Proposed Capital Bikeshare Locations opposed by Bluemont Civic Association – vote

[baiskeli]

Thanks, Potomac. I guess if you do the numbers, the cost factor makes sense. That’s not immediately obvious since you pay to use CaBi but not to ride your own bike. Maybe it’s something for CaBi to use with marketing.

[Steve O]

@baiskeli 114624 wrote:

That’s not immediately obvious since you pay to use CaBi but not to ride your own bike.

But it’s a one-time fee, so it doesn’t really cost anything to ride once you’ve paid it. I just renewed (early) to get the $75 annual rate and am now paid through November of 2016. Any rides I take for the next 18 months at this point are essentially free (unless I go over the 30 mins). Riding my own bikes also feels free, but I’m incurring future costs through depreciation and maintenance that I don’t incur on CaBi.

Fuel costs (food) may be slightly higher on CaBi, since it’s a heavier bike and requires more energy to move over the same distance.

[PotomacCyclist]

But moving all that extra weight of the CaBi bikes increases the workout, despite the slow speeds. (Someone riding on a stationary bike or trainer can be burning a lot of calories without moving forward at all.) Meaning that long-term health costs are likely to go down slightly. Or a lot.

While most of the regulars here are likely to be riding a lot, no matter what bike they have, CaBi can get formerly inactive people moving, on active transportation. If they keep up with it, even on a moderate program, their long-term healthcare costs can decrease significantly. Good for them and good for everyone else (because all medical costs are ultimately shared, through public and private insurance programs or ER subsidization).

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations: It’s estimated that junk food diets and sedentary lifestyles cost the U.S. $190-200 billion (with a “b”) a year in avoidable healthcare costs (because those lead to much greater rates of diabetes, early-onset heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.). Plus it’s now thought that Alzheimer’s is really best described as diabetes type 3, which means that it too is affected by junk food diets and sedentary living. Alzheimer’s costs the U.S. $200-250 billion a year. So the total tab for junk food diets and sedentary living could be anywhere from $400-450 billion a year. Of the 318 million people in the U.S., about 245 million (more or less) are adults (18 and over). Divide the estimated extra health costs by the number of adults and you end up with as much as $1,800+ per adult per year. Perhaps not all of those costs are truly avoidable, but a big percentage of it is. That’s a lot of money.

Bikeshare by itself won’t transform the culture overnight, but it can play a useful role, in normalizing the idea that adults can and should be active, and that it’s possible to fit such activity into a busy weekly schedule, while saving money in the short term as well.

[baiskeli]

@Steve O 114625 wrote:

But it’s a one-time fee, so it doesn’t really cost anything to ride once you’ve paid it. I just renewed (early) to get the $75 annual rate and am now paid through November of 2016. Any rides I take for the next 18 months at this point are essentially free (unless I go over the 30 mins). Riding my own bikes also feels free, but I’m incurring future costs through depreciation and maintenance that I don’t incur on CaBi.

Yeah, that makes even more sense. I was thinking about the hourly rate rather than membership rate.

[baiskeli]

@PotomacCyclist 114626 wrote:

Bikeshare by itself won’t transform the culture overnight, but it can play a useful role, in normalizing the idea that adults can and should be active, and that it’s possible to fit such activity into a busy weekly schedule, while saving money in the short term as well.

You don’t have to sell me on bikeshare, i was just intrigued that you ride it so often despite owning two bikes.

[PotomacCyclist]

I also forgot to mention the comfort factor, which is separate from the convenience element but related. I can ride around and get a lot of exercise on CaBi, whether I’m commuting or doing some other type of ride, but I don’t feel like I’m contorted into an unnatural position as I am on the tri bike. Even on the MTB, it takes a few minutes before I get used to the more rickety feeling of not having the stability of the CaBi bike.

I wouldn’t say that the wide seats are good for really long rides, but for shorter rides, the upright position is comfortable. (I have done a few multi-hour rides on CaBi, during off-peak hours. I dock and undock the bike to avoid per-ride fees. I never do this during rush hour. I think I’ve ridden as long as 3 hours on CaBi.)

[PotomacCyclist]

I’ll add that I always wear a helmet on the tri or mountain bike. I wear a helmet most of the time on CaBi too, but not always on some short trips. Those tend to be in low-traffic areas or at low-traffic times of the day.

[scoot]

I too tend to use CaBi instead of my own bicycles whenever my destinations are in CaBi territory. I would tell you why, but PotomacCyclist already hit all of my reasons and then some

[Author]

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