Wednesday Morning Commute - Ghost Rider

Good morning

• Bicycling advocates want to know why there's been no progress for two years on extending the proposed path between Union Station and Silver Spring. "Some of what we face is a challenge of resources and dealing with multiple trail projects moving forward at the same time," says Sam Zimbabwe who works in DDOT's planning and policy office. "And this is probably one of the most challenging sections of the trail in terms of dealing with competing needs of the right-of-way."
• Stories of early bicycle fatalities and ghosts on Capitol Hill.
• There was another assault in the Capital Crescent Trail tunnel. "A boy was assaulted Saturday evening by a group of six other juveniles in the Capital Crescent Trail tunnel that runs beneath Wisconsin Avenue, Montgomery County police said Tuesday."
• Ice Cream + Bicycles? Is this heaven? "the bikes are a cheaper alternative to a food truck, and they'll allow him to sell from multiple locations rather than one. He says he was inspired by ice cream bikes he remembers from growing up in Peru."
• Check out another DC bike blog: The Family Pedaler.
• Operating revenue is way up in Arlington, see the graph below, and in June 2012, revenue exceeded operating and marketing costs for only the 2nd time. "Fiscal Year 2011 had a 53% cost recovery ratio and FY12 saw an increase to 64%....Arlington’s portion of the service had $411,000 in revenues from memberships, user fees, and sponsorships and $473,000 in operations expenses, plus $170,000 in management and marketing – totaling $643,000 in expenses. The number of trips starting and ending in Arlington increased by about 280% to 88,613 (trips starting) and 86,438 (trips ending). The number of miles ridden in Arlington increased 343% to about 95,000 miles, which helped remove nearly 64,000 pounds of CO2 from the air. The service also got us more active and we burned over 4.1 million calories to be fit."

Comments

[charlie]

I'm not sure "cost-recovery" is the best metric to be tracking.

Looking at the membership, I'd say arlington has some work to do on annual members (only added 400 FY2012 despite the new stations, that is something like like 10 new members per station.) Daily members (toursist?) increased dramatically from 4228 to 12733.

I'd say the best thing CABI should be doing is finding a way to reduce the $100 hold -- in particular on debit cards. I haven't seen any numbers on credit card fraud/chargebacks, but the combination of CC# + zip code might be enough to deter fraud.

[MM]

@Charlie

It's really unfortunate that our politicians have become so focused on cutting spending that a public transit program like CaBi has to focus on revenue figures. I'd like to think that, in a better world, revenue would be an afterthought and the primary question on policymakers' minds would be "is the system meeting the needs of the public and, if so, how do we expand the system to keep on doing that?"

Regarding the Arlington membership issue, I wonder if the hills are an issue. I mean, a tourist will probably just ride from Rosslyn or CC or Old Town into the city and be done with it, but does geography discourage potential Arlington riders who don't want to ride up and down the hill every day?

[washcycle]

charlie, I didn't know we were discussing the best metric to track. It is a metric that they're tracking and I think it's a good one. Don't you think knowing how much of a subsidy they need is important?

[SJE]

I agree with WashCycle. We are going to lose the argument if we pretend that cost is not relevant. I think we win the argument when we force the detractors to expand their frame of reference, and look at all the costs and benefits of the alternatives. E.g. $x spent on CaBi saved us $7x in road maintenance; $x spent on CaBi brought in $2x tourism revenue.

[Chris Eatough, BikeArlington Program Manager]

Re MM: True, CB annual membership for Arlington only saw a small bump, while casual membership essentially doubled. BUT the number of rides almost tripled.
I think a lot of Arlington residents jumped in early and signed up the first year when most of the stations were around Crystal City. Their usage options were pretty limited in year one, but with the expansion through the RB corridor in year 2, their bikeshare options increased and they rode much more.
This would explain why the number of trips in Arlington tripled even though casual membership purchases only doubled.

[charlie]

Cost recovery make sense to measure when you're trying to understand the marginal cost of a ride and create a fare.

With CABI, there isn't a fare for members. No sense in measuring the cost recovery there.