[Yule]

@Judd 210556 wrote:

Putting up signs on NPS property typically requires going through a compliance process to assess the impact on the things that NPS is charged with preserving including viewsheds. There’s understandably a reluctance to do a ton of work to install a single sign.

A reply in a new thread on the issue of Capital Bikeshare capacity on the National Mall (see second post):

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?18503-CaBi-stations-on-the-National-Mall-demand-gt-supply-(need-more-stations-docks)&p=210584#post210584

[Yule]

Some further overflow thoughts:

There are those who might be swayed by the “more dock-capacity needed” argument, but who may insist that six stations on the National Mall is sufficient. (Six stations from Lincoln steps to the pool in front of the Capitol), and I can well imagine some even pro-cycling people and pro-CaBi people might even say more would be a nuisance. I can see the merit of this argument, but to them I say/ask three things:

(1) How are tourists finding CaBi stations? If they don’t enter the Mall at the Lincoln Memorial, they only have four on the entire way down to the Capitol, and some of these can be easy to miss.

(2) For whatever the merits of the argument to limiting station density on the Mall, the lack of station density probably creates the same problem as the lack of bicyclist density in general. I refer to the bicycling safety in numbers theory by which more bikes apparently leads to fewer overall accidents/injuries/deaths (and therefore far fewer per-capita accidents), partly because bicycling crosses a threshold into becoming normalized. In short: More density = more acceptance. The principle applies to CaBi station density, too, I think, in this case, and in the special case of the National Mall. More people seeing CaBi bikes and stations creates more acceptance and therefore is a win for bicycling. This is a separate benefit on top of the meeting the obvious supply-demand problem easily observable today.

(3) There is a new e-scooter parking zone pilot program which has some 19 designated parking zones. That’s far more parking zones, in the same space, than CaBi has (with its six stations). If 6 is enough to cover this big space, why did they go for 19?

In a recent thread, LhasaCM mentioned that the National Parks Service (which “runs” the National Mall) is right now running a pilot program involving 19 scooter parking zones on the Mall, after for a long time struggling with what to do about e-scooters since their big rise starting about 2018. Nineteen scooter parking zones on the same stretch of ground on which CaBi has six stations (the two flanking Lincoln and just four more on the two miles to the Capitol). This approval of nineteen e-scooter drop-off zones seems to me a clear tacit acknowledgment that six “stations” is far too few to serve the market’s needs.

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Some might also say signs (“This way to Capital Bikeshare”) might help to direct people and be a work-around to some of these problems, potentially bypassing a need for more stations as such (if more dock-capacity is added, because demand crushes supply right now.)

Are there CaBi signs on the Mall now? Not AFAIK, except the ones on physical maps. The practical problem is also getting any kind of sign approved. This subject came up in another recent thread:

@Judd 210556 wrote:

Putting up signs on NPS property typically requires going through a compliance process to assess the impact on the things that NPS is charged with preserving including viewsheds. There’s understandably a reluctance to do a ton of work to install a single sign.

Judd is right. I don’t know that signs will ever be approved. The same problem is also the reason ofc why new stations would not be approved (but then there is much less reluctance to designate spaces to dump e-scooters).

Over the past few years, I’ve observed National Mall visitors on bike-/ebike-/escooter-share a lot. How do tourists connect with them? I think it happens like this (my impression):

The most common way is tourists come across stations/bikes/scooters by chance. For this ‘market,’ unplanned trips may be a more common entry-point than people seeking them out either by word-of-mouth, signs (if there are any), physical map (stations are there, albeit in tiny font, on the physical maps on Mall grounds), or the app map (and first-time-user tourists of course wouldn’t have the app at all yet; side issue: IMO the new app is less user-friendly than the pre-LYFT-era map).

There are of course some brand loyalists who seek out bikes/scooters via their Uber app, or BIRD app, or some other method. But I think the leading way the Mall gets bikeshare traffic (bike-, specifically, not scooter-share) is people just encountering stations and giving it a try.

If I’m right on this, signs could help, in principle, but the best solution is still more stations.

[Yule]

@LhasaCM 210531 wrote:

Related but unrelated: NPS launched a dockless scooter parking pilot program with DDOT to provide designated parking areas on/around the Mall. https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/dockless-scooter-parking.htm

Thanks — Interesting to see their pilot program is ongoing right now and through Memorial Day weekend 2021.

I clicked the map to see where their dockless e-bike and e-scooter parking zones are. I couldn’t see any. You have to zoom in really far to see those things. Tiny and scattered. Some or their 19 designated areas seem next to one of the six CaBi stations they’ve allowed on the Mall (at least three of the e-scooter parking zones are, afaict, right at the CaBi stations).

I’ve been down in the Mall area in the past few weeks and haven’t noticed any of them, but then I am not an e-scooter user so maybe their apps direct them to these places. The people dropping off the re-charged scooters by the hundred every day continue to dump them in rows just outside the Mall area, lots lined up along the north side of Constitution Ave, and near CaBi stations of course (CaBi stations also being, rather awkwardly, forced off National Mall land onto the north side of Constitution Ave), sometimes into tight squeezes (19th St & Constitution Ave being one), but clearly serving Mall-going people.

[Yule]

Quote:

We are replacing Roosevelt Island’s equipment with a slightly larger station (17 docks) sometime in the next few months.
That is good to hear.

I am positive that CaBi planners have thought of all this, but I just wanted to put some thoughts to digital paper here:

It would seem to me that demand on the stations at Roosevelt Island and Gravelly Point (and a potential Arlington Cemetery Station) are unique in the system in Arlington because they are: (1) more inelastic in demand (meaning people there will tend to either use those stations to get a bike or give up on the idea if none are available, NOT shift their ‘demand’ to another station), (2) seasonal (dependent on weather/day-of-week, creating relative demand surges more in relative terms than, I’d think, a typical station’s), and (3) higher-profit-to-the-system (higher share of non-member users) than, say, any of the stations in the Rosslyn area or really most other areas.

If a station is full or empty at Rosslyn, there are other stations practically within eyesight which you can go to to dock or get a bike. Not so for Roosevelt Island and Gravelley Point users. The actual walked distance to the next station is one reason, but I think it’s going to be an even bigger psychological barrier. Few of the potential people taking bikes at Roosevelt Island are regular bike/bikeshare users, often not familiar with the area, and unwilling to just wander into an unknown area in search of a bike.

I remember the Bike Angel point system. It is ruled by algorithm and didn’t seem to understand Roosevelt Island. When Roosevelt would go full or empty, it thought no big deal. The algorithm’s programmed thinking being: “Oh, look, the crow-flies distance to this ither station at Lynn St & 19th St North, nearest Key Bridge, is so close; demand to dock or take a bike from Roosevelt Island will shift there; so I’m marking this low-priority. We won’t pay many Bike Angel points, no big deal.”). Because of the unique kind of (inelastic) demand and the deceptive proximity (it only seems close if you are running on an algorithm — there is nothing like a straight line from Roosevelt Island to Rosslyn as if it was all a street grid), this was wrong.

That problem ends up hurting the system as follows:

I remember several cases in late 2018 (when the station was very new) and 2019. This excess of demand over supply would happen often. I remember seeing tourists on CaBi bikes staring at the full station, puzzled at what to do. An obvious case of demand-exceeding-supply. Meanwhile the Bike Angel system thought it was worth one point. These people, unable to dock, inevitably would get frustrated, not know what to do, try to contact the help-line; some might abandon the bikes, without docking near the station; many would end up with a sour taste in their mouths after arguing with someone about overcharges or whatever. Those situations are bad for all (if you read CaBi app reviews on google play store you see people smetimes giving one-star for problems like this) and often come down to demand exceeding supply at especially these tourist-oriented stations.

(It feels like I’ve noticed Roosevelt Island gets more demand stress than Gravelley Point in the times I’ve either passed or noticed the situation on the app map. I can’t understand why that would be: Gravelly Point is even more isolated [the only game in town], attracts even more visitors with its much bigger parking lot than Roosevelt Island, and has its station location in an even better location than Roosevelt, but *still* gets less demand pressure — less often full or empty; so that one is a mystery to me, or maybe my impression is wrong.)

[Yule]

@Zack 210527 wrote:

NPS does not allow dockless e-bike and e-scootershare parking on their property but I will check to see why these bikes fell through the cracks.[/quote]
I think that whenever I’ve cruised past the Roosevelt Island CaBi station, which is not often, there have been non-CaBi dockless ebikes and e-scooters there at the station (and usually nowhere else).

I can also say that non-CaBi bikes/scooters outnumber the CaBi bikes around the station most times I’ve gone by. Especially on good-weather weekend/holiday-type days when people going to Roosevelt Island predictably create high demand for such things. It must be that people think the station is a proper place to drop off. I don’t think I’ve ever NOT seen some nonCaBi bikes or scooters there.

There have been a few cases I remember of an empty Roosevelt Island Station with multiple JUMP (etc.) bikes and e-scooters around the station, so if anyone wanted to take a “small personal vehicle share” (bike or scooter), they’d be paying into the other guys and not CaBi, despite CaBi’s heavy infrastructure investment of the station.

[Yule]

@LhasaCM 210548 wrote:

DC has some signage around the city for nearby bikeshare stations, usually when they’re near but not obvious/on more frequently used bike routes. For example, there’s a sign near 1st and G Place NE to direct people to the CaBi station one block west on N. Capitol.

That is good to know/hear.

I imagine the government authority which controls a given space might be the main reason “Capital Bikeshare this way” signs might go up or not in cases they might help.

In the case of national parks grounds I think they’re much more hesitant to put up any such signs. In the case of the airport, there’s going to be some other layer of bureaucracy.

It’s for this need to juggle so many bureaucracies and layers of government that I am continually impressed by CaBi’s successes in running a more-or-less smooth system. (Any of us who know the system well and its layout in various areas get a feel for which local/city/county/government/park authorities seem to be welcoming, and which…less welcoming / less interested, just by instinct of where stations are allowed to be located.)

I don’t know that I have ever seen a “This was to Capital Bikeshare” physical sign anywhere in Arlington on the street but maybe they exist.

A digitial version of these, which some would say is superior to a simple street sign, started appearing in the late 2010s. I am talking about those “transit screens” you’d see in places like the new Ballston Mall, and libraries, and some Metro entrances, and even I think some high-end apartment building lobbies. The screens that inform you of all your options in the immediate area: Bus, metro, CaBi bikeshare, other bikeshare, e-scooters, Uber/Lyft rideshare — what’s available, how long to walk to each. For CaBi they told how many bikes were available. I wonder how successful these were.

[Yule]

@secstate 210534 wrote:

The station was easy to find from the trail but a little tricker to find when exiting the airport.

From what I understand about airport planning, they’ll run experiments where people unfamiliar with the airport are plopped down somewhere and given destinations without instructions and see how well they can navigate to them from signs. See what the people do. Those who get lost or otherwise take longer to find the place is a sign for more investment in signs. The trivial cost of extra signs pays off in the long run for smooth airport operations. I wonder how much easier it is t find the Abingdon Plantation ruins historic site (a little hard to find but relatively well signed) than the bikeshare station?

Now that you raised the issue, I realize only very rarely seen a “This way to Capital Bikeshare” sign anywhere (I can only remember a handful in Alexandria). The airport would seem to be the place for them if anywhere. And though the airport is clearly a special case maybe there is more place for such signs elsewhere. I am thinking the stations on/around the Mall which get high tourist traffic. If they allow stations themselves, surely they’d allow a few signs.

[Yule]

@Zack 210528 wrote:

Regarding Arlington National Cemetery, we have identified a station location and hope to have more news on that site soon.

That is great news.

@Zack 210528 wrote:

Over the years, we try to move stations closer to the Metro entrances like we have done at East Falls Church Metro. We have two more on the calendar for installation in the next few weeks, one at Clarendon Metro and one at Rossyln Metro.[/quote]

The East Falls Church station move (in 2019?) was a good one. The old location across the street next to the highway entrance was not particularly useful to anyone for inter-modal purposes. The new location by the Metro entrance I remember thinking showed signs people did indeed see the same problems I was seeing. Whoever pushed that, I salute you.

If the proposed direct pedestrian bridge from Crystal City to the airport ever comes, the airport bikeshare station would presumably get more interest, traffic, and opportunity for an even better location.

[Yule]

Do you mean bike valet for normal bikes or the old Capital Bikeshare Nationals Park corral?

It seems there are several new stations in the Nationals Park area since last season. From my count there are now 10 stations with around 210 available docks (if all docks working and not occupied by disabled bikes) within walking distance of the stadium. (Bikeshare docks roughly as close to the stadium entrance as Metro or as many attendees people’s parking spaces). I don’t know what it was in previous seasons but that seems considerably more than I remembered.

[Yule]

@Judd 210460 wrote:

An extension to 45 minutes would be great. I’ve had so many times where I was just over 30 minutes if I decided to ride home. I would be willing to pay more per year if I could get a 60 minute window.

I’ve often had the same idea. The thirty-minute window seems to me a legacy of the (system of the) early 2010s and hasn’t made sense for years now. It’s entirely a nuisance and doesn’t reflect how many regulars actually use (or would use) the system.

I have an Arlington County Bike Map dated 2012. A lot of it is familiar, bike paths and things, but the Bikeshare network is entirely changed. At that time, the farthest-west station in the county was the one opposite Clarendon Metro entrance. Imagine that! If you are going to downtown DC from this extreme-west point of the circa-2012 early CaBi network, thirty minutes seems plenty. But it’s not now.

(Even the 45-minute limit, seemingly to be rolled in here in the early 2020s, is just catching up with the realities of the system achieved by circa 2016/17. IMO.)

According to the guy who used to run Bike Angels (not sure if he is around anymore, name is Collin)., who started the NYC bike angels program and then also supervised the initial DC bike-angel system, the thirty-minute limit was the source of complaint by people all over the place, including by those who ran the system, including himself indirectly. He says this 30-minute cap was imposed by a well-intentioned-but-misguided rule by the people making political decisions re: bikeshare in the late 2000s in its initial planning stages. It was “as a way to protect the systems,” which didn’t make much sense then and certainly doesn’t now.

I can imagine a criticism of 45-min or 60-minute base-times as follows: If someone has lost a bike, or is intending to “steal” a bike, or there is some kind of problem with docking or something else and a bike has been abandoned, they want t o get in contact with the user ASAP to sort out the problem. Better to do that under a lower base-time window, the sooner the better. Okay, but such problems almost will all apply to inexperienced users. If you’re an annual member and have shown commitment to the system via doing some bike-angeling, why not give you a “45 minute” for one tier and a a”60 minute” for a higher tier? A symbol of trust.

[Yule]

Follow-up: The Courthouse [Arlington] Capital Biksehare station, as best I can tell, was down for up to 48 hours in this outage. All Saturday and Sunday, April 10 & 11. Then it was back as normal by Monday and also reappeared on the app map and was back in service.

From what I can guess, at normal good-weather weekend usage, this high-traffic station going down means well over a hundred trips were potentially lost, some of whom could have used nearby stations but many (inexperienced etc users) not, and in all cases it means lost time.

Maybe related or maybe not: Starting about the same time and lasting up to yesterday, I noticed a few other stations have been “hiccuping,” by which I mean rejecting an attempted check-out of a bike (red light). The kiosk in these cases sometimes displays unusual things, often something like “station temporarily unavailable.” Not a good sign, but from past experience the solution is often to wait a minute or two and thing go back online. So far the “wait a minute” solution has worked each time.

Back in 2019 or so (there are threads here on the matter), there was a period of a few weeks with extensive ‘down’ periods. Entire areas had multiple stations down for hours or days at a time, a kind of “rolling blackouts” phenomenon they couldn’t figure out. Whatever ‘hiccups’ are in the system this time, it’s much less serious. The Courthouse CaBi Station going down for so long is the only serious problem I’ve noticed in April 2021 in this way.

[Yule]

Henry, thanks. The “graying out” I remember being effectively used for events like the Marine Corps marathon shutting down stations on the route for a period of 24 or 36 hours. I get the feeling it had to be done manually, but I’m just speculating based on my (end-user) experience. Ideally it would be automatic of course.

[Yule]

Is anyone in the decision-making apparatus championing a more vigorous funding for expansion of the Capital Bikeshare network in Arlington?

Bikeshare is key to “building out the bike network for all ages and abilities,” as it exists today. Large parts of Arlington are still not covered plus a few other problems: Demand faaar outstrips supply in key areas of Arlington and at any given time you can expect to find bike stations empty. Arlington was once a leader in bikeshare but has fallen behind to a great extent.

[Yule]

Sometimes, when you hear of a cyclist death, the location is a surprise — but more often not at all a surprise. This one is the latter. That area is one of the more dangerous in DC to be navigating things on a bicycle. RIP.

[Yule]

It’s about time!

Am glad to see the airport station finally up. A much more important station, in principle, than many of the other new ones.

Bikeshare is a great resource. I sing its praises to all who will listen. But sometimes it has been discouragingly sluggish in expanding, in putting in needed stations in certain key places. In other words, the airport station should have been in place years ago. I think I recall it was talked about in the mid-2010s as to be up in the late 2010s. Finally it was up and running by January 2021. If the idea was good and the need was there, why did it take so many years? We can/should do better. (Define ‘we’ as you like, for everyone involved can pass the buck.)

(The Gravelly Point Station is another obvious one. It only finally went in, I think, in late 2019. There is still no Arlington Cemetery station, which is baffling and shows the inherent problems of multiple bureaucracies all doing jealous-fiefdom-guarding, or so I assume is the problem. Dockless go to Arl Cem frequently. The demand is obvious. The space is plentiful. I recall conversations in 2017 with someone who loved CaBi but had one big criticism which restricted use: Too few stations along the bike trails, pre-Gravelly Point, pre-Roosevelt Island stations, and of c ourse the conspicuous absence of a station at Arlington Cemetery.)

As for the DCA “Reagan National Airport” station:

It would also be nice if, somehow, the station could have gotten even closer to the terminal while maintaining reasonable safety — not having users have to walk through the parking garage. (That is, of course, a logistics question and many will say too much to ask. I know Bikeshare can’t just bulldoze its way through places, of course, but just saying.) The same problem applies to some of the other Metro stations. Virginia Square is great because it’s next to the elevator, but many others are quite far off. In other words, if people are to use this service as hoped, to connect with other forms of transportation (in this case, airplane), it’s best to get as close as possible.

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