there. Also, most trips are far shorter than 30 minutes and there doesn't appear to be much of a cut off at 30 minutes. "In fact, there have been more rides between 30-32 minutes (barely incurring fees), than 28-30 minutes (just under the limit of free time)." The distribution for trip time is crazy for casual users. 
• Since automatic trail counters went in on the Custis Trail back in October 2009, there have now been 1 million trail users. 
• And...another crash on the GW Parkway at the trail crossing.

Comments

[Crickey7]

We're number two! we're number two!

Not sure I like the sound of that . . .

[charlie]

"One parting thought – what percent of a Capital Bikeshare’s life is spent sitting at a dock? I get something like 415,000 hours of total usage in 2011 (bike-hours, if you will). Each year has 8,760 hours in it, times say 800 bikes in service, and that’s 7 million bike-hours of total availability. So each bike is being ridden 6 or 7% of its waking (and sleeping) hours, while the other 90+% of its life is spent on the dock? Is that low or high? How does that compare to a typical car, or bike?"

Interesting question.

[washcycle]

According to the High Price of Free Parking, the average car is parked 95% of the time. I suspect personal bikes are parked MUCH more often - since there are more bikes in America than cars and far fewer bikes on the road.

[charlie]

so, a bikeshare bike is not being used 94% percent of the time, and a car is not being used 95% of time?

Not a bike point really -- just pointing that followers of the False God should beware the Sons of Levi.

[Michael H.]

The CaBi stats confirm the frequent assumption that many casual users do not care about price (daily membership, overage fees). Anecdotal evidence has already indicated that many visitors simply want to enjoy their time in the area. They won't be quibbling about a dollar or two for the cost of a bike ride on vacation.

A sign that the increase of the cost for daily CaBi membership is a good idea. With so many people taking 1, 2 and 3-hr. trips on CaBi, a change from $5 to $7 for the basic fee isn't going to lower usage that much.

Many of the casual users are likely racking up overage fees because they are stopping at memorials on the Mall. The addition of new bike stations on the Mall could cut down on the very-long trips. The higher daily membership fee will help offset decreased revenue from the overage fees.

I hope the new stations on the Mall are very large. They are going to be overwhelmed during the Cherry Blossom Festival. CaBi should think about transforming the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument stations into "bottomless" stations during peak hours and on days of peak bloom during the Festival.

[washcycle]

I don't see your point charlie. Who is talking about this other than you? You found a stat and compared it to another. So what? The goal is not to have the bikes used at some high percentage of the time. You know the goals, and CaBi is meeting or exceeding them.

[Michael H.]

I'm not sure what charlie's point is either, except to serve as another example of his dislike for cycling and bike advocacy (whether or not he rides himself). Or as some sort of self-styled gadfly, because you know, cycling and bike advocacy are so utterly dominant in this country.

Who cares how much a bike is used? Revenue, number of trips, possible number of car trips avoided, etc., are more important. If anything, you wouldn't want the bikes to be used non-stop without a corresponding increase in revenue. Non-stop use would mean more frequent replacement of the bikes.

[Greenbelt]

Car parking has reshaped the suburban landscape in a fundamentally unhealthy way. Bike parking? I'm not seeing negative externalities on anywhere near that scale, and there are lots of positives.

People talk about a soda tax -- nothing would help improve this country's health (fiscal and medical) like a surface parking space tax. Rather than requiring sprawling parking lots with minimum parking requirements, we should tax them. We've essentially required a car dominated lifestyle through parking regulations and what amounts to a hidden entitlement to free or heavily subsidized universal car storage.

[Greenbelt]

I use my bike 2.5 hours per day on weekdays and maybe 2 on an average weekend. That's 12 hours per week. Each week has 168 hours. So my bike has parked rate of 93 percent. So what? I'm a very heavy bike user compared with most folks, but still my bike is parked most of the time.

My car is shared with my wife and is used maybe 30 minutes a day on average. That's a parked rate of 98 percent. Again: So what? We're not very heavy car users compared with most folks, and our car is parked most of the time. But even the heaviest car users probably don't drive more than 2 or 3 hours a day on average.

[charlie]

sorry, typo: Shoup instead of should.

@MichaelH; I agree with you on the revenue side of Mall stations. I think you've got to balance that loss of revenue, against, well, I'm not sure. Convienence? an increase daily fee? Not sure either works.

The point about Bikeshare being docked 95% of time is the widely used stat that cars are parked 95% of the time isn't a helpful stat for either.

[dayglo]

Heck, I'm parked about 80% of the time, in my bed or a chair.

[JeffB]

The point about Bikeshare being docked 95% of time is the widely used stat that cars are parked 95% of the time isn't a helpful stat for either.

But so many parked cars are a nuisance. They clog our roads and, as Greenbelt says, have dictated wasteful use of our land.

[washcycle]

The point about Bikeshare being docked 95% of time is the widely used stat that cars are parked 95% of the time isn't a helpful stat for either.

It is if you're talking about parking, which we're not.

[Michael H.]

You could probably fit the entire Capital Bikeshare system, bikes and stations, onto just one of the underused parking lots at RFK Stadium.

I think there's a much bigger issue with automobile parking areas (their size and their ubiquity) than with the space of CaBi stations. A CaBi station doesn't impede that land from being used for other purposes, but a massive parking lot does. Even in the few cases where the station has been installed on the street, the entire road hasn't been closed off because of the bike station.

Cars can be useful for longer trips and transporting larger items, but is it really necessary for everyone to ride a car two miles to buy a carton of milk? Just piling on roads and parking lots can't work forever.

Look at Tysons Corner. There's a reason why MetroRail is being extended over there and why the long-term plans call for a more walkable, open and livable "city". (Hopefully they follow through on plans to add more bike infrastructure.) I don't know of anyone who thinks of the road network and traffic situation in Tysons Corner as utopia, whether it's workers, residents, visitors, drivers, pedestrians or cyclists.

No, they aren't going to remove the Beltway or Chain Bridge Rd. but they are trying to remake the area through better urban planning (more residents, denser development around the new Metro stations, better short-trip transportation options, better environment for living and just plain mental health).

As for more fun with numbers, an elite marathoner spends over 90 percent of his week not running. I'm talking about people who run 100 miles or more a week and are competitive at the international level. (It helps that they run much faster than the rest of us.)