TheWashCycle

Fenty does some shopping in the Bike Station

Fenty does some shopping in the Bike Station, originally uploaded by volcrano.

Pre-Ribbon Cutting Speaches

Pre-Ribbon Cutting Speaches, originally uploaded by volcrano.

Andrea White-Kjoss speaks while Mayor Adrian Fenty, Councilmember Tommy Wells and DDOT Director Gabe Klein look on.

Bike Station Pre-opening Media coverage

The Post had an article yesterday.

Mobis Transportation/Bikestation had a press release that noted that Bikestation members in DC will be able to use any of the facilities nationwide with their key.

Trailblazer calls this the second phase of the Amsterdamization of DC (after Amsterdam falafel)

WTOP has a short story.

And NBC recaps the $4M Bike rack flap.

Union Station Bike Station Ribbon Cut

The Union Station Bike Station is open an memberships are going fast. Before the ceremony, David Bono of the WABA board told me that they've sold 41 memberships. By the time Mayor Fenty spoke it was up to 45 and by the time Andrea White-Kjoss of Mobis Transportation Alternatives, Inc (aka Bike Station) spoke it was up to 60. That's out of 300 memberships to sell. White-Kjoss said it was the fastest sales pace of any of their bike stations.

That was one of many superlatives dropped today. The first bike station on the East Coast. The biggest bike station in the country (I'm not sure this is true, and it doesn't park as many bikes as others, but it was stated). The coolest bike station in the world. The new bike station triples the bike parking at Union Station, and I believe there is as much free parking, and at nicer inverted U's, as there had been before. DDOT did a good job of pushing for the project they wanted instead of satisficing.

The ceremony was packed and based on the media presence there are going to be a lot more stories about this. Mayor Fenty talked about the great bike station and the initiatives that are coming up - Met Branch Trail, expanded bike sharing, bike lanes, cycle tracks. Tommy Wells talked about one of his favorite themes, how Union Station is one of the most multi-modal places in the country "You can ride a bike here and then travel anywhere in the world." Which is good, since as he pointed out, there will soon be 50,000 more jobs and 10,000 more residents in the blocks north of Union Station. Gabe Klein did the unglamorous work of thanking everyone. And Andrea White-Kjoss talked about the benefits of bike stations. Many users are new to biking and the others, 60% drive less than they did before. At one point she said the Union Station Bike Station was the "boldest statement for intermodal transportation since ICE-T in 1991."*

And the bike station is more than parking. There was a store in the front (making sales and renting bikes immediately after the ribbon cutting). There are lockers and a changing station. More photos coming soon.

*I didn't know what ICE-T was, and since she laughing when she said it I thought she was talking about Ice T the rapper. I tried to think what song he sang in 1991 about intermodal transportation and was coming up blank. She was not talking about 'Cop Killer' I'm glad to say.

The Bike Station is Open! Where next?

The new Bike Station at Union Station is opening today [More on that after all of the hullabaloo is over]. So before we finish eating the cake and ice cream maybe we could talk about where to build another one. I have some ideas.

1. Dupont Circle - I've written about this before but the former streetcar station under the circle (or at least half of it) would make a great bike station.

2. L'Enfant Plaza - One thing that made Union Station a great location is that it's a transit hub, and not just for Metro but VRE, MARC and Amtrak. Those train systems, which make few stops in the District are perfect for a bike station as most of those users probably have to get off the train and switch to something else anyway. For some it might as well be a bike. The only other commuter rail stop in the District is at L'Enfant Plaza, which is also a junction of four Metro lines, the first Metro stop in the District on the Yellow line and the closest station to the 14th Street Bridge. Perhaps space could be found in Hancock Park or by taking out the unnecessary pull in lane along Maryland Avenue east of 7th. That pull in lane looks like a pre-9/11 design and it doesn't even add parking (there are 13 parking spaces in the lane, but if the curb were unbroken you could still get that many parking spaces in between 7th and the parking garage entrance).

3. Nationals Park - For the same reason these train stations make sense, the District's new ferry pier makes a great location for commuters to get off the boat and get on a bike. It's also near the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. On the way from the pier to the Metro ferry commuters will walk past the bike valet cage. A cage that is used for 5-6 hour blocks 81 times a year (or more if they make the playoffs...so 81 times a year). It would take little to modify the cage to be a bike station. Some new key swipe doors, maybe turn that weird office across the walkway into a bike shop area. Since most people would be getting off the boat and then grabbing a bike on the way to work, there would be less need for showers than elsewhere. On game days, the bike valets could lift bike station bikes up to the ceiling.

4. Foggy Bottom - This is the stop closest to the terminus of the Capital Crescent Trail. It's also near GW's campus and in the West End near bike friendly business the World Bank.  Ideally it would have been built as part of the new hospital (like the Minneapolis Bike Station), but it could be built on the surface parking lot across New Hampshire from the hospital.

5. National Airport - There is a dearth of bike parking at the airport and a lot of people are probably worried about leaving a bike parked there for several days. Travelers may just need secure, long-term for hire bike parking. But then again the airport is a major employer, connected to two great bike trails with a spur to Crystal City and employees often have to work until after the Metro closes. Bike commuting might make sense for many employees, and a bike station would help with that.

6. Silver Spring - This is such a good idea that it almost happened, but then it didn't. Update: More information here.

7. Dunn Loring-Merrifield  - I don't bike out here during the work week, but this is the first Metro you'll come to going east on the W&OD trail from west of I-66. I'm sure some people just keep on riding onto the Custis and into town. But a bike station here would let a lot of new commuters - ones who aren't interested in a 10 mile ride - ride into the Metro and then take the train the rest of the way.

I thought about New Carrollton, with MARC and Amtrak trains, but the neighborhood just isn't easy to bike around. I also considered above the Smithsonian station, where bike rentals could serve tourists but it's just too far from most work places. Where would you put one?

Opening Day at the Union Station Bike Station

Cato Institute Calls Bikestation a $4M Bike Rack

On the Cato @ Liberty blog, budget expert Tad DeHaven (who used to work for the bizarro-Blumenauer Senator Tom Coburn) called the Bikestation at Union Station a $4 million bike rack. (tip)

Whatever the figure, at a cost of $4 million, it comes out to around $25-$30 thousand per bike.  And, yes, I recognize that the “1,700-square-foot building west of the station will also have changing rooms, personal lockers, a bike repair shop and a retail store that will sell drinks and bike accessories.”  But the ultimate purpose is to hold bikes.  In my mind, the extra extravagance merely reflects the fact that taxpayers are picking up the tab.

This led to a back

I look forward to the day when the Cato Institute does a blog post denouncing each and every publicly financed parking lot or garage in the United States of America. Somehow I think that if we equalized public funding for car park and bike parking at $0 that would on net work to the advantage of non-drivers.

and forth

I denounce each and every federally financed parking lot or garage in the United States of America on non-federal property.  I’m one of those quaint individuals who recognizes that the Constitution grants the federal government specific enumerated powers.  Using federal tax dollars to finance local parking garages, lots, bike centers and racks is not one of the powers granted to the federal government.  So let me rephrase my statement from yesterday: Look, I harbor no animosity against [car drivers], but under what authority — legal or moral — does the federal government tax me in order to build [parking garages or lots] for parochial, special interests?

between him and Matthew Yglesias. Yglesias points out that though DeHaven says he denounces all of these things, in actuality he's only denounced the $4M Bikestation, not the hundreds of millions of federal dollars used to build parking garages.

I find it odd that he's specifically bothered that it's on non-federal property. It's in downtown DC. The whole area is practically federal property. Many, if not most, of the people who will use it will be federal employees. Is he saying that if were across the street on the parking lot between E and Massachusetts - a federally owned parking lot, he would have no problem with it? You know what, don't answer that, because the owner of the land that this bike parking facility IS on is - that's right - the good old United States of America (under the care of the Department of Transportation)*. So much for his Constitutional complaints.

So why again is he bothered that the Federal government paid for 80% of a Bikestation on a piece of land it owns, that will probably be used by a large number of its employees? He also thinks it's inefficient.

Isn’t it possible, just possible, that a bike center with even more racks could have been built for a lot less?  Isn’t that the question that people like Yglesias, who want more people on bikes and less in cars, should be asking?

It's possible. Chicago's houses 300 bikes and cost $3.1 million. But they built it on parkland (and five years ago). DC went shopping around and this was the only piece of land they could find for free - and it was in a great location. Once they had it, they needed a design that satisfied the CFA so that drove up the cost somewhat. There was also interest in having it be a greener - which means no AC or heat but using passive thermal controls, and be a showpiece for the nation. Again it's possible DC could have built a bike station that parked more bikes or cost less and built it at a major transit hub like Union Station and at the terminus of a bike trail. I'm just not sure how. But then I'm not a budget expert.

*according to the DC GIS data

Photo by erin m

Bikestation at Union Station Now Taking Memberships

The Bikestation at Union Station is now accepting memberships.

Memberships and 24/7 access are handled by the Bikestation Coalition, a national network of similar bike parking facilities. Interested cyclists can go to www.bikestation.com to register.  Members will receive a card in the mail that will allow 24/7 access to the parking area.  Introductory membership rates are $96 per year or $30 a month, plus a $20 annual administration fee.  

The Bikestation, located on the west side of Union Station, is scheduled to open in the beginning of October and will offer bike parking, rentals, repairs and retail accessories.  Bike and Roll, a local bike rental company, will operate the center and will provide the rentals, repairs, retail, and daily parking.  See: www.bikeandroll.com for more information.

More Interior Photos of Bikestation

 Ben West, DC's Bicycle Ambassador, got a chance to go inside the new Bikestation and sent along these photos and a few words.

It is a smart building which opens and closes plates of the building in order to maintain the temperature, with a rain sensor on the roof to keep things dry. There is a/c and heating if needed for the shop portion which might become brutal otherwise.

There is a locker, with a changing room. Both sections are accessed with a smart card.

I am particularly impressed with the construction methods. Forming large sheets of 1.5 inch safety glass into a curved structure is hard, much more so when it needs to be articulated and moveable. The Project manager told me that each sheet is a different shape, which makes the whole thing like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

It is an object designed to attract attention, to impress, to be functional and hint at things to come and in those ways it is fundamentally Washingtonian.

It says that DC is committed to a smart, sustainable future and it is saying that clearly and elegantly.

More photos below the fold

Bikestation Media Juggernaut Continues

This time, it's on NPR (not just WAMU but NPR). Ari Shapiro rode his bike out to the Bikestation and may be the first person to park his bike there - and got some inside photos.

part of the appeal of bicycling is convenience — you can lock a bike to pretty much anything.

But if you lock your bike to a parking meter, you might come back to find it's missing a seat or wheels, or it's just gone. Soueidan says theft was an issue even while building the bike garage.

"The superintendent actually had his bike here once and he didn't lock it, he was just gone for five minutes — and we actually saw the bike take off," he said.

As usual there is more in the audio than the text, like Ari saying we're too formal and "behind the curve" on cycling." We do have the first bike sharing program in North America I would point out.

And thanks to Ontarioroader to pointing me to this comment on PoP

Yep! Bike and Roll Washington DC will be operating the bikestation and will offer rentals, repair and retail (and tours starting next spring). We’re super excited for our new location!

Personally, I think the design of the structure is fantastic. i just wish we had even more space for commuters and for our portion…

The entrance is the one the side closer to Union Station; there is one entrance into the bike parking and one into the rental/retail/repair shop (and one between the two)

Bike Parking is $30/ten days; $32/month; $116/yr. Unfortunately, members are not guarenteed a spot - it is first come first served.

There going to sell more memberships than there are spots - like airlines do - so that spaces don't go empty.

On a related note, FABB went to the September 15 meeting of the MWCOG bike ped subcommittee. 

A Bikestation rep discussed their module parking system, an enclosed bike parking station with keyed access that installs in a day on a concrete pad with electrical access. Security concerns are reduced with the large windows. The module appears to be very competitive with individual bike lockers, allowing more bikes to parked on a smaller footprint.

There's more about the Bike Module here.

These bike modules effectively fill the gap between racks and bike-transit centers with a land-use-efficient, glass and steel “green” building that houses 36 bikes in only 10 x 20 square feet (or one car parking space!) Customers can order the modules in 10 x 20, 10 x 30 and 10 x 40 configurations to meet individual site requirements. Because the well-lit modules are attractive and iconic they can be placed prominently, close to the cyclists’ intended destination(s). The modules offer electronic security and can be multi-use in operation with as many as six cyclists using each individual parking space. Consequently, modules are ideal for creating interoperable bicycle transit networks often in combination with one or more complete bike-transit centers. Cyclists are able to access any of the network modules depending on their route each day.

Bikestation needs to update their site  to include a picture of these ( and their info "The [DC] facility is expected to open in early 2008") and Metro should put in a nice big order as part of their transit access study, which FABB also talks about along with a Maryland bike to school study, and updates to the bicycle and pedestrian project database.