From The Atlantic:
How a stylish, convenient bikeshare program catapulted the District into the ranks of America's elite biking cities
So cool that - as touched on in the article - these days you're not guaranteed to find a bike at popular stations in rush hour. Like this morning, the station at Petworth was empty (first time it's happened to me), so I walked to Columbia Heights and got a bike in front of the Giant. Then when I dropped it off on the west end of Calvert Street bridge, the guy in the photo was happy to snatch it up, as that module was empty too.
Not a complaint, I love you dearly, CaBi. You're the best thing, babe, perhaps in all of the North American bikescape at the moment, the only real competition being Montreal's Bixi and NY's bike lanes.
What I love the most is that it has basically institutionalized the citizen cycling model, with its bike-as-you-are mindset, upright/slower ride, A-to-Bism, and designing it as integrated transit, not 'bike rental'.
And the chainguard of course. I still say the revolution starts with the humble chainguard.
Empty stations are a good problem to have. It usually means people are using the bikes ;)
ReplyDeleteOur bike sharing program just kicked off this morning - 1,000 bikes at 80 stations to start. So I'm hoping we'll be dealing with the same kinds of issues Washington and London are dealing with (extensive use), and not the problems that Melbourne is plagued with (lack of use).