Montgomery County proposal: 50 bike stations/400 bikes in Bethesda, Silver Spring…

[PotomacCyclist]

Today is the big day. The Montgomery County system officially opens at 10:30 am with the ceremony at Rockville.

[PotomacCyclist]

The first Maryland bike stations are now operational! The CaBi and Spotcycle maps now include stations in Rockville, Bethesda and Silver Spring.

[SerialCarpins]

@PotomacCyclist 65213 wrote:

The first Maryland bike stations are now operational! The CaBi and Spotcycle maps now include stations in Rockville, Bethesda and Silver Spring.

I saw a sign on Woodmont Avenue for “Bike Sharing” with an arrow pointing towards the Metro “Kiss and Ride” area, but didn’t see the actual station. How exciting! I have been craving some sharing in Bethesda….it was always the missing link for getting me home/getting me started.

[PotomacCyclist]

I haven’t been up to Montgomery County in quite a while, so I haven’t observed the usage patterns of the CaBi stations there. But I have looked at the Bikeshare IQ map from time to time. That shows the bike/dock numbers for each station, currently, and at 15 and 30 minutes ago. I almost never see the numbers change for the Rockville/Shady Grove stations. The Bethesda and Silver Spring numbers change occasionally, but not that much.

Someone did a broader survey of the MC stations. It verifies that those stations are seeing very few customers:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/21669/slow-start-for-capital-bikeshare-in-montgomery-county/

The article and the comments discuss possible reasons for the lack of use: cold winter, bad timing to start the system in the fall, poor bike infrastructure, poor station placement, lack of stations at Metro stations.

I hope the network becomes more popular. It doesn’t look good when any part of the network sees such little use. But if the usage rates continue to be very low, could MC bail out on part of the system and maybe turn those stations over to someone else, like Arlington or DC?

[sethpo]

@PotomacCyclist 77041 wrote:

Someone did a broader survey of the MC stations. It verifies that those stations are seeing very few customers:

Hopefully, they will add more stations instead of backing off. The problem now is that there is no where to go. What works with CaBi is taking a bike to a destination and parking it which means both ends have to destinations. Right now, there’s two stations in Rockville within a few blocks of each other and then??? There’s a cluster in Fallsgrove near some apartment and condos and a shopping area that could be nice for residents to make quick shopping trips but honestly, it’s super easy to drive there now and that cluster is too far from anywhere else to be effective.

Perhaps, the only useful connection is from Rockville metro (and it’s actually across the Pike and not AT the Metro) to the Montgomery community college about a mile away.

If there were more stations along the Rockville Pike you could at least grab a bike and go somewhere. Of course, the problem with that is riding along the Pike is impossible right now.

So, overall I’m not in the least bit surprised that the Rockville area stations aren’t being used. There’s just not enough density to necessitate it and the destinations and routes aren’t viable. I’ve tried to figure out how I could use CaBi in Rockville and can’t think of a single way it would fit into my life.

[PotomacCyclist]

If there isn’t enough density to support the Rockville stations, can usage rates be expected to increase in coming years?

*****
http://www.gazette.net/article/20140219/NEWS/140219197/1022/rockville-rolls-out-bike-route-proposal&template=gazette

Rockville is revising its Bikeway Master Plan. The article has links to the website where comments can be posted. A public hearing is scheduled for April 9.

[PotomacCyclist]

CaBi just announced that they are finally adding stations that were planned for WMATA sites. There are already some bike stations next to Metro entrances. But other bike stations have been delayed, including those planned at Takoma in DC and at Metro stations in Montgomery County.

CaBi added bike stations at Ft. Totten and Takoma today. This could make the Takoma Park stations more useful. I’m not so sure about the Ft. Totten station. There are no nearby bike stations. So who is going to ride CaBi to that station?

One of the older CaBi Google maps shows stations planned for the Shady Grove, Rockville and Medical Center Metro stations, but plans can always change.

[PotomacCyclist]

New station added at the Rockville Metro station today.

[PotomacCyclist]

Is this an accurate report on cycling in Rockville? I don’t know myself. I don’t think I’ve ever actually ridden a bike there. (I used to live nearby, many years ago, but I never rode bikes back then. I’m rarely in Rockville these days.)

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/22142/in-rockville-a-quiet-bicycling-transformation-takes-place/

[PotomacCyclist]

I think some of the new Rockville/Shady Grove stations are getting bike traffic, although it’s hard to tell. (I’m not monitoring all the data like some people are.) The Bikeshare IQ map shows at least some change in bike/dock numbers, even at the later hour of 8-9 pm tonight. I also look at the bike/dock numbers and see how balanced the stations are. I think that stations that are always perfectly balanced or near balanced are probably those that aren’t used very often. The popular stations on the Mall and in downtown DC are rarely balanced. They are usually low on bikes or docks. It’s rare to see a group of them with 6 bikes/6 docks or 8 bikes/9 docks or similar numbers. Until I just checked, all of the upper Red Line stations were always balanced/near-balanced: 8/8, 7/8, 6/5, etc. Now some of them are showing imbalances, which indicates usage.

I haven’t seen anyone post comprehensive CaBi usage stats in recent months, so this is all I can go on.

[PotomacCyclist]

http://www.bethesdanow.com/2015/01/28/moco-says-capital-bikeshare-exceeded-revenue-projections-in-first-year/

MoCo Says Capital Bikeshare Exceeded Revenue Projections In First Year, BethesdaNow

“Montgomery County said today that its network of 51 Capital Bikeshare stations exceeded revenue projections during its first full year. …

MCDOT says about 35,000 Bikeshare trips were taken from October 2013 to October 2014, with most ridership coming out of the Metro-adjacent stations during the morning and evening rush hours.

There are now 14 Bikeshare stations in Bethesda and Friendship Heights. Many observers of Capital Bikeshare’s success in D.C. and Arlington were interested to see how the system would work in more suburban, and more spread-out Montgomery County.

While early numbers were underwhelming, MCDOT and bicycle advocates pointed to increases in use once the weather got warmer in the spring of 2014.

Trips originating from Montgomery County Bikeshare stations increased by 95 percent in April 2014 compared to March 2014. The county reported 3,182 Bikeshare trips started at a county Bikeshare station in April, compared to 1,630 in March. …”

[brendan]

Whoops, I knew I should have returned that bikeshare bike earlier…

B

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