What would Chicago look like with 5,000 bike share vehicles?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on September 23, 2011 at 10:24am

I was thinking aloud the other day to a friend about downtown transportation. 

Bike sharing should make it easier for people to travel to and through downtown. It may reduce the number of trips across downtown taken by taxi, or by personal car. It may help reduce congestion. If congestion is reduced downtown, then the level of economic activity can increase. 

The Loop could support more housing, businesses, and shopping, if there was less congestion. If more people were able to quickly transport themselves to and through downtown, then these activities could rise. But many are stuck and stressed by congestion and can only perform at the limit mandated by congestion. 

 

That friend and I then created this infographic of bike sharing around the world:

 

evanK said:

But for business people to get around downtown, the system would be great. With a few infrastructure improvements--bike/bus share lanes, maybe a couple protected lanes--it would be relatively easy to navigate across the loop.

So users should either be disallowed from depositing bikes downtown or there should be a surcharge if you want to use it to commute. 

Or just start with a really viable system downtown and branch out from there. Much of the rest of Chicago is just too spread out.

"Bring on the havoc."

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jaik S. on September 23, 2011 at 11:06am

I don't think I'm ready for this. In my opinion, I'd rather have the people that don't know how to ride a bike stay out of my way when I'm on my way to work, or dinner, or grocery shopping. There's all ready enough stupid people in cars, I don't want them on bikes.

 

The other day I was on my way home from the bank. I'm riding down Armitage, between Milwaukee and Western. A guy comes around the corner from Margies, riding on the sidewalk, and decides he is going to use the bike lane. The problem is that he is going the wrong way. He is riding towards me, traffic and myself are going towards him.

These are my choices:

I can stop, move out of the way and let him go.

I can pull out in rush hour traffic and risk getting hit outside of the bike lane.

I can continue going forward.

 

I chose the last one. I went straight for him. He had a look of panic on his face, then he ran into a parked car. I slowed down to yell at him that he was going the wrong way, and he didn't look very happy. Less than a block later, someone cutting through a parking lot honked at me, and tried to hit me because the illegal shortcut they took wasn't fast enough. 

 

If you're stupid, and on a bike near me, I'll let you know.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on September 23, 2011 at 11:16am

Problem number...?

 

"Locks are not provided so users are expected to secure the bikes by docking them at stations rather than locking them to bike racks or sign poles."

 

So it's a destination from a rack to a rack as most tourists and non-bike riders don't usually carry U-locks with them.

 

I mean it's a great idea for Loyola, UIC, Navy Pier, Millennium park... and if it helps somebody decide that biking instead of driving in a city is an actual option, awesome.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Courtright on September 23, 2011 at 11:18am

I hear what you are saying JS.  Education is the key and while it is aggravating to have to do it on the fly (on the wheel?) so to speak, as you point out it must happen somehow/somewhen.  We all need a double dose of patience when we are part of this Malthusian environment. 

J. Smith said:

I don't think I'm ready for this. In my opinion, I'd rather have the people that don't know how to ride a bike stay out of my way when I'm on my way to work, or dinner, or grocery shopping. There's all ready enough stupid people in cars, I don't want them on bikes.

 

The other day I was on my way home from the bank. I'm riding down Armitage, between Milwaukee and Western. A guy comes around the corner from Margies, riding on the sidewalk, and decides he is going to use the bike lane. The problem is that he is going the wrong way. He is riding towards me, traffic and myself are going towards him.

These are my choices:

I can stop, move out of the way and let him go.

I can pull out in rush hour traffic and risk getting hit outside of the bike lane.

I can continue going forward.

 

I chose the last one. I went straight for him. He had a look of panic on his face, then he ran into a parked car. I slowed down to yell at him that he was going the wrong way, and he didn't look very happy. Less than a block later, someone cutting through a parking lot honked at me, and tried to hit me because the illegal shortcut they took wasn't fast enough. 

 

If you're stupid, and on a bike near me, I'll let you know.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cheryl on September 23, 2011 at 12:16pm

I recently had a business trip to Toronto. The first day, I took taxis between meetings; I missed biking around, and spent a lot of money.

The second day, I looked online and figured out the bike share, and after that I biked between meetings as well as to tourist destinations in the evening. I had no helmet but felt safe. I had no lock but stations were so numerous downtown it was convenient to find a station near my destination. I observed a lot of locals, as well as tourists and visitors, using the bikes.

Having used the bike share in Toronto, I feel it could work well in Chicago, too. There may be some growing pains when it starts, as people - bicyclists and motorists - get used to it, but everything new requires some adjustments and in the long term, the bike share will be a great benefit.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on September 23, 2011 at 1:43pm

Earlier in the season, I joined B-Cycle.  I tried it out last week for the first time, riding for an hour from the Shedd Aquarium (I arrived via CTA bus) all around Northerly Island, on the spur of the moment--a very pleasant experience.  All in all, I really like the idea of bike-sharing, though B-Cycle/BikeAndRoll's execution has some problems.

 

The 120-day $25 student membership is really a great deal.  The system is intended for short rides/errands, so the first hour of a bike ride is free/included.  Problem: B-Cycle's own web page  has contradictory information, stating the free/included time is one hour, then further down that same page, that the free/included time is two hours.  That seems like as basic a screw-up any business could make.

 

There were a lot of bikes available in the rack, all clean and in good condition, not a one with a flat or low tire, which I give them credit for.  The card checkout and check-in were easy and flawless.  The bikes themselves are trucks, heavy and solid.  The three speeds worked fine, the integrated lighting simply was on, so there's no danger of a clueless rider riding in the dark unlit.  Adjusting the seat height was fast and simple, using a lever very similar to my Dahon folder.  I really liked the inch gradations on the seat post, so that you could replicate your ideal seat height each time you bike share--I wish my Dahon had that.

 

The cable lock that is attached to the bike was impossible to figure out how to use--I know, I spent several minutes messing around with it and finally gave up and rolled the bike right into the park district restroom I needed to use, but there may be times and places you can't roll this bike inside somewhere.  I checked the web site and could find no locking instructions and when I returned the bike I tried the locks on two more bikes with the same difficulties.  Maybe I'm just dense.  But locking and generally taking care of the bike is vital, as you are responsible for a $1000 replacement fee if the bike disappears while in your care, the only scary thing about the system.  Make sure your apartment renter's or homeowner's insurance will cover this if something were to go very wrong.

 

The most frustrating thing is the lack of anyone to talk to or communicate with.  I signed up via the web site mid-May but it took until late June to receive my membership card in the mail.  I know, I could have used my credit card for access in the mean time, but still.  I made three or four calls to any phone numbers for B-Cycle I could find, but always reached someone whose job it wasn't, who would then direct me to a phone number that would ALWAYS dump into someone's black hole of a voice mail.  I sent several messages on the "contact us" portion of the web site.  Four months later, I've still not gotten any communication back as to why it took so long to receive my "welcome packet" and card.  Either BikeAndRoll is clueless on customer contact/support, or they're in way over their heads with not enough staff, or they're just trying to collect as much money before the system implodes without having to expend anything for customer service staff.  It's unacceptable in any of these cases.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on September 23, 2011 at 4:40pm

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michelle S on September 24, 2011 at 10:43am

Here are my thoughts on bike share.

 

Steven, that infographic looks very cool but the font is tiny and I can't read it. Zooming doesn't help. I'd love to see the details.

 

Thunder Snow, thanks for the interesting summary of your experience.

 

About the locks -- I think the Chicago bike share bikes will have no locks at all, as the RFP makes no mention of them. They're really just encouraging hub to hub riding. I get that, because it keeps the bikes in circulation, but on the other hand, that means that a user can't take a short break inside a coffee shop without risking a $1,000 loss. It will definitely mean that businesses with docking stations near them will see them as valuable, since users can dock their bikes, have coffee, and then reset the clock to 0 again for another free half hour.

 

I'm glad to see that Chicago is encouraging proposals with bikes weighing 35 lbs or less. I rode the Nice Bikes in Minneapolis and estimate they were closer to 50 lbs. I ride a 34-lb bike daily, and the Nice Bikes were tanks in comparison.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David on September 25, 2011 at 11:05am

Pursuant to Mayor Emanuel’s open data initiatives, data about the bike sharing program should be released and updated nightly... 

 

Nightly data isn't going to be much help in finding stations with available bikes or available parking.  You need real time data for that, and building it in from the start would be a huge improvement in usability.   The percentage of time a user can't find a bike or can't find parking has a huge effect on the perceived usability of the system.  The RFP calls for availability information in 15-minute increments, but it isn't clear that this is necessarily real-time info or not.  It later says that this info should be available in real time to HQ, but making this info available to users would make a big difference in the age of smartphones.

 

Also, it seems to me that the elephant in the room is the north-south political landscape of Chicago politics.   The "natural" bike share map in Chicago is probably the South Loop/UIC area up to Wrigleyville or so with branches out to Wicker Park and Lincoln Square.  That doesn't draw a particularly diverse map, and I wonder about the political difficulties in making it happen. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on September 26, 2011 at 11:28am

Whatever data is collected/created by the bike sharing system should be made available to developers at least once per day (like the other datasets on the data portal), if not in real time (like bus tracker). Thanks for pointing this out. 

The "nightly update" would be useful, not for mobile apps, but for performance analysis. 

David said:

Pursuant to Mayor Emanuel’s open data initiatives, data about the bike sharing program should be released and updated nightly... 

 

Nightly data isn't going to be much help in finding stations with available bikes or available parking.  You need real time data for that, and building it in from the start would be a huge improvement in usability.   The percentage of time a user can't find a bike or can't find parking has a huge effect on the perceived usability of the system.  The RFP calls for availability information in 15-minute increments, but it isn't clear that this is necessarily real-time info or not.  It later says that this info should be available in real time to HQ, but making this info available to users would make a big difference in the age of smartphones.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on September 26, 2011 at 11:31am

I must have missed that the RFP says the City is open to a system shutdown overnight. I think it must be open 24/7. 

I've discovered another problem with the infographic - the circles represent the numbers by diameter, and not by area, and thus may show a larger than actual difference. 

You can view the original size. 

Michelle Stenzel said:

Here are my thoughts on bike share.

 

Steven, that infographic looks very cool but the font is tiny and I can't read it. Zooming doesn't help. I'd love to see the details.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michelle S on September 26, 2011 at 11:46am

PP 31-32 of the RFP: "Hours of operation (24 hours versus a nighttime shutdown)".  I'm such a fine print geek. Or just a geek.


I like the graphic. As you refine it, you should add Boston and Minneapolis, and just to blow everyone's else's circles out of the water, China's Hangzhou, at 50,000 shared bikes and growing.

 

Steven Vance said:

I must have missed that the RFP says the City is open to a system shutdown overnight. I think it must be open 24/7. 

I've discovered another problem with the infographic - the circles represent the numbers by diameter, and not by area, and thus may show a larger than actual difference. 

You can view the original size. 

Michelle Stenzel said:

Here are my thoughts on bike share.

 

Steven, that infographic looks very cool but the font is tiny and I can't read it. Zooming doesn't help. I'd love to see the details.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page