Two Interesting Articles That Came Across My Desk:

[PotomacCyclist]

In addition to any specific issues with Fairfax/Reston, there seems to be a backlog on CaBi bike/station deliveries throughout North America. It could be a combination of Bixi’s financial problems, problems with payments from new bikeshare systems (like Citi Bike and Divvy in Chicago) and just the overall rapid increase in systems and demand for bikes from all of the new systems coming online (a few other cities along with NYC and Chicago) plus ongoing expansion in the D.C. area and other existing systems.

The roll-out of the D.C./Arlington/Alexandria expansion has been very slow. I think it was originally supposed to be finished a year ago, but it still hasn’t been finished. Alexandria may not get their new stations until next spring.

Even if Fairfax has the money, the final schedule may not be up to them. They may have to wait in line behind all the other cities and existing CaBi jurisdictions. (Another reason why I wish Bixi/Montreal would come up with a better organizational structure, to improve financial stability for the company and to improve bike/station production. Maybe license another company to help meet the demand for bikes and stations.)

[lordofthemark]

@PotomacCyclist 69881 wrote:

A WTOP article, dated 8/24/2013: http://www.wtop.com/149/3431303/Fairfax-County-pedaling-for-more-cyclists

“We chose Reston first because we feel as though we have the densities, the corporate base, and the Silver Line stations,” Strunk says.

“We’ve been toying with Capital Bikeshare, Arlington’s doing it, D.C. of course is doing it, Alexandria, Montgomery County – it takes a special area, special density to make it work,” he adds. “Tysons is obviously a good choice, Dunn Loring-Merrifield with the Mosaic District is also another good choice.”

Even the Reston bikes will not be rolling any time soon. “Realistically, I think it’s going to be at least two years,” Strunk says. Some Fairfax County leaders had hoped bikesharing would be available in time for the Silver Line’s opening early next year.

***
Has something changed in the past few months? If so, that would be great. If not, it doesn’t appear that Reston CaBi is on the way in the near term.

I guess it depends on one’s definition of imminent. Even if they are certain to do Reston, they have to confirm they want it to be CaBi, they have to select the locations, decide on the number of docks/bikes, refine the cost estimates, go through the process of getting approval as needed for station locations, confirm the cost and officially fund it, order the docks and bikes, and then install them. So yeah, two years, I guess. And as you say, they may still have to deal with delays on the vendor side.

[PotomacCyclist]

It took Montgomery County nearly two years from the time they first announced their bikeshare plans to the installation of the first stations this fall:

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?1503-Montgomery-County-proposal-50-bike-stations-400-bikes-in-Bethesda-Silver-Spring

With so many different parties involved (state, county, ALTA, Bixi/Montreal), it’s always difficult to put an exact timetable on CaBi installation. Every announced CaBi expansion has been late, anywhere from 6 months to over a year. Then again, the Boston, NYC and Chicago systems have started up. Maybe Bixi will be better able to handle overall demand next year when they don’t have to deal with such massive start-up projects like they did over the past 12 months.

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