This week’s Stranger describes the struggles of Puget Sound Bike Share as it prepares to launch in 2014. Unlike Citibike in New York, or similar schemes in numerous other cities, PSBS has thus far failed to attract the private capital that its funding plan depends upon to launch with coverage of the core service area. From the Stranger:
“We’ve seen a lot of initial excitement with little follow-through,” says Holly Houser, director of PSBS, who’s been in talks with the region’s largest companies to sponsor the program since last fall. While Seattle Children’s Hospital has stepped in with a $500,000 donation, Houser says that companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Vulcan, Alaska Airlines, Capitol One, BECU, Cambia (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), and Microsoft have declined to sponsor PSBS… “It’s been really frustrating—especially dealing with Amazon,” adds Houser, because South Lake Union is destined to get bike-share stations around the Amazon campus regardless of the rest of the city. “It’s going to serve their employees,” Houser says, “but so far, they’re not willing to support it.”
First, I have to question the wisdom of publicly criticizing any potential major sponsor for choosing not to donate, and I fear this may make other potential sponsors wary of working with PSBS. (As an aside, I’d expect a fundraiser to know that Amazon has a history of complete disinterest in civic and charitable causes, and not to be surprised by this response.)
Second, what would a lack of a title sponsor mean for Phase 1? It’s not pretty.
The initial rollout would be reduced from 50 stations and 500 bikes to 30 stations and 290 bikes. Downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill, First Hill, Pioneer Square, the the International District wouldn’t get any bikes, but because of the strings attached to $1.75m in grant funding, PSBS would instead launch only in SLU, Eastlake, the U-District, and part of Laurelhurst (Children’s Hospital):
The City of Seattle has been awarded a $1 million federal grant from the Puget Sound Regional Council to fund bike and helmet stations in South Lake Union and north downtown. Combined with a $750,000 grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation, Puget Sound Bike Share and its partners at the City of Seattle and King County Metro have now secured $1.75 million in grant funds to fund approximately 30 stations.
STB has previously argued that the introduction of bikeshare Downtown should follow good infrastructure, not the other way around, but this fallback plan would be even worse. It would put bikes in one of our least bikeable neighborhoods (SLU) during its most intense period of construction, along the Eastlake corridor, which lacks any comfortable bicycle route between Fairview and Harvard, and out past the UW to the car-oriented area around UVillage and Children’s (perhaps due to Children’s $500k contribution toward’s helmets).
What’s striking is this corridor’s nearly useless linearity. For a mobility solution best optimized for first and last-mile travel with a high density of destinations in all directions, I’m concerned that this initial configuration has the makings of an expensive flop. It could undermine local support for the concept of bike share, which, done right and accompanied by good infrastructure, could be a boon for the city. Again, Cienna Madrid:
Eliminating 21 bike-share stations (and 210 bikes) from the densest neighborhoods—Capitol Hill, Belltown, Pioneer Square, and downtown—would effectively downgrade a useful commuting tool to a barely useful novelty for University District and South Lake Union employees.
So we’d be faced with a rollout that misses most of Seattle’s best bike infrastructure, ignores its densest and most bike-friendly neighborhoods, avoids a bike-unfriendly but still essential CBD, uniquely requires helmets for all users, and will depend upon new corporate sponsorship or new grants in order to expand into an essential area that should have been included at launch. Seattle is indeed a special snowflake.
Typically when you’re starting up something that relies on private funding (nonprofit building campaigns, etc.) there’s a process that happens prior to launch assessing how much money might be available and who would be willing to spring for it. That would also allow you to announce the sponsors when you announce the program rather than going around asking for money (and criticizing potential sponsors in the press) after launch. The PSBS director sounds like an amateur.
I think the reliance on corporate sponsorship is a weakness of these programs – particularly around here where people do seem more sensitive to what could be seen as corporate intrusion into public space.
I agree. PSBS doesn’t seem to understand the topography, transit and bike paths in the city. Generally speaking, only hard core bikers will bike up and down hills in this city. Likewise, most avoid busy streets (even though you can often go faster on a busy street). This leaves a few bike paths and plateaus. They should start with those. For example:
1) Start with the Burke Gilman. Have bike stations close to the Husky Stadium Station. Also have bike stations on University Way (“the Ave”), Fremont, Children’s, Ballard and various places along the Burke. This allows people to connect a bus ride (or train ride) with their destination, or another bus ride. For example, I could ride the train from Capitol Hill to Husky Stadium, ride a bike to “the ave”, then take a bus to Roosevelt. I wouldn’t break a sweat. A simpler options would involve taking a morning bus to the U-District, then riding to work in Fremont. I used to do this, back when I had a bike locker. But a lot of folks aren’t lucky enough to have a bike locker, which is why this service makes sense.
2) Have stations at 520. It won’t be too far of a walk from the Husky Stadium train station to the buses at 520, but it might save you a couple minutes if you use a bike. More importantly, the buses aren’t going to change much when University Link is complete. So, if you are trying to get to the eastside from the north, then taking a bus to the U-District (again, likely “the ave”) then you could hop on a bike and transfer to a bus heading towards 520 and save a lot of time.
Just having those two would probably be a good start. But how about:
3) Phinney Ridge — It is pretty easy to bike from the south end of Phinney Ridge all the way to Bitter Lake (and beyond). Some of this is on very pleasant side streets, but some of it is on main streets (e. g. Phinney has bike lanes). This would include the Interurban Trail (bike path) and the cycle track.
I’m sure there are other spots around the city, but I’m just not aware of them. It sounds like PSBS isn’t either.
OK, it is obvious after reading the referenced links that much of what I just said has been said before. Sorry if I bored everyone with a repeat, although I doubt many have considered Phinney Ridge as part of the system :).
Just to summarize, though, and look at the big picture, I think there a few important things to consider:
1) These will be used by “ordinary folks”. In other words, they may ride helmets, but they won’t have bike pants or bike shoes. Many will be dressed business in business casual attire (which for Seattle means sweat pants and a clean T-Shirt).
2) Ordinary folks hate biking up hills. They hate biking on scary streets.
3) It makes sense to combine this with walking and transit. Walking up a couple of steep blocks is no big deal. Rolling a bike up a street like that (or pretending to be Lance Armstrong conquering the Pyrenees) is.
3) Our transit system doesn’t connect very well. Until David Lawson’s vision becomes reality, we are stuck with bus routes that involve big gaps or bad transfers.
Therefore, there are really two reasons why someone would use bikeshare:
1) Go out for a short errand. I’m sure this is how people use this system in other cities, especially if the other cities have a really good transit system. If you want to get to that deli ten blocks away, you really don’t want to wait for a bus (or train) nor do you necessarily want to walk. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, we really don’t have a good system in Seattle for this. Downtown is terrible. It is full of big hills and busy streets. Furthermore, it is really isn’t hard to jump on a bus if you are feeling lazy. Capitol Hill is a bit better, but not much. Same with South Lake Union — it is fine if you want to go north/south, but terrible if you want to go even a few blocks east/west. Generally speaking, the distances aren’t so great to bother with (you might as well walk). For example, let’s say you are at REI and want to get to Westlake and Mercer. You won’t bike the whole thing (at least, not with these bikes). So, you walk directly west (down the hill) pick up a bike at Westlake, and ride to Mercer, right? No, that is only four blocks. You might as well just walk the whole way.
2) This will help solve the last mile problem as well as the “middle mile” problem. The last mile problem is common and well understood, but the “middle mile” problem is not mentioned much. I gave a couple examples of this above, all of which are close to the UW (Husky Stadium station, 520, 15th Ave/University Way). There are plenty of others spread out across the city. As Link expands, there will probably be more. PSBS should concentrate on these areas, especially if they make sense for biking.
No need to apologize; I appreciated what you contributed, as I have often in other articles. There are two different issues: one, what would be the most effective bikeshare area; and two, what can we reasonably expect this organization to do at this time? I’m taking yours and most of the other suggestions as being mainly the former.
I don’t know enough about PSBS or the other cities to tell whether they should have marketed better or whether any non-corporate funding is realistic. I do know the city is only willing to do a little bit of bike infrastructure at a time, and that Bezos has a history of trying to avoid taxes which goes hand in hand with not donating for the public good. Perhaps our local large companies are stingier than those in other cities, although I doubt that’s the case since they donate to so many other things. So it’s worth investigating why this particular fundraising has done so poorly.
You say: “Generally speaking, only hard core bikers will bike up and down hills in this city.”
This is an invalid assumption – at least if I understand what you mean by “hard core”
As a person who has commuted on a bike most of his life – I can tell you that the people I see every morning/afternoon range in sex, size/shape, and age. It is not just fit looking guys in their 30’s on bikes – “braving” the mean streets and hills of Seattle. This assumption is propaganda.
Three of the regular faces I see on one of the residential streets I ride on are ladies well into their 50’s – they are not fair weather riders – I have a lot of respect for them and think them to be pretty bad ass. I have witnessed a spike in young ladies in the CD commuting on their bikes going to Seattle U – my assumption is that a bike in the CD offers a sense of safety you dont get when you walk – but this is just an assumption – I have also seen an increase in young and older black males that are sporting bikes to get about my neighborhood – which is very hilly. Then – there are always the hipsters – m&f – that some how manage to smoke hand rolled cigarettes when riding – good for them. Witnessing this evolution of people who ride makes me happy.
Regardless of all the empirical and statistical information I could give you if I had more time – I will just ask that you agree to take better notice of the people you are seeing on bikes. A person’s body can be easily conditioned to handle the hills – and if not – you can always get off your bike and walk for a bit.
Ross,
I completely agree with you and others comments that say that bikeshare should follow the infrastructure and not the other way around. Cities where bikesharing works — DC, NYC, Boston, Montreal — have a very different layout and very different topography from Seattle. In those cities, with large, relatively flat grids in the dense downtown areas, there are lots of streets to choose from when getting from neighborhood to neighborhood or from a neighborhood to downtown.
In Seattle, our hourglass shape combined with steep topography means there are very few streets to choose from. If you are biking from the UW to downtown there is only ONE reasonable path — Eastlake. This is is not what I would call a quiet, bike friendly street as evidenced by any map of bicycle accidents in Seattle.
We need to get over the idea that we will implement bikeshare following the paradigm that worked in these other cities. Instead, we should embraces the genius of Seattle — its neighborhoods. I would reference the Bikeshare Doesn’t (Yet) Belong Downtown post mentioned earlier:
https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2012/08/15/bikeshare-doesnt-yet-belong-downtown/
and my extended comments in it. I also posted a google map of what I thought would be a better rollout:
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=217578783611843892504.0004c7630a07b85f75a5d
I based my map on the fact that the Burke Gilman is an EXTREMELY SAFE BIKE ROUTE with bike-friendly neighborhoods strung like jewels on a silver chain. I think that bike safety should be foremost in our considerations. If that were true, putting bikes along the Eastlake corridor would not be a high priority.
I agree with those who might complain about the social inequity of providing bikeshare only in the north end. So lets identify other very safe bike routes and provide bike share in the neighborhoods along them — Capitol Hill and the new Capitol Hill cycle track; Lower Queen Anne/Belltown and the Elliot Bay trail; Beacon Hill and Beacon Ave S, West Seattle and Alki, etc. Remember, the last mile problem doesn’t exist in compact, downtown Seattle where there is transit on every street. The last mile problem exists in individual neighborhoods.
The rollout needs to be completely rethought and needs to focus on:
1) What separated bicycle tracks exist?
2)Which nearby neighborhoods have quiet sides streets that allow for multiple routes to destinations.
3) Which ones are dense enough to support casual cycling?
4) Where is transit not regular enough or not networked enough to get where you want?
These are the Seattle-centric questions that we need to be asking. If people stop thinking of seattle as a “world class city” wannabe and start thinking of it as an aggregation of some of the worlds best neighborhoods, the neighborhood focused solution will become evident.
I’m not surprised that these companies don’t want to sponsor the programme. BECU or Cambia might be the only one that would make sense since all the others are high profile brands and the PSBS will not rise to the stature name brand of Capitol Bikeshare or Barclay Cycle Hire in London or CitiBike NYC. People already know Amazon, Starbucks, and Microsoft and more local advertising on bikes frankly isn’t going bolster stellar sales. Forget the sponsors. The City and County need to put the money where their mouths are on this and just roll it out. On top of that, the director of PSBS is stupid to be so public in criticism of the companies. I agree with Bruce’s assessment on that front entirely.
Maybe asking for sponsorship is a bad idea, but companies sponsor these types of things all the time. Alaska Airlines sponsors the Husky basketball arena, but everyone still just calls it “Hec Ed”. Century Link sponsors Seahawk Stadium, but I had to look that one up (again, most people call it Seahawk Stadium). Maybe they are asking for too much money, and are therefore too reliant on sponsorship, but in a town with lots and lots of charitable money floating around, it doesn’t sound like such a crazy idea (Paul Allen could write a check and just be done with it — hell, if he thought it might help his property investments, then he probably would).
I’m more concerned about the design. As folks have pointed out, this just doesn’t seem to focus on the most important areas first. It reminds me of our light rail system. OK, we will connect the most important areas of the city (the UW, Capitol Hill and downtown) but first we have to make a slow, winding path to the airport. Then we will have to skip Pill Hill, which is one of the few stations that are in the same league as UW and Capitol Hill. Oh, and while we are at it, let’s eliminate Convention Place Station.
In other words, if was say, Tully’s Coffee, I don’t know if I would want my name on this bike share thing. At least, not as it is being sketched out right now.
[ot]
Relying on private funding was their first mistake (of several)
Rather than trying to have a single company take on the bike sharing problem, why not have (or encourage) a network of bicycle shops to take on the challenge? They’re already distributed in the areas where bicycle usage is pretty high.
They could start with a corridor we know would work — the Burke Gilman trail. Pick up your bike at one end for a nominal fee and drop it off at one of the stations along the trail where you would get off at your destination. You could also have participating bicycle shops as drop off points if they are closer to the target destination. From there it would seem relatively trivial to me to expand to corridors that would see a lot of use… Capitol hill to UW, UW to SLU and downtown, etc…
It might even put on increased pressure to finally complete the last link in Burke Gilman as trail usage increases….
Maybe its not as super effective as having the shared bicycle racks right at your work, but it seems like it would work better than having a single organization walking around begging local corporations for money to get started.
I agree. Getting a bunch of small sponsors might work.
I pretty much said the same thing as your second paragraph in an earlier comment. On the other hand, they do need to be big enough to be worth it. There is some overhead to move the bikes around. However, I think several spots along the Burke Gilman would be sufficient to do the job. Basically, from Children’s (who is a sponsor) to Ballard, via the Burke. I would also add a stop at 520 (there are already a bunch of lockers there). We’ve all mentioned that corridor as being the easiest way to add value to our transit system. In other words, add the bikes and a lot of people have a much better commute.
You know who would love to sponsor them? Google! They have tons of money, and their employees could ride these things from Ballard or the UW to their offices in Fremont. Oh, wait, no they can’t.
OK, enough snark. Am I right to assume that Westlake is terrible for biking? I ask because this is one of the few places that look good on paper. For example, get off at Westlake station (or someplace close) and cruise down to South Lake Union. Amazon is working with the city to add a cycle track — where exactly is that supposed to go? I know you can take the trolley, but my guess is that most of the time, riding a bike is faster. I assume that these bikes have tires that so fat that they wouldn’t get stuck in the trolley rail grooves.
Westlake between Westlake center and SLU has the SLU streetcar. Since it does not run in the center lane and does not have a cycle track, it is particularly good at snagging bicycle tires (especially if you are talking about a novice bicyclist who doesn’t have their own bike).
Yeah, but don’t these bikes have (relatively) fat tires. I honestly don’t know, but I know it has been discussed. So, I’m just wondering if any of the bike nerds (and I mean that quite positively) know if one of these bikes can actually get stuck in the tracks.
In general, it doesn’t look good. After Denny it converges into two lanes, with the trolley on the inside. Yuck. Then it widens a bit with parking on the right. Double yuck. As an old fart, I wouldn’t like it, but I would endure it, if I had to. Not exactly a great endorsement of the idea.
I don’t mean to jump down Ross, Charles, Stephen, and Lack’s throats, because I know you’re all trying to help, but each of you — like Puget Sound Bike Share — is engaging in that infuriating Seattle habit of trying to reinvent the wheel and winding up with a rectangle.
There are literally hundreds of functioning bike-share programs worldwide. Every one of them is a unified system under its respective city’s chosen banner. None of them require you to find an established bicycle shop and waste time returning it inside. None of them limit the trips you can take to a single linear corridor. A number of the largest ones have taken on a primary corporate sponsor.
The whole point of bike share is spontaneous access and convenience, for quick cross-town errands or for connecting to transit. That’s why access is sold on a daily/monthly/yearly basis rather than a per-ride basis. That’s why apps exist that update bike and dock availability in real time. That’s why the system can not have a “piecemeal” feel. That’s why stations must be visible and well-located and cover an intuitive service area across which it will be regularly useful enough to warrant the membership fee. (That’s also why the stations must be well-managed. One of many flaws in PSBS’s plan is that it would place stations too close together, as many as two per block in places, which is a recipe for imbalanced availability.) And most importantly, that’s why “sterilization stations” which turn your no-marginal-cost journey into a policed $3 fleecing are a no-go.
As Kevin says above, if you’re going to go the corporate-sponsor route, it is best to have the sponsor secured before going public with the details of the program. That does not mean the sponsor gets to design the program, though it does mean it has a stake in the program succeeding. Perhaps those approached intuited what we are now just learning: that PSBS doesn’t have a fucking clue what it’s doing.
Yeah unfortunately it sounds like this bike share company is run pretty incompetently.
I like the membership idea you were speaking of, and though I would be in favor of the system you have outlined, I have a lack of confidence in the local political scene to get that implemented.
Is there any way these existing (working!) systems can be implemented without a lot of capital first?
If there is some way that one of the working models can be adjusted to fit a grass roots up growth model, we might be able to achieve it without having to go around begging for corporate sponsorship. It would be nice to have such sponsorship, I don’t think there is a lot of track record for this kind of thing in the Seattle area, unfortunately.
Honestly and unfortunately, no. The “grassroots” versions of bike share, in the absence of sophisticated infrastructure for tracking usage and verifying users, have invariably been undermined by their inability to keep bikes readily available and by tragedy-of-the-commons theft and vandalism.
The startup costs of the vetted, successful model are low by government-project standards — especially proportional to the mobility they enable — but too high to be cobbled together informally. And with the costs of program and equipment maintenance, even super-successful bike shares like Paris, Montreal, and D.C. are not profit-making enterprises. Thus the interest in corporate sponsorship to bridge the gap.
But again I remind you that the membership framework and the system I described are not “my ideas”. That is the proven successful model. The only proven successful model.
And the proven model doesn’t bypass downtown or obsess about one limited corridor over all others. It doesn’t willfully ignore adjacent multi-use areas with known transport deficiencies, the way PSBS’s long-term plans ignore Ballard. It doesn’t establish random satellite nodes in Kirkland that will be used only once daily (WTF?). And it doesn’t force users to carry helmets around 24-7 or else pay an exorbitant per-ride penalty.
PSBS may need to be cancelled and replaced by a city agency with A Clue written into its charter.
Do you know of another way to comply with the helmet law?
We should make a pin for d.p. that says, “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get Ballard.” Because it’s, like, half true.
I actually think doing SLU, LQA, and UW (minus Eastlake) first if they have to do a tiny rollout is about the least crazy thing about PSBS. But PSBS is a box of crazy.
To answer a question Mike never asked me, I would deal with the helmet law by actually trying to change the law with some visible, public, hard-hitting PR. And if I failed at that I’d give the f*** up on the whole operation. But then we couldn’t get a half-mil from Children’s? Good riddance. I’m not an Amazon person, but I’ve heard people say Bezos seriously hates giving money to doomed causes. I’d hardly blame him for judging cycletracks in the Denny Triangle useful and PSBS doomed.
@Al Dimond
After all, most of the amazon engineers make more than enough to afford their own bicycles. That gives Bezos even less incentive to put money into the bike sharing service when his employees will be using the cycle tracks of their own accord anyway.
@Charles: Practically everyone that uses bike share can afford their own bikes, that’s not my point. Travelling between Amazon offices for meetings in the middle of the day would be a more typical use for bike share than commuting from home in the morning (Google sprinkles bikes around its Mountain View campus for just this reason and doesn’t even lock them up, though it hasn’t exactly inspired imitators). But Amazon employees won’t be any more willing to tote around helmets than the rest of us. The only thing worse than blowing a bunch of money on a sure failure is to get it named after you, too.
What Al said.
A competent, non-weasely bike-share initiative would make its first order of business the crafting of an exemption to the helmet law for all users of bike-share over the age of 18. Or even better, for all riders of upright “utility” bikes over the age of majority.
There is precedent for this as well.
As long as ill-educated politicians, an ill-educated public, and the ill-educated road-warrior cycling types behind this magnificent botch continue to rely on a 30-year-old miraculously-unreplicable confirmation-biased study that overstated by an order of magnitude the efficacy of helmets and the range of situations in which they protect the wearer, bike-share is basically fucked.
This law is the difference between a system that serves a #realtransportation purpose (Google or Twitter that) and a system that sits underused as yet another #cutecivicgimmick. I’m not convinced those currently in charge of PSBS care either way, but I do.
http://ariofsevit.com/hubway/charts.php
Seattle is full of situations like this. But nothing would undermine this option more than having to pay a twice-the-T-fare surcharge or risk a whopping fine from a vindictive cop just to use the most effective conveyance.
I’m going to venture to guess that bikeshare users will be end up blatently violating the helmet law (if I’m in a hurry to get somewhere and don’t have a helmet with me, I know I would) and the Seattle cops will unofficially find better things to do than to crack down on people who do so (except those who are also breaking other laws or causing accidents).
You mean the way they found better things to do than beating the shit out of a kid for safely jaywalking in the U-District on a quiet evening?
This town is full of cops who love nothing more than to “prove a point” to pedestrians and bicyclists. The helmet exemption needs to be an actual change in the law.
You didn’t jump down my throat, d.p,, you only pointed out how out of touch I am. Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that folks are really into these smart phone things (why don’t they just go home and use a real computer?). You are absolutely right, it is literally in the hundreds now. I remember when there in the single digits. I lost track, and well, now you have, as you said, hundreds of successful systems worldwide.
But how about a breakdown of the systems. How many are private versus public. How many are in areas which are flat as a pancake, and already have great bicycle infrastructure (I’m looking at you, Netherlands). We aren’t a snowflake, but we aren’t Copenhagen either. By that I mean, you just can’t throw a bunch of bikes in various spots around town and expect everyone to jump on them. We have a really nasty city as far as bikes are concerned. We just happen to have a very liberal, bike loving population (we also like our soccer team, which until this year, did not justify the fan support.– go figure). It is obvious that PSBS doesn’t know what it is doing, and we are trying to help it muddle along until it figures it all out. What we all fear is that it will fail, miserably, and then folks will simply throw up their hands and say “well, it just won’t work in Seattle”. Given our topography, this is a reasonable conclusion. Executed properly, however, it is the wrong conclusion. We could make use of this bike sharing thing as well as any city (if not more so). It just needs to be done right. So far, PSBS doesn’t seem to be doing it right (and the sponsorship thing is only half the problem).
The short answer is that the more a city’s topography (e.g. hills) and movement patterns (e.g. travel toward a transit or employment hub at a particular time of day) dispose a system to directional imbalance, the more proactive the system operator will have to be about redistributing the bikes. This is yet another reason why systems must launch with a robust operations infrastructure, and why a managed and well-funded system will thrive where a piecemeal system would flounder.
Fortunately, bike redistribution is easy: a van is driven to a near-capacity dock, a dozen bikes are thrown in the back, and the bikes are dropped minutes later where they’re most needed. This is still far more efficient than deadheading endless empty buses in traffic, and far more logistically feasible than redistributing cars2go back to where demand is high and supply is low.
Believe it or not, Paris and Lyon and any number of these other cities actually have mega-hills in them. Montreal, mother of all North American bikeshare systems, is named for the one around which its street grid wraps. San Francisco now has a bike-share. Some bike-share cities had great cycle infrastructure from the get-go, while others launched with weak infrastructure that has gradually improved as bike-share has helped to mainstream the constituency for it.
Franky, Seattle’s helmet intransigence and gross incompetence in shaping the service area are the only things rendering it “snowflake”-like.
Re: Public/private: All urban bike-shares everywhere are, as far as I know, administered either by the cities themselves or by non-profit entities operating under contract in the cities’ name. All of the equipment and software is purchased or licensed from a handful of private vendors. Corporate sponsorship ranges from in-kind services to a small logo on each bike to naming rights and marquee billing — but that doesn’t seem to impact the operations in the slightest.
Interesting. So, city on your list that seems closest to Seattle in terms of bike infrastructure (paths and streets) and topography is San Francisco. So, I looked at what they have from a bike sharing standpoint. Like you said, they are just starting out, and decided to start out small. They have a regional system, in various parts of the Bay Area. Guess what? There system looks as flawed as this one (http://bayareabikeshare.com/stations). They don’t even cover all of San Fransisco (even though it is very small city from a land area standpoint). They completely ignore East Bay, but cover areas like Mountain View and Redwood City. Insane. I’m thinking the folks who designed the Seattle system just copied this (flawed) model. Reminds me of BART.
Anyway, I agree with you, bike sharing can work in Seattle, just like it has worked in other cities. Ideally, you would start out really big and cover the entire region. If you are going to start out small, then it makes sense to focus on areas that will be popular. If you knew nothing about the streets or hills in Seattle ((but only where people live and work) then the PSBS initial plan sounds OK. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details. Downtown sucks for biking. It is great for buses. On the other hand, the Burke Gilman just happens to cover an area that is poor for buses. Meanwhile, like all east/west routes, it is really important as a means of complimenting our north/south transportation system. If this served Burke Gilman (and only Burke Gilman) then it would be the fastest way to go east/west in the city (using public transportation). For example, if you wanted to get from Roosevelt to Fremont by public transportation, the fastest way to do it is to take a bus to the U-District, then ride a bike to Fremont. You would be there, enjoying a nice pint while your buddy is still waiting for the 32.
As to the helmets, I think it is silly, but I understand it. I also don’t think it is that bad. They will rent them (which, if someone is smart, will cost nothing). Furthermore, it is one thing to stash a helmet at work, or carry it on the bus — it is another thing dealing with a bike. Furthermore, if they focus this away from where good bike paths exist (e. g. Burke Gilman) then it makes sense to have a bike helmet. There is no way I would bike downtown without a helmet (but then I wouldn’t bike downtown — it is either too hilly or there is a good transit). So, yeah, I would not require helmets. But if this thing fails, then we shouldn’t blame the helmets. Nor should be blame our bad streets or tough topography. We should blame the bozos who ignored them when they decided to start with a small system.
Puget Sound Bike Share has a number of partners, who were on board before details went public. These are listed here: http://pugetsoundbikeshare.org/about/partners/ and include Microsoft and REI as well as a lot of government agencies.
They also have lots of levels of sponsorship opportunities, from being the Title Sponsor (like Citi Bank in New York) on down, like sponsoring a station. More info here: http://pugetsoundbikeshare.org/sponsorship-opportunities/.
I bet this is all possible, and this coverage was aimed at calling on sponsors to step up. So, dear sponsors: step up; we want Bike Sharing.
I’m kind of surprised it’s not “Starbikes”. Of course, my wife always thought that Safeco would better have been named “Starbucks Grounds.”
That’s pretty good.
In all their brilliance, they hired the same company to determine feasibility and siting (everything will be great!) as they did to install and operate it.
Whoops.
Given the huge success of Car2Go, the evidence is clear that the market for on-demand point-to-point transportation in the city is strong and, if done right, something that a lot of people would use. For example, a decent chunk of my Car2Go trips thus far, would have been easily doable as BikeShare trips had the option been available and I suspect that would be true for others to.
But, that is subject to a big “if” assuming that the system is done right. If it doesn’t serve both the origin and destination points of a trip, it’s no good. If you have to wear a helmet and don’t happen to have one on you, it’s no good. If the stations are sparse enough so that you have to waste time circling around your destination, looking for a station to return the bike, it’s no good. From the looks of things, we definitely appear to be blowing a good opportunity here.