TheWashCycle

Poor flooded bikeshare station

I read through the Climate Ready DC report - the city’s new plan to adapt to a changing climate that could bring more dangerous heatwaves, severe storms, and flooding - and there wasn't much in there about biking except that they note that biking would be a great way to evacuate the city in case of a flood or robot apocalypse. One action to "Strengthen community cohesion for safety and resilience" has this sub-action

Assess walkability, bikeability, and public transit access in the District in order to reduce the dependence on personal cars and diversify transportation and evacuation options in the event of an emergency. Use Walk Score or Walkability Index as a tool to evaluate priority planning areas and their dependency on transit systems that may be at greater risk due to climate impacts. Prioritize improvement of walkability and connectivity to those areas as part of the update to the Comprehensive Plan.

But it also includes biking in its explanation of measuring risk:

Risk is measured based on the probability of occurrence and the consequence of an impact such as flooding. For example, given the same probability of flooding, an electrical substation was considered to be at higher risk than a Capital Bikeshare station. The loss of one electrical substation would have a greater consequence as it could leave many residents and businesses without power, while the flooding of a Bikeshare station would likely impact fewer people and be easier and less expensive to repair.

Capital Bikeshare in Arlington continues to grow

In a recent briefing memo Arlington county staff reported that for the 6th year in a row, Capital Bikeshare usage in the county continues to grow. 

Admittedly that is with more bikes and more stations in each year. In fact, in 2016 they've added 5 stations and expanded 6 others; still growth is growth and in June they set a record with 31,000 trips in Arlington. It will be interesting to see how the system grows as stations are added to Tysons Corner and Falls Church. Being at the center of several pods should create more trips than being on the periphery. 

Speaking of Capital Bikeshare, they have a new bike - the Candidate, to promote the special offer of free CaBi rides on election day (just the one on Nov 8th, not the one on Nov 28th).

Together with 30 fellow two-wheeled campaign staffers, THE CANDIDATE is hitting the campaign lanes and trails to tell you that Capital Bikeshare will offer FREE Single-Trip Fares on Tuesday, Nov. 8, to provide another transportation option to get you to your voting location.

That’s right: Capital Bikeshare will offer FREE one-way fares at every station in the system to encourage you to take active transportation to a station near your polling place. THE CANDIDATEbelieves that voting is the duty of every citizen of this fine nation and is riding high on the campaign saddle to make it easier to #VoteByBikeshare.

Spot THE CANDIDATE and snap a picture between now and Election Day to help spread the word. Let’s get the #VoteByBikesharemessage to the masses and promote sustainable transportation on Election Day up and down the ballot.

REI and Fairfax Bikeshare - It's a big day

Two big things are going on today, the opening of REI along the Metropolitan Branch Trail in DC and the start of Capital Bikeshare in Fairfax County. 

The Capital Bikeshare program will provide residents and visitors short-term, on-demand access to bicycles at 29 stations located in Reston and Tysons.

The program is primarily targeted at workers who might be looking for ways to travel short distances to their office or a restaurant, without getting into a car.

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova, Supervisor Catherine Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill), Tysons Partnership President Michael Caplin and Fairfax County Bicycle Program Manager Adam Lind will participate in ceremonies in Reston at 2 p.m.and Tysons approximately 3:15 p.m.

Reston Celebration will be held at Wiehle-Reston East Metrorail Station, Capital Bikeshare station on the plaza at bus bay F, 1862 Wiehle Avenue, Reston.

After the conclusion of the Reston celebration, take Metrorail Silver Line (approximately between 2:36-2:58 p.m.) for an 8-minute trip to the Spring Hill Metrorail Station in Tysons.Capital Bikeshare station located just as you exit the station on the east side of route 7, 1576 Spring Hill Road, Vienna.

And more expansion is coming

Falls Church is hoping to add its own bikeshare program next year.

Meanwhile, in DC, REI (which sells bikes and, reportedly, other items) will be hosting a 3 day grand opening block party at its new location in the old Colisuem adjacent to the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

Oh, and installation of Wilson Boulevard's new protected bike lane started this week as did work on part of the new Rock Creek Park Trail.  And, there's a new project update from the Klingle Valley Trail:

Construction crews continue to take advantage of the favorable weather on site and completed all concrete placements of the gravity retaining wall on the east end of the project. Additionally, all foundations for the trail's light poles are now installed in the ground (a total of 52!). Upcoming scheduled activities include installing the electrical manholes and conduits that will power the new pole's LED luminaires.

Alexandria to help Port City Brewing with a CaBi station and bike parking

Port City Brewing was considering moving from Alexandria to Fairfax and Loudoun counties, but then they got a Virginia Department of Agriculture grant to help them with their expansion.

The state and the city announced Wednesday the agriculture department will grant $250,000 for Port City's $3 million expansion plan. Alexandria will match part of that with a $155,000 grant.

And now the bike part

Part of Alexandria’s contribution will include construction of a Capital Bikeshare station in front of the existing brewery at 3950 Wheeler Ave., as well as some other bicycle parking infrastructure to help encourage more visitors to head to the brewery via bike.

CaBi to DCA

Last week I rode Capital Bikeshare to National Airport, and while it was not as good as it could be, it still worked for me.

The plan was to get everything to the airport with our car, drive the car home and then for me to meet up with the family at the gate. This would be cheaper than parking at the airport and easier than trying to get 3 car seats onto Metro or into an Uber. I dropped Mrs. Washcycle, Trike and Tandem - along with all our luggage - at the terminal and then drove the car home.  We had built in a lot of extra time in case traffic was bad, which it wasn't. After driving to the airport and back I was 2/3 of the way into it, and way ahead of schedule so I decided to bike it instead of Uber. It didn't take too much longer on Capital Bikeshare.

From the station at 23rd and Crystal, I crossed Crystal and walked south along it and then up the airport access ramp to Airport Access Road. Once on airport property I followed the signs. 

Unfortunately there is no Capital Bikeshare station at DCA itself, but the station at 23rd and Crystal Drive in Arlington is only about a 10 minute walk from Terminal A (more like 14 to terminal B and C). It's about the same from the station at 26th and S. Clarke Street, which makes more sense if coming from the south. 

All things considered it worked pretty well for me. But....

1. It would really help if there were a couple of stations on airport property, preferably one at the old terminal and one at the new one. There is plenty of space, so that's not the issue. In 2012 MWCOG noted that "The MWAA Board has refused to have Capital Bikeshare on its property," but since then it seems they changed their tune. Last year, Arlington announced plans for a station there and reportedly MWAA was on board. Not sure what the hold up is. But it would good for visitors and employees. Perhaps Arlington can get a station moved closer to airport property, if not on it.
2. Until then, CaBi should advertise the close in stations as DCA access stations. They should add signs to them that designate them as such, including a walking map with a travel time estimate. And they should add this to both their website and DCA's.
3. Some wayfinding between the close-in stations and the terminals would help too. Not everyone writes a bike blog after all. That could be signs, trail blazes or a line pained on the ground. 

It won't work for everyone, but it could work for more people. 

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]

REI sponsors District-wide free Capital Bikeshare rentals all weekend long

REI is opening their fifth flagship store in NoMa this fall and in this heated election season (especially in our town), they want to encourage the community to Unite Outside. So, they’re offering a weekend of completely free activities around the city nextSaturday, July 16 – Sunday, July 17 like district-wide free Capital Bikeshare rentals, stand-up paddle boarding and kayaking on the Potomac, and an outdoor party at the Wunder Garten.

You'll need to register to take advantage of the free bikeshare. You'll need to get a code in advance to unlock the bike.

Most activities for this weekend are sold out (sad trombone), but free Capital Bikeshare rentals never sell out. Also you can visit Great Falls and C&O Canal National Parks for free, or get free paddling rentals in Georgetown all-weekend long. 

What ever happened to treating bike share as transit for tax purposes?

In case you were wondering about this, the short answer is you still can't do it (and yet without this "bailout" Citibike still somehow remains in operation). 

Here's the long answer.

The bike commuter benefit was the brainchild of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and was included in tax extenders legislation that passed Congress in 2008 as part of the bailout bill - the same one that created TARP - and signed into law by George W. Bush. Oddly enough, Blumenauer voted against the bill, because it was not paid for, and Republicans voted for it even thought it wasn't. Such is politics. This was before bike sharing was really a big deal - CaBi had launched only a few days beforehand - and so the bill didn't mention it. Since then, bike sharing became a thing that people actually use to commute to work and they want to use their Bike Commuter Benefit (if they get one) or their transit benefit to pay for their membership and fees. 

In 2013, the IRS was asked if it could "adopt bike share as a qualifier for the Transportation (Commuting) Benefits program under the Fringe Benefit Exclusion Rules for transit," the same rules under which employers can give tax free transportation benefits to employees. But in July of that year, they said no, because bike share is not mass transit.  They also said that bike share was not a qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement, which one could pay with the bicycle commuter benefit, because those were specifically limited to "expenses for the purchase of a bicycle or bicycle improvements, repair or storage."

So, a legislative fix was needed. 

In 2014, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) had an amendment added to the EXPIRE Act, an act which would extend many tax breaks that had expired (just as was the case in the 2008 legislation), that would modify the list of qualified transportation expenses to include expenses associated with the use of a bike sharing program. That amendment passed, and there was much rejoicing.  The bill was passed unanimously out of committee, but was filibustered in the Senate in a fight over amendments. 

In 2015, Schumer tried again. This time the vehicle was the Tax Relief Extension Act, which again dealt with tax extenders. It too got out of committee, but has never come up for a vote. Many of the tax extenders it dealt with were rolled into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, the so-called omnibus bill, but not the one dealing with bike sharing. 

So, bike sharing still can't be treated as transit or as a qualifying bike commuting expense for tax purposes, no matter how many people use it for commuting. And it appears that will continue to be true for the foreseeable future. 

Alexandria's CaBi program has exceeded farebox recovery goal and grown fast

At an April 20th meeting of Alexandria's Transportation Commission, the Transportation and Environment Services (T&ES) staff presented some very impressive stats with regards to Capital Bikeshare in the city. Most notably, it's been growing really fast and covering more of its costs than originally expected. 

• Capital Bikeshare has been very popular with residents and visitors to Alexandria, with over 105,000 trips departing from Alexandria stations since the program began (in September 2012), and 17,600 members in Alexandria.
• There has been 1 reported crash in all that time.
• The operating cost has been $383,244 which amounts to a per-trip subsidy of $3.60, but the farebox recovery has been 63%, more than double the goal of 30%.
• Between 2014 and 2015, Alexandria bikeshare station departures increased by 50 percent; the average number of trips per day increased substantially, from 85 to 127; annual and monthly memberships increased by an average of 40 percent; and average membership renewal rates increased from 67 percent to 83%. Phase I stations, installed in September 2012, saw "only" a 21% growth in 2014-15, but the phase II stations installed in August 2014 grew 201%
• Four of the stations installed in 2016 were paid for through developer contributions while the rest of the stations (including bikes) have been covered through federal grants.
• Through fiscal year 2022, Alexandria plans to grow from 32 stations (where they expect to be at the end of the summer) to 75 stations. That place is going to be totally begrimed. 
• When Motivate took over the operations contract, they "provided a cost reduction of 25% from prior pricing."
• Staff is working to secure private funds to operate the bikeshare system in Alexandria through Transportation Management Program (TMP) and developer contributions as well as possible sponsorship opportunities to further reduce the cost to the City 

Bikepartisan support for the study to add CaBi to the Capital Grounds

Rep. Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced an amendment to require the Architect of the Capitol to study the feasibility of adding Capital Bikeshare stations to the Capitol grounds and to provide $100k to pay for that study. Rep Tom Graves (R-GA) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) from just across the Potomac supported the bill and there was no opposition. CaBi was spoken of it such glowing terms It must've been blushing.