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Just a minor clarification Mr. Washcycle. While the bikes and stations of Capital Bikeshare are indeed owned by the jurisdictions, the operator of the system, Alta Bicycle Share, is a for-profit company. It's also useful to note that the operator does not receive any revenues from memberships or usage fees.

A few years ago (2010?) Baltimore was ready to begin bike share with bcycle. What happened?

Baltimore has been stopping and starting with bikeshare. In a previous plan, they wanted bikeshare without having to pay for it. Nice work if you can get it. But they didn't get it since no company took them up on their offer.

As for Alexandria, it will be great to see Cabi expand to Del Ray, Arlandria and Potomac Yard(?). But I hope it's sooner than 10 years from now. By the way, I think that author is incorrect about CaBi starting in D.C. Didn't it start as an Arlington idea (following on from SmartBike) and D.C. later proposed the creation of a multijurisdiction regional network? I thought the first stations were in Crystal City. Or at least the Crystal City (Arlington) stations were installed at or about the same time as the first D.C. stations.


Yep, it was Arlington.

Washcycle, my reading of CMAQ it the funding should not be sequestered because it ultimately coming from the Highway Trust Fund. I could be wrong about that - very wrong -- but that was my understanding.

Again, I don't think bikeshare should be funded out of CMAQ money. It isn't helping congestion or air quality. According to the dashboard, I've saved 150 pounds of CO2 by biking and that is widely overoptimistic -- it mostly replaced transit and/or walking trips. Or induced demand.

If you think how foundations work, they'll fund the first iteration to show proof of concept, and what we've seen is bikeshare can work very well. The replacement capital costs are going to be high and we are approaching that -- I think the bikes had a three year life.

1. I think it was 5 years, but that doesn't really matter.

2. How much less air pollution (not just CO2 but all the other stuff too) do you think you created thanks to bikeshare? And how about everyone else? Or how much has it reduced congestion. Is your answer zero? How does this compare to other CMAQ programs?

if its taken you off transit on a corridor where transit is constrained by capacity, that allows more capacity for someone who might be switching from a car.

also if it enables more folks to live close in, that will reduce their pollution (not just carbon, btw - CMAQ is focused on traditional criteria pollutants)

@Washcycle, pretty close to zero. c02 would be the big one, and yes, other mitigation would have a bigger move on airquality. For example, getting cleaner buses or taxis. Light timing. Getting VOCs off.

BIkeshare has a lot of value. Air quality - not much. Congestion -- probably a bit more but still low.

Look, I know the game, You see a pot of money and pretend it has something to do with your program. Bikesharing is strong enough that cities should just spend the 40-50M out of general funds. The difficulty is you need to start big otherwise it is failure.

(For comparsion, I don't drive a lot, and geneate about 500 pounds of CO2 a month. So my bikeshare for a year or so offset around one week of driving. Weak)

Just a minor clarification Mr. Washcycle. While the bikes and stations of Capital Bikeshare are indeed owned by the jurisdictions, the operator of the system, Alta Bicycle Share, is a for-profit company.

That's not really a clarification, it's just a tangetially related fact.

If Alexandria chose to hire a company to manage the libraries, it wouldn't suddenly make libraries "for profit".

The woman asserted that CaBi is for profit. It isn't.

Inserting the fact that CaBi pays for-profit businesses for services they provide doesn't make it clearer, it distracts. But Alta's status doesn't change anything. CaBi is a non-profit, government owned entity.

On the topic of CMAQ, StreetsBlog has a nice discussion of the relation between car miles reduced and bicycle miles increased for people who make the switch. http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/03/29/how-much-driving-is-avoided-when-someone-rides-a-bike/

I hope it is clear that lots of pollution is avoided whenever someone gives up on car ownership. Access to bikeshare, along with access to transit and carshare, is a factor that makes car-free or car-lite living feasible. It was certainly the case for me.

Your information on why Baltimore was the bike share with Bcycle didn't happen is incorrect. The City of Baltimore entered into an exclusive negotiating situation with Bcycle who was prepared to cover the initial costs for the bikeshare and sell sponsorships and advertising to recoup their initial costs. There was even a profit sharing situation set up with the city after the Bcycle's initial costs were paid for. The City refused to sign a contract with Bcycle and without that Bcycle was unable to sell sponsorships to support the bikeshare program.

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