Creating a Seattle bike share program has been discussed for years and yesterday the city rolled a little closer to making it happen. The City Council’s transportation committee approved plans for a city-wide bike share, as well as an ordinance to allow bike share stations on streets and sidewalks. The non-profit Puget Sound Bike Share is developing the program. 
The $4 million program would place 500 bikes at 50 solar-powered stations. CHS previously reported that Capitol Hill would be part of the program’s core trial area, along with downtown, South Lake Union, and the U-District. The exact locations have not yet been chosen. A yearly membership would cost around $85. A daily membership would cost $8 and $3 for a helmet.
Riders will pay for bikes and helmets with credit cards at the stations, then ride their bike to another station to drop it off. The system will be designed for short trips.
“It’s really meant to be sort of a way to get from Point A to Point B; a last-mile connector from existing transit hubs, from workplace to retail,” PSBS director Holly Hauser said on KPLU yesterday.
The full council is expected to vote on the plans in September. The bike share program is slated to be pedal-ready by May 2014. The program has secured about half the funding it needs before launching.
Portland’s Alta Bicylce Share will build and operate the service.
Possibly stupid question – how are they going to correct for poor bike distribution due to hills? For example, I imagine that a lot more people will want to ride from Capitol Hill to SLU or downtown than vice-versa, which would cause an overage of bikes in downtown/SLU and a shortage of bikes in Capitol Hill.
In other cities they have crews that drive a truck around picking up bikes from full stations and redistributing them to empty stations. I assume that something similar is planned here, though I wonder how much more of it will be needed compared to flatter cities.
Another option is incentivizing bike share users.
For example, with bike share in Paris, you receive a discount or a free trip if you bicycle uphill.
just how in the hell does it cost 4 millions dollars ? and those bikes cant be more than 200 bucks , they are out of date ugly crap girl bikes . what moron on the city council is getting the million dollar kick back from this fiasco ? more of the reason the state is billions in the hole . it would be cheaper to go around town and give every one that wants a bike to ride , one for free . it would save millions . stop this stupidity !
since my other post is hidden for some reason . 100,000 bikes at 200 bucks a piece ( the price of an average schwinn mountain bike ) is only 2 million dollars , a savings of two million dollars . with no useless stations being built or morons driving around in trucks shuffling them around . no credit card machines or any of the other useless crap involved . stop this program now .
Bret, where did you learn your arithmetic?
seattle public school system , the exact reason this money should be spent else where . i was wondering when some one would see that . the point isn’t any less valid . this is a bullshit over priced program . just buy a shit ton of bikes and give them away . it would be a lot cheaper than this boondoggle .
They’re actually quite nice bicycles. Quite similar to the bikes used in New York for the CitiBike program.
While they aren’t speedy by any means, they have components like internal gear hubs and disc brakes. They’re built to be pretty bombproof so that they last a very long time.
Great. More hipsters on bicycles, riding side-by-side, shooting through stop lights, passing on the right, and trying to balance two bags of groceries between their legs. I hope the Seattle PD plans to start ticketing.
Is it possible to sound more like a bitter old man?
Seeing as any self-respecting hipster probably already has their own road bike to ride, I fail to see how this bike-share program will increase their numbers on the road.
Unless of course by “hipsters” you actually mean “any human under the age of 40”.
Bicyclists are within the law to ride two abreast.
RCW 46.61.770:
Persons riding bicycles upon a roadway shall not ride more than two abreast except on paths or parts of roadways set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles.
It may be legal but it’s very rude and hostile to motorists. When cyclists ride single file on the right of the lane, a motorist can go past them. When they are two abreast, this is impossible, and is a major source of tension between motorists and cyclists. Share the roadway!
Yay for shared bikes!! Eeewww for shared helmets…
NYC is having a huge problem with too many bikes in one spot, not enough basically everywhere else people want them. People are waiting at spots to lock a bike in, waiting for someone to take one out. It’s the same issue car2go has. They all end up in the same spot/area of town. It’s a one way trip.
Today’s NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/nyregion/the-balancing-act-that-bike-share-riders-just-watch.html?smid=pl-share
Living in NYC and using the bike share here, it’s really not that big of an issue. Sure, sometimes you have to walk a couple extra blocks to grab a bike or bike a few blocks to drop a bike off, but the vast majority of the time, you’re good to go.
I mean, just look at the data:
http://www.citibikenyc.com/system-data
The New York Times and other media have been hating on the system and raising controversy since before it launched. But according to a NYT poll (http://rrs.co/15a28s7), bike share is still overwhelmingly popular with New Yorkers.
We’re now clocking about 40K trips per day here, with over 2 million trips since the system launched. I’d say it’s functioning pretty well.
I’m an avid cyclist. This is NOT a good idea. Bike lanes, bike boxes, bike racks… great. This however, is a waste of money!
Why would these bikes or any other bike be alowed on the sidewalk? Coming from one who rides just go one block.
The ordinance was to allow bike share STATIONS on sidewalks.
Bikes of all kinds are already allowed on sidewalks. Note the very important second rule if you do choose to ride there:
When riding on any sidewalk or crosswalk a bicycle rider has all of the rights and responsibilities of any pedestrian (RCW 46.61.755).
The rider of a bicycle must yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian on a sidewalk or crosswalk (RCW 46.61.261).
[…] has already installed 129 miles of new bike lanes and sharrows under the Bike Master Plan. A bike share program is set to launch next year. It will place 500 bikes at 50 stations in the […]