Have you seen them yet? The Citrix Cycle bikeshare system is finally up and running albeit in a limited capacity. The system has “soft launched” with more stations coming online throughout this month and next.
The electric-assist bicycles have been very enjoyable to ride. I know I have been eager to see this system up and running and the timing is great as the warmer months approach.
The first Raleigh bikeshare system, Citrix Cycle, is rolling out with stations being installed in multiple locations. Above, the station for GoRaleigh Station across from Moore Square is in place, minus the bicycles of course. The last update I heard is that the system should be available for use before the end of the year.
See more about the system including the full map of stations over at Citrix Cycle.
If you can’t see the embedded video, click here. I’m catching up on my city council updates.
During the November 21, 2017 meeting, the city’s Transportation Planning Manager, Eric Lamb, gave us an update on the planned Raleigh Bikeshare and asked the council to approve moving forward with signing a contract with the preferred vendor, Bewegen.
They want to launch the new bike system in May 2018. (which is also bike month)
It looks like a station or two have changed since the last draft including a new station at the Farmer’s Market.
There are still 300 bikes with 30 stations planned. 150 of those bikes will be electric-assist bicycles.
The planned fares are as follows:
All means of making the system equitable have been taken. For example, it will be possible to use cash and the electric-assist bikes should make it easier for those with less physical abilities.
I like the feature where virtual stations can be created where the bike’s GPS is utilized so users can drop off and check out bikes say at the Fairgrounds.
With that, the council approved the motion and things will be moving forward with the system.
With so much attention going to the city’s bikeshare system, planned to launch in Spring 2018, this was somewhat of a surprise for me. NC State helped launch a private installation of Limebike a few weeks ago and recently, the citrus-colored bicycles have been spotted around downtown Raleigh.
I couldn’t help myself, I just had to try it. There was no signup fee and a 30 minute ride was only $1. (after my first free ride of course)
This system does not use any docks and relies heavily on the use of a smartphone app to help you get to a nearby bicycle. When I went out to use one, I couldn’t find the first but found a pair two blocks away. With a quick barcode scan, the bike was unlocked and ready for use.
In theory, I could park it anywhere, allowing others to just grab it for their own ride. The site encourages you to park it where there is existing bicycle parking so after showing it off at home, I rode it back to the nearest park to leave it.
The experience was quite delightful, even with a cheery jingle when the bike is locked and unlocked.
There is cause for debate here. With these bikes around Raleigh and a second system coming next year, I believe this changes the dynamic for bikeshare.
In my book, this is not the most ideal system, fragmenting the user base and causing a poorer user experience. Limebike’s reach won’t be as wide as the city’s system so there is overlap as well as individual coverage areas. To get the most, you need two apps, two sets of rules, etc.
That may seem simple to transit fans but we’re trying to get adoption by as many people as possible. It’s hurting the mission.
At the same time though, we may be in an experimental phase where the two systems can duke it out for user preference.
Either way, riding bikeshare in Raleigh has me excited and I hope for a far-reaching system with a plethora of options one day in the future. It’ll be fun to watch.
The city has posted their first map of proposed stations for the upcoming Raleigh Bikeshare system. Jump over to bikeraleigh.org to see the whole thing.
The system plans for 30 stations and 300 bikes. Planners want the system running by Spring 2018. This map is the first draft of proposed stations and further work is needed to finalize them.
The system has stations as far out as the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Walnut Creek Wetland Center, and St. Augustine’s University. Dix, Chavis, and Pullen Parks get stations with the majority being in and around downtown and NC State.
Basically each district in downtown has one or two stations as well as the nearby neighborhoods like Oakwood, Person Street, Seaboard, and South Street.
I imagine that with planning a bikeshare system, and only having 30 stations, hard choices need to be made. You can’t spread them out too much, making the system less useful. At the same time, they can’t be too close together which makes the system lack coverage.
I want to guess that spots like Fred Fletcher, Five Points, and Centennial Campus were on the fence as these locations are outliers on a map with little to no bike paths or greenways in their direction.
Next up comes finalizing the station location and announcing rates. Also, I’m hoping there are plenty of e-bikes in the system cause if I didn’t have to actually pedal, you know, that would be great!
Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.
No embedded videos this week as for some reason, the city’s streaming video service is auto-playing the videos. I’m not into that.
Two long-talked topics were approved at this week’s city council meeting. The food truck debate has been a long one and a new pilot program will be rolled out to see how they operate on public property in and near downtown. Also, Raleigh will get its first bike share system in the coming years.
Food trucks
To watch/hear the discussion, click here.
The latest in the food truck saga is over the mobile food businesses operating in the public right-of-way. The plan is to designate five “zones” where the trucks can operate during the lunchtime hours. (10am-3pm) First Fridays will extend those hours to 8pm.
The five locations include:
At this time, the Moore Square zone was dropped due to all the construction from the GoRaleigh Transit Station and Moore Square renovation.
The plan with the four zones passed unanimously and the new food truck pilot could be in place in 2-3 months.
Raleigh Bike share
To watch the video, click here and jump to around the 48th minute.
We talked about bike share in Raleigh recently and after a work session earlier in the day, the council decided to vote on it.
The plan was approved after a few brief comments. While councilors recognized that the city has needs outside of funding a bike share, the opportunity to have 80% of the installation costs covered by a federal grant was one they felt had to be taken. There was also lots of interest from the private sector to sponsor the system and the bike community was very vocal about their support.
“It’s up to you guys to use the system,” said Councilor Thompson. After three year, the system will be evaluated. It will most likely take two years to finalize the details and roll out the bike share system.
Denver Bike Share Station by Mikeshoup
During last week’s city council meeting, discussions about a possible bike share system in Raleigh took place. A presentation by Eric Lamb, the Transportation Planning Manager, took the council through a brief recap of what has been done so far, for the benefit of the newer council members, and where we stand today. The presentation and council discussion can be seen in the video below.
If the embedded video does not load for you, see it here.
No decision was made and the converation will continue at a March 15 work session.
The scenario we’re in includes an April 1, 2016 deadline to accept a federal grant. The council just needs to endorse accepting it as the grant is approved and ready to go. The grant would cover $1.6 million of the $2 million total cost to launch the proposed bike share system.
Covering the rest of the cost as well as annual maintenance could be covered by interested sponsors but that isn’t set in stone. This is where the council, with the exception of a minority of members, have expressed concern.
Councilors Thompson, Crowder, and Cox seem to be most concerned about operating costs and that accepting this grant puts the city on the hook for propping up the bike share system.
Crowder states “I don’t want the city to be in the bike business.” She used Seattle as an example where the local bike share system is asking for the City of Seattle to bail them out.
Councilor Gaylord stated that there was local interest to help sponsor the system. He’s worked to get this lined up and the totals from the private sector could be around $250,000 annually. The only companies that have publicly come out to support the bike share system were Citrix and Rex Healthcare.
The proposed system does not have station locations set yet but would include 30 stations between the neighborhoods around Downtown, NC State, and the NC Museum of Art. The recommended plan was done in 2014, before the Dix Park deal so reevaluating a few stations may take place.
For me, I’m torn with my support with bike share.
On one hand, I want Raleigh to roll out this 30 station system, no less. With 80% of the launch cost covered by a federal grant and a good portion of the operating cost covered by private companies, I feel it is worth investing in and seeing if it sticks.
There’s so much talk of transit going on right now and I disagree with Councilor Crowder’s statement. The city IS in the bike business only it’s called something different.
The city is in the mobility business. The city does have an interest in allowing people to move around our city in the healthiest, safest, easiest way possible. A bike share system today could expand in the future creating more trips that support sustainable neighborhoods and communities.
Then, the other side of me kicks in.
We do have quite a bit of projects going on. I want to see the city get Dix Park right. I want to see them get this Transit Referendum passed this year. I want to see Union Station become a great success. I want to see the expansion of the bicycle network. Aren’t these projects predecessors for a bike share system?
A part of me wants to see transit, the network, and downtown become a little more mature before we try this bike share.
In the end though, perhaps juggling even more projects at the same time is how a bigger city operates. The city did in fact pay a consultant that told us a bike share system in Raleigh is feasible. Plus, it is a recommended action item in the 2030 Comprehensive Plan.
I’d like to see us take that risk. If it doesn’t work, lesson learned and move on.
San Antonio B Cycle Station
Or will do anyway according to a recent report. I just went through most of the recently released 2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study. The conclusion of the study finds that a bike share system in Raleigh is feasible. You can get the study here (pdf) or see it and a lot of other Bike Raleigh information at BikeRaleigh.org.
I decided to go through the study and take some notes.
Executive Summary
If anything, the Executive Summary is worth reading through. At a high level, the study identifies the following benefits of a bike share system for Raleigh:
These findings were based on certain qualities that our city has. This includes a comparatively “high resident density” and “high concentration of employers” near downtown, a “significant tourist market,” and “plans and policies in place focusing on the promotion of livable, walkable, and bicycle friendly places.”
A bike share system in Raleigh is not without its challenges however. Two major obstacles identified are:
Also mentioned as obstacles are a “difficult topography” and “existing development patterns” that promote low population and employment densities outside of downtown.
The first round of cost estimates are mentioned as well. From the report, here’s a table showing approximate startup and operating costs based on national averages.
Diving Into The Study
The study is divided into nine sections that start by introducing bike share, what it is and how it has been implemented in other cities, all the way to demand analysis in Raleigh and a final recommendation.
If you are asking yourself, “What is Bike Share?” then I recommend reading pages 4-11 for some background history and fun facts about the service. For example, did you know:
A bike share system can help a community attract and retain residents. Many communities have used bike share systems as an added effort to help (re)vitalize and reactivate their downtown area(s). In addition, it provides a new and different way for tourists to see a city, helping attract more tourists and their spending power to communities.
*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Community Economic Benefits page 8
I won’t go over the basics and benefits of a bike share system in this post. Instead, I’ll recommend checking out the study or reading a June 2013 blog post about my visit to San Antonio and using their bike share system.
Community Analysis
The study starts by taking a look at Raleigh and some of the community features like demographics, physical makeup, and current infrastructure.
Our temperate weather is always listed as a plus. Another plus are some generally flat areas around the core downtown. That’s not to say there aren’t some hills out there. I know Glenwood South is on quite a slant when cycling up and down it.
Our population:
The City of Raleigh is the second most populous city in the state with approximately 423,000 people living in the city – a density of around 2,800 people per square mile, which is higher than all of the other southeastern bike share cities.
*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Demographics page 26
That’s a pretty powerful statistic right there. Here is the comparison between us and other southeastern bike share cities.
The study shows that the population and employment density is most clustered in and around downtown. There are a few pockets of higher density residential in southwest and north Raleigh but downtown really commands the most attention. See the figure below for a heat map of population density in Raleigh.
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Analysis was also done on low-income and minority communities. There is a significant overlap between feasible areas for bike share and locations of these communities. This presents an opportunity to provide a low-cost transit option to these residents.
Compliment to Transit?
Here’s probably the biggest challenge and detractor to the feasibility of a bike share system in Raleigh.
Raleigh is still a predominately auto-oriented city – single occupancy vehicle use represents 79-percent of all commuting trips (See Figure 21).98 Parking costs have traditionally also encouraged vehicle travel, even for short trips.
*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Transportation Mode Share page 32
The quote says 79% while the pie chart shows 84%. Unless I’m missing something that might be a typo in the study. Either way, both numbers are pretty high and significantly show Raleigh’s dependency on SOVs.
The only area in the city with a significant amount of proximity to transit, mass transit specifically like Capital Area Transit (CAT), is in downtown. The study points this out as a challenge but lists an opportunity to use bike share to bridge gaps between activity centers that are poorly served by buses.
I think this is the biggest challenge by far for a successful implementation of bike share in Raleigh.
In addition to bus transit, our current bicycle facilities are mentioned. The study recognizes the increase in facilities over the last four years and the city’s commitment to be a “bicycle friendly community.”
However, if you look at the overlap between the areas where bike share is feasible, mainly downtown, and the fact that bike facilities are spread across the city, this leaves much fewer miles to be used within a possible system.
Here’s a point for more discussion. Most bike facilities are actually outside of downtown so to say that bike share can only happen near bike facilities doesn’t quite tell the whole story in my opinion. Downtown streets are naturally friendlier to bicycles so therefore are more fit for bike share. The study points out that there are much less bicycle facilities in downtown as a detriment to a bike share system and I think that could be argued against.
Policy
I’m not going to get into the details of this section but wanted to mention it as I thought it interesting. An identified challenge was that “The permitting process may be complicated due to restrictions on outdoor advertising, historic district designation, right-of-way ownership by multiple government agencies, and specific streetscape plans.”
Complicated indeed. An included flow-chart shows some situations having to go through seven layers of permitting.
Public Engagement
The feasibility study was not without its opportunity for you and I to participate. “Public feedback was gathered using a number of tools including a community workshop, a project website, an online survey, a crowdsourcing map, and interviews with local stakeholders and agencies.”
Surveys showed that 84% of respondents support a bike share program in Raleigh. Opinions, both supportive and of concern, were around the themes of:
To gather more information, an online crowdsourcing map was built so that people could suggest station locations and provide comments. Here’s a map of the 151 stations that were received including a table of the top 10.
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Big Picture Conclusion
The study goes on to explain its methodology behind the recommendations and results as well differences between the types of bike share systems that are out there. Below is a potential bike share heat map as well as a list with final conclusions and recommendations.
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