Arlington votes (sort of) to expand CaBi; more places likely to follow

As expected, Arlington held their vote to formally approve receipt of $1.24 million in state transportation funding that will pay for the purchase and installation of more bike stations (housing between 11 and 15 bikes apiece) and bikes. Originally the Sun reported that it would be 24 stations and 154 more bikes, but the county has since reported that it would be 30 stations and 192 bikes. That is in addition to the 30 station/200 bike expansion currently underway. By this time next year there will be 70 stations in Arlington.

Stations will be used to fill out the Rosslyn-Balston corridor and Crystal City areas, as well as expand into new areas of the county yet to be determined. 

There was a small error in the voting last week, so the actual vote will now be on Tuesday, but it's likely to be a formality. 

It's getting hard to keep up with all the expansion. Let me see if I can try.

Washington, DC

DC originally announced an expansion of 32 stations and 265 bikes scheduled for the fall of 2011 - so anytime from now to late December. But before those were even installed, they announced another 50 stations and 500 bikes to be installed early in 2012. 

Alexandria

Alexandria voted just last week to join CaBi adding 6 stations next year and then 6 more the year after that along with another 108 bikes.

Arlington 

In addition to the planned expansion mentioned above, they've asked for TIGER funding to add 10 more stations along the Columbia Pike corridor. 

Montgomery County

In Montgomery County, they'll be meeting today to discuss the future of bike sharing in the county. There will already be 200 bikes and 20 CaBi stations in Rockville and Shady Grove, and - in at least one case - a developer has agreed to add a bike sharing station to their project in Silver Spring. Update: The TIGER III application includes a request for 10 stations in the Forest Glen neighborhood.

Prince George's County

PG County Executive Rushern Baker is at least aware that people want biksharing there as well.

Considering only currently planned stations, the system could stretch across four jurisdictions and be as large as 278 288 stations and 2700 2800 bikes by it's 2nd birthday. That's almost as large as what Chicago is looking to start with (3000 bikes at 300 stations). 

Comments

[charlie]

The bigger question is where the hell is Round 1 of Arlington expansion?

Promised for late summer/fall of 2011. We've got maybe one month of fall left.

After the Arlington expansion meeting, I expressed some concerned about the delay in ordered. WashCycle claimed that orders had already been made or would be made shortly. Is this still true? What is the nature of the delay?

Orginial timeframe:

Courthouse station: July/August
clarendon: fall
Ballston: Winter/Spring 2012

[washcycle]

There are two months of fall left. Last I heard they had finished siting all the stations. I think they submitted the precise siting to Arlington County for approval. Once that happens they just need to drive around putting them in place. But one will need a concrete platform to be built.

[charlie]

By the time we get into December, the early darkness is hampering bike usage.

Is the concerte platform the Courthouse station...the small sliver of county owned land?

[washcycle]

I don't remember which one it was. I thought I was told the Courthouse station would go in very soon (this was a couple of weeks ago).

[Michael H.]

I think the DC stations (from the "first wave" of expansion) will be installed before the Arlington stations. From what I've read in official updates, the DC stations could be added within a few weeks.

I'm not expecting to see many of the Arlington stations, if any, until late in the year or early spring. That's really the current schedule. The Arlington announcement indicates that some of the new funds will go to costs for the previously planned stations in Rosslyn-Ballston. So the delay seems to have been caused by the delay in funding.

Anyway, better to be discussing the schedule of announced expansion plans, than to be wondering if CaBi will expand at all.

One note about Alexandria: As you showed before, Alexandria is working to have private sponsors so that they can add a few more stations than the ones that will be supported with public funds. I think the proposed map showed about 5 or 6 of these possible stations.

[Jacques]

My reading of the tea leaves is that the delay is primarily with the delivery of stations/parts.

DDOT had said they planned on installing stations in October, into November, and they have said once or twice in the last few weeks that they're still waiting on delivery.

This would suggest that the delayed delivery has to do with Bixi's ability to push out the orders. Since Arlington announced/selected their expansions after DC, they are likely next in line for delivery.

I sure hope that Bixi is using that loan from Quebec to crank up their production capacities, as the next rounds of both DC and Arlington expansions will possibly be competing with huge orders in NYC and London (to the extent that the latter is expanding).

(Can DC get first movers' priority, please?).

[Eric]

The TIGER III grant application from the National Capital Planning Commission also requested 10 bike sharing stations in and around the Forest Glen neighborhood of Silver Spring:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/10/region-planners-seek-federal-grant-pedestrian-bike-improvements

[JJJJJ]

I also wish they had a more firm timeline available.

I agree with Jacques, the NYC win is a concern because Bixi might not have enough capacity to deliver to them and also keep Boston and DC expansions in line. I dont know if London is expanding, but that one is also huge and could clog the line for awhile.

[washcycle]

Thanks Eric.

[Chris Hamilton]

Everybody has this a little bit right, regarding the Arlington stations. Here's the story:

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.

Chris
Chris Hamilton
Commuter Services Bureau Chief
Arlington DOT
[email protected]