Capital Bikeshare Expands

The stand-alone bike stations, 50 feet long and 6 feet wide, with a dozen or more solid-looking red bicycles locked in at the front wheel are becoming a common sight in Georgetown and elsewhere.

There are currently some 440 such Capital Bikeshare stations throughout the D.C. area, including more than 250 in the District alone, making the program one of the top five in the nation. According to the mayor’s 30-Month Progress Report, “More than three million bikeshare trips were taken throughout the District.”

Anyone with a credit card can rent a bike for as little as $2 a ride and $8 for a 24-hour pass. But the riders are not only tourists. Increasingly, D.C. workers are using the program to commute to work for an $85 annual fee.

So how are the station locations selected?

“It’s a cooperative process,” said Kim Lucas,

The stand-alone bike stations, 50 feet long and 6 feet wide, with a dozen or more solid-looking red bicycles locked in at the front wheel are becoming a common sight in Georgetown and elsewhere.

There are currently some 440 such Capital Bikeshare stations throughout the D.C. area, including more than 250 in the District alone, making the program one of the top five in the nation. According to the mayor’s 30-Month Progress Report, “More than three million bikeshare trips were taken throughout the District.”

Anyone with a credit card can rent a bike for as little as $2 a ride and $8 for a 24-hour pass. But the riders are not only tourists. Increasingly, D.C. workers are using the program to commute to work for an $85 annual fee.

So how are the station locations selected?

“It’s a cooperative process,” said Kim Lucas, bicycle and pedestrian program specialist at the District Department of Transportation. “The expansion plan was developed two years ago after over a year of input from local ANCs, City Council representatives and a comprehensive analysis of demographic data including employment and bike structure data. We also rely on ongoing data from our crowdsourcing site on the DOT bikeshare webpage and on bike usage data we collect and analyze constantly.”

Sites for the actual stations have to be on a solid surface — preferably on or next to a sidewalk. Then the self-contained stations are simply fixed to that surface; no excavation or other construction is necessary. They are all self-sufficient, operating solely on solar power.

Of the 99 new stations that DDOT plans to add by 2018, about a third are now operational, said Lucas. Residents who want to see a bikeshare station placed or removed should contact their elected officials and/or go to DDOT’s crowdsourcing site, she said.