Bike Share: Passes & Projections

There was a pretty cool article in the Times late last week about bike share by the author of Bike Snob NYC. The article looks back over the first year of Citi Bike, New York City's privately-run bike share program. It's a very cool rundown of the program from the perspective of a relatively insightful but objective observer, so there's really no spin - just a hard look at the benefits and pitfalls of a bike share system in the most populous city in the U.S.

One of the things that struck me is the unexpectedly large number of annual memberships that were purchased, and surprisingly low number of day passes. This has become a problem because the system was set up to make money off of the day passes only, so the tilt towards annual memberships is dramatically reducing much-needed revenue for the program. This was so striking because I heard recently from a very reliable source that the B-Cycle bike share program in Kansas City is seeing the exact opposite trend; many per-usage or day passes (however their system is set up, I'm not sure), and very few annual memberships. As I understand it, the folks of BikeWalkKC are inferring that this means that more tourists and visitors are utilizing the program than are Kansas City residents.

Either way, these two scenarios show the benefit of multiple projections and having contingencies for each. When it comes to a program that includes a notable initial investment and infrastructure setup, you want to avoid unfortunate surprises.

B2WW 2014: The Week in Review

Bike to Work Week started off pretty pitifully, with rain throughout most of the beginning of the week. It made for some soggy rides, but there was no scary severe weather, so I had no problems riding every day.

The weather cleared off on Thursday. Just in time for May's installment of Cruisin' for a Brewsin'. It was a great evening for a ride, with cool but comfortable temperatures and clear skies. I even got to throw a round of bocce at Mother's during our first stop of the night. The CfaB crew mostly consisted of the usual suspects – a pretty laid back group - and most of us felt pretty comfortable tying one on. Pretty hard to beat for a Thursday night.

The weather stayed dry and mild on Friday, so I took the opportunity to ride down to the main Mercy campus for some business-related activities. I even snapped a few pictures during and after my ride and emailed them over to Mercy's B2WW coordinator for posterity. It would've been nice to have had a bit more dry weather for B2WW, but all things considered, it was still a great week.

Bike to Work Week Has Begun!

It was the first official workday of Bike to Work Week 2014. It started off pretty good. Sunny, albeit a bit warm. Even got to cruise town with some pals during lunch. Then shit got a little freaky around quitting time. My office is on the 6th floor of a building downtown and my window faces west, so I had a pretty good vantage point to watch the storm front move in. It rained pretty hard, with high winds, and word around the office was that hail had been reported. I ended up calling Ginger for a ride home, and then got a ride back to my bike later that night when the rain wasn't so heavy.

I just hope the wild weather this afternoon hasn't deterred too many people from commuting the rest of the week. I'm registered with Mercy's B2WW program and I'm looking forward to riding every day this week - not that that's out of the ordinary.