Skyler the Weird
Countryboy JJ
Rick Barton
Wiley Coyote
BooneCountyGirl
Pedaling Push For DNC 2012
Charlotte is wheeling its way down a path to have a burgeoning bike-share program up and running in time for the Democratic National Convention, with an eye toward keeping the pedals churning long after the political circus leaves town.
The city council’s Planning and Transportation Committee last month gave the green light to launch planning for a demonstration bike-share project, at a price of about $30,000, to be spinning its spokes by next September in time for the DNC, while staff continues work on a feasibility study to determine the costs and logistics of an ongoing bike-share program for the Queen City.
Similar pedaling operations have begun cropping up of late in cities across the country, as a required cool jewel to adorn any hipster urban core’s crown. So naturally, Charlotte needs one.
The program’s premise is fairly simple: stations equipped with payment kiosks and corrals for bicycles are set up at strategic locations throughout town; for a daily or hourly fee, or with a paid membership, people can take a bicycle from a station, ride it for a certain number of hours and return it to another bike station.
Charlotte’s demonstration project will be geared in its scope to the uptown loop as the DNC hits town, with results and feedback from the project rolled into a larger feasibility study. The total cost of the study, part and parcel with the demo project, is pegged at about $90,000, said Dan Gallagher, a planning section manager with the Charlotte Department of Transportation. Funding will come via private sponsorship and from a portion of the city’s bike program budget, which stands at about a half-million dollars a year, Gallagher said.
The study will determine, among other factors, how much an ongoing and larger bike-share program would cost. Although it’s likely that whatever the price tag, the city would be responsible for only a fraction of the total, Gallagher said.
“In many cases around the country, the cost is absorbed significantly by a private-sector company running the business,” Gallagher said.
Models under consideration for the DNC demo project include programs that are already operational in Denver and Minneapolis. Charlotte’s trial version would likely use between seven and a dozen bicycle corrals, located at key spots uptown and sponsored and run by a private company.
An ongoing bike-share program for Charlotte would likely be similar to the version found in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, which is run by Alta Bicycle Share, a consultant group that manages the program.
For a taste of what might be around the bicycle bend, representatives from Alta were in town earlier this year to share a pitch and presentation with the city council’s planning and transportation committee. Under the Capital Bikeshare venture, which started in 2010 and has grown to include 1,100 bikes docked at 110 stations, riders can hop on board with options that range from a $7 daily pass to a $75 annual membership. The first 30 minutes of each bike trip are free, with each additional 30 minutes incurring an additional fee. The length of typical ride averages about 1.2 miles.
“I thought it was worth giving it a try locally,” said Councilmember Patsy Kinsey, a member of the planning and transportation committee. “Other cities are using similar programs and seem to have had positive results.”
As part of a comprehensive transportation plan for Charlotte, Kinsey said, it makes sense to integrate biking as a viable option. A bike-share program, she said, fits into that mix.
“If we’re trying to cut back on individuals using their automobiles, this is one way we could possibly help to offer some alternatives,” Kinsey said.
A main goal of Charlotte’s feasibility study, Gallagher said, would be to determine where stations for bike pick-ups and drop-offs would work best and provide the most convenience, benefit and ease for users. Prime spots, at least initially, would likely be scattered around Center City.
“We’d be looking for logical places that people would want to go for short-distance trips, be it errand-based or for business people or visitors and tourists,” Gallagher said, which could be expanded to include bike stations dotting the county’s expansive greenway system.
All of which begs the obvious question, as the Queen City’s bike-share demo project gears up for the DNC’s arrival: who’s up for a little two-wheeling fun through a veritable armed camp fortress of a Center City teeming with protesters and various and sundry other types of potential mayhem?
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Bike sharing was actually fun in Denmark but thats a country where a lot of people have never been able to afford cars and the $10 a gallon gas price to fill them and have always rode bikes or walked.
Uptown has no Stroget where cars are banned so I’d be very very wary of riding a bicycle among the bad drivers uptown.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Exactly, Sky; my kids and I enjoy riding trails, even tooling around the neighborhood, and are fairly proficient riders. But there’s no way I’m going head-to-head vs. uptown traffic, with limited bike lanes or even without. And the thought of pedaling center city during the DNC? LOL
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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By all means…let’s spend 30 grand on bikes…we can take the money to fund it out of the road surface repair budget cause we’ve given up on keeping the roads paved for vehicular traffic…I’ve had to call council members multiple times in the past year to patch(not pave) pot holes in south Charlotte streets…its already impossible to make time commuting dodging the buses and occasional bike riders…and that contributes to our poor commuting time and pollution rankings.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I am an avid bike rider and so have no problem with the basic concept. I also live part of my life in Minneapolis: I have some insight into Mpls’ bike share program.
Minneapolis has an extensive, interconnected park system -16% of the land in the city is parkland, and there are more than 50 miles of paved bike trails interconnecting them, and the chain of seven lakes within the city limits. More significantly, those parks are adjacent to an arts district, the uptown center, the historic district, and the most vibrant parts of the city’s commercial activity. There are, in other words, paved bike trails that can be safely ridden to many of the places people want to go. Bike riding has long been a great way to move about in Minneapolis. the bike share program is merely building on an activity that was already a prominent feature of life. That would be why the rental stations are virtually all along the parkways.
That’s obviously very unlike Charlotte, and I can think of no reason that they would work here. That particularly so because it doesn’t work all that well in Minneapolis, even with the paved bikeway system, at least in part because they are expensive to use, and unless you happen to walk around with a good bike lock, you’re taking a $350 risk every time you leave the bike. Unlike what was said in the article, Minneapolis’ fee system is not either a daily or hourly fee, or a subscription, it is ALL of the above. One needs a subscription in order to rent. Those run from $5 for 24 hours, to $30 for a month, to $60 for the year. They require the use of a credit card, since if the bike is lost or stolen, they bill you for it (that’s the $350). the first 30 minutes are free, but after that it gets very pricey, very quick, with the first 90 minutes costing $4.50, and thereafter $6.00 per half hour. Take out a bike for you and your wife or date near the University to ride over to Minnehaha Falls, grab some food and have a picnic, and and a leisurely ride back and you’ve got a $70 bill for the ride. Obviously if you’re a local and you enjoy using a bike, it’s far cheaper to simply buy a mediocre bike.
I simply see no way that this makes any sense for Charlotte.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Mark, Now you’ve done it. Because you said Charlotte is not a viable location for a program like this, and especially because it comes from someone with experience, they will now go full bore into it. It’s just how Charlotte government works.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Obviously, government money in the form of grants will be spent on these crackpot ideas coming from the Socialist Party. Here is one example: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/07/09/bike_sharing_in_boston_gets_3m_federal_grant/
Who will carry the liability insurance? Where are we getting all this money? I thought the Welfare States of America was basically bankrupt!
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Where will we get the money? Why the Fed will print it of course. I can’t wait til Romney or whomever is in office so the MSM will report how bad inflation really is.
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There are precedents for bike sharing which make sense in terms of emissions reduction. I will further posit that once they find the right business model, they can also be economically self-sustaining.
The BIXI Bike Rental System
http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/bixi-bike-rental-system.html
BIXI Bikes Takes a Bite of the Big Apple
http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com/2011/09/bixi-bike-system-takes-bite-of-big.html
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The idea of emissions reduction relies upon bicycles replacing cars and buses. I doubt very seriously that that will happen to any serious degree in this country in the near term, primarily because of safety concerns and fears. Even WITH bike lanes, heavily traveled roads are not popular even with hard core riders: it is simply too dangerous, even when the rider does everything possible to mitigate the risk.
In any case, bike share systems are no answer to that. For a variety of reasons, they are attractive almost entirely to very casual riders. Aside from the prohibitive cost of using them for the typical American’s commute, anyone using a poorly fitted bike (and of necessity they are for most people) for regular, long rides will develop an intimate familiarity with a sports medicine doctor.
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Then of course if a Bike share plan did reduce emissions the EPA would raise its air quality index as it is wont to do and there’d still be air quality issues.
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And how many folks are hurt and killed riding these bikes in the cities were they are used, Patsy?
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I like to ride bikes, but why should those who don’t ride subsidize my entertainment with tax dollars? If this program is a good idea, that will pay for itself, someone in private business will do it. If it is a bad idea, that will lose money, why should government subsidize it with tax dollars? The government’s sponsorship of a business venture almost always means that it is a bad idea that is not economically viable.
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