Bikeshare has been a success, so it should obviously be killed, bike opponent Papp argues

This thing that wouldn't work is a success so let's stop wasting money on it.

Our old friend anti-bike activist Kathryn Papp of Alexandria is at it again [You may remember her from such popular opinions as "all bikes should be registered', "Capital bikeshare funding hurts libraries," "Bikesharing won't work in Alexandria" or "The bicycle lobby is out of control"]. This time she is arguing that Capital Bikeshare actually has worked in Alexandria and is, in fact, a success but that it's time to stop expanding it anyway until the city can 

prove it will be fully paid for through private sector funding.

And

Correct the many violations of city ordinances, federal mandates, equity issues and lost civic trust that has resulted from deliberately evading and misleading residents and decision makers with deceptive information and surprise station placements.

What these violations, mandates and issues are are left unnamed. I have heard grumbling that one station was placed in a different place than where a public oversight board had approved it, but that that approval is not necessary, as they are just advisory - but perhaps someone can weigh in

Also, despite opening with the words "The success of Capital Bikeshare is a testament to the foresight of the U.S. Department of Transportation..." she ends by pointing out that it isn't really a success at all. I did not see that twist coming. Usually you don't undermine your own statements in an op-ed.

The clunky, heavy, ill-equipped bicycles that Bikeshare has unloaded on the city only hold back what could be and — in the face of climate change — should be a fully shared citywide activity.

Create a cycling program that benefits everyone, and one done in a cooperative spirit of excellence and fair play.

The op-ed is all over the place, but it appears that the thesis is that, despite the program's success, Alexandria should get out of Capital Bikeshare and into...a vague something else.

If Alexandria stops expanding CaBi then the City will be leaving money on the table. CaBi benefits from the network effect, such that each additional station adds value to the others, at least until the time you get to saturation (two stations next to one another don't do much unless the site is very busy), and no one - no even Papp - is arguing that we're there yet.

Demanding that it be paid for entirely through private sector funding is both unwise and, for Alexandria, impossible. The reason why almost every city in the world subsidizes bike-sharing (even NYC, where Citi Bike pays nothing to place it's stations on highly valuable Manhattan property) is because the positive externalities make it worthwhile. In it's TIGER II application, MWCOG identified a host of environmental, health, safety, access, travel time and travel cost benefits. People will pay for some of these benefits but not others. And so a privately run bikeshare company doesn't really make money on improving health or air quality or safety. But governments do. Those kinds of tragedy of the commons issues are exactly what government are supposed to deal with, and so for them - if these benefits are included - they're making money. For example, in the 2010 Tiger application, MWCOG estimated a total benefit from these things of about $1.20 per trip. The operations were subsidized $1.7 million in 2014 and there were nearly 3 million trips for a per trip subsidy of only 58 cents. So walking away from a program that returns ~60 cents in benefits every time someone uses is would be foolish.

The kind of program Papp seems to support isn't possible if we relied on nothing but private-sector financing. There just isn't enough money in city-wide bikesharing to make it profitable. Maybe you can make money by limiting to high traffic and high wealth areas, but then that limits the benefits to the city and it's residents while doing little to deal with equity issues. If you want a for-profit enterprise then they're going to want to make as much of a profit as possible, and that means bypassing poor neighborhoods, "break-even" stations, and marginal value things like $2 daily memberships. They aren't going to see transitioning customers into private bike ownership or increased transit use as a good thing. And as for a private sponsor, there are issues there too. Arlington law doesn't allow it last I heard, and no one has stepped forward to offer to be the sponsor. It's one thing to say they should do so, it's another to make it happen. It's not like the local governments that own CaBi haven't thought of this already. 

So yeah, I'm dubious of Papp's claim to suddenly be supportive of cycling or bike sharing, and read this more as an effort to end Capital Bikeshare in Alexandria, which is a success despite claims that it would not work in Old Town.

[Below the fold I take the column apart piece by piece]

The success of Capital Bikeshare is a testament to the foresight of the U.S. Department of Transportation, which seeded the program by offering cities funding for both capital expenses — bikes and stations — as well as operating costs in the form of maintenance, software, trucking, etc.

Not really. DOT did not create some new program to fund this. Local governments used existing DOT funds, like CMAQ money to pay for this. The credit goes to the local DOTs, not USDOT (though they were supportive).

the seed program is sun setting and looking to the private sector to carry on

There was no seed program. We didn't win the TIGER grant the region sought, and there is no greater turning to the private sector than before. Though CaBi does get some money from ads on stations and other promotions.

In 2014, Bikeshare Holdings, LLC was established with investments from two CEOs at Related Companies

I don't know if Papp is confused or being deceptive, but Bikeshare Holdings does not own Capital Bikeshare. The local DOTs own Capital Bikeshare. Bikeshare Holdings owns Motivate the company contracted to operate CaBi, and they manufacture the bikes that CaBi uses, but they don't own it. 

Motivate, a fitness company, is taking over operations management

Motivate is not a fitness company, they are a bikeshare system operator. And they are not taking over operations. They, and their predecessor Alta, have always operated CaBi.

with the intent to immediately work to turn a profit and address operating issues.

They do want to turn a profit, but the ways they do that are by lowering cost and increasing trips. They also make more money if the system expands, but they do not decide where, when or how the system expands.

This may mean rising membership and usage fees, which has occurred in New York City.

Motivate does not make more money if membership and usage fees goes up. In fact, they likely make less because ridership goes down.

This is necessary to cover the costs inherent in the current pricing scheme, as noted by a Motivate consultant.

No. It's not in the DC area. In NYC and Portland it might be, only if you accept that the local governments won't pay to subsidize it. In addition, while Portland won't be paying for bikeshare there, federal funding and state funding will. 

These costs only will grow with expansion.

So will the benefits, which are never mentioned. Everything looks expensive when benefits are ignored.

A small example [of the city misleading residents and decision makers with deceptive information]: in one recent document, Alexandria’s Bikeshare membership was reported at 17,000, but a page later it was given as 734. Which number should we believe?

Both. If the document in question is this one, then the 17,000 members number is the number of ALL members - annual, monthly, 3-day and 1-day. 734 is the number of annual and monthly members only. That's not an attempt to deceive, that's just poor reading.

bicycling advocates are right to advance a ridership program focused on getting whole cities on bicycles, specifically their own.

From a policy standpoint, why is it better to get them on their own bike?

The clunky, heavy, ill-equipped bicycles that Bikeshare has unloaded on the city

Whoa! Clunky and heavy I'll give you, but not ill-equipped. They all have lights and bells, fenders and racks. What equipment are they missing? [And the heavy build is a feature. It makes them sturdy and is likely part of the reason that the fatality rate on bikeshare bikes is so much lower than for other biking. More importantly, the heavy clunkiness does not keep people from riding the bikes - which is the whole point.]

Think what the Federation of Civic Associations, together with citizen cycling advocates, and city officials together could do with $2.5 million.

This would be more persuasive it if didn't rely on my imagination. They could buy a lot of yogurt. But I don't know why that would be a better use of the money.

Create a cycling program that benefits everyone, and one done in a cooperative spirit of excellence and fair play.

That's pretty much Capital Bikeshare. It goes into all the underserved neighborhoods and stays despite low usage rates. (and everyone benefits from cleaner air, healthier neighbors, less congested roads etc... that's the whole point).  You don't get much more cooperative than a program that has the support of 5 local governments, BIDs, developers, the US government, charities, etc...As for excellence and fair play, I don't know what she's talking about. It's normally not convincing to add new claims into your closing statement.

Comments

[Jofi Joseph]

Thankfully, the city of Alexandria is tuning out these nonsensical arguments. With four new stations being added over a 10 day period in July, Bikeshare is beginning to achieve some significant penetration in the city, especially in the heretofore neglected neighborhoods of Del Ray, Arlandria, Rosemont, and West End.

[Brett Young]

I didn't see a link to her article....Its here
http://alextimes.com/2016/07/your-view-capital-bikeshare-is-a-flawed-approach/

[Ampersand]

As an unabashed Capital Bikeshare booster (and member), I'm surprised by those membership numbers. I went and found the attachment referenced (https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/tes/info/G.%202016-04-20%20Agenda%20Item%204%20Attach%201.pdf) and was very interested in this:

Annual, Monthly & Daily Key - 2,856
1-day members - 14,044
3-day members - 718

I had no clue that 1-day memberships were such a significant proportion of users!

[Ampersand]

Note that the hyperlink above won't work because it picked up the parenthesis. Oops.

[jeffb]

I didn't see a link to her article.

Some have the view that anti-bike diatribes generates more page views (and comments) then is warranted so why encourage the trolls by linking to them.

[DE]

Reminds me of the kinds of folks who say they support transit but then make up whatever strained opposition they can think of to every individual transit application because they are being duplicitous and really don't want transit at all. Given her earlier positions, she seems solidly in that camp regarding cycling.

[ACyclistInThePortCity]

The Mayor and Council support Cabi, without exception. BPAC, which has the only organized group of cycling advocates in Alexandria, supports CaBi. Even the Old Town Civic Association appears to broadly accept CaBi.

I mean I am glad WashCycle does the thankless work of debunking incoherent things like this, but Ms Papps views are not of any political significance any more (if they ever were) as far as I can tell.

[SJE]

The National Highway Program was designed in the Eisenhower administration and has completed its goals, but we still have billions in Fed $ going to the roads. When we stop that subsidy, perhaps we can talk about bikes