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Transferring From Mass Transit To CitiBike Should Be Easy
By
Garth Johnston
Published May 16, 2012
Modified May 16, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published May 16, 2012
Modified May 16, 2012
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The analysis of the city's ambitious upcoming CitiBike bike share program continues! And while the program's proposed map of initial bike share locations is drawing praise, its pricey pricing scheme is still getting some grief.
Before we talk about the money though, let's talk about that map! Yesterday we looked at how these new bike share station racks could change the streetscape by taking away car parking—but there is another important aspect of the docking station's locations. Namely, how the new bikes will help people make the "last mile" between existing mass transit and where they are going. And would you lookie here, CUNY's Steven Romalewski looked at just that on his Spatiality blog.
Romalewski—who took a deep look at some of the proposed bike share locations last year—along with Brian Abelson went and stripped the location and rack data from the DOT's map and then combined that data for analysis (explore it yourself here and here!). They then plugged in the MTA's bus and subway location data to figure out just how close these new bikes will be to subway stations and bus stops. As far as distance to subway stops, the current draft locations should actually be pretty swell, with about half of the bikes being quite close to stations (the better for easy access from the train) and the other half being further away (the better for dropping off close to where you might actually be going). Here's the basic breakdown for subway station distance:
And things get even better for bus riders, with a whopping 199 of the stations located between 100 and 250 feet of a bus stop! You can see the data mapped out here:
You can see these maps full size here.
As Romalewski told us, it looks like the city's planning process (which included lots of community input) paid off. When he looked at the suggested stops last year, he found that "roughly half of the suggested sites were close to subway entrances and half were further away—and that's more or less what the proposed initial 413 sites show. From that perspective, they effectively followed the wisdom of the crowd. I really think [the community outreach] was a great model that other agencies should follow."
Meanwhile, there is still some grumbling about the system's pricing going on out there (something we don't disagree with!). Reuter's Felix Salmon yesterday crunched some more numbers comparing NYC bike share prices with similar systems elsewhere and makes the point that it isn't just that the program is super expensive for long trips (which, fine, is not its purpose). The program is also really expensive for short term touristing and for those who buy into the $95-year-long membership:
To have access to New York’s bikes for one day, you need to spend $9.95 — that’s more than six times the £1 one-day membership in London, and it’s significantly more, too, than you’d pay in Washington or Toronto or Paris.
The first reaction of New Yorkers, when they hear this, is surprisingly positive: they think of it as a tax on tourists, and everybody likes taxes on tourists. Let the tourists pay through the nose for their one-day memberships, and we locals will save loads of money, through an implicit cross-subsidy, on our one-year memberships.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case, either. Look at the cost of one-year memberships, and New York is still top of the league table, at $95. That’s the same as Toronto, and more than seven times what Romans pay. (Indeed, the one-time membership fee in Rome, at €10, is barely more than a daily membership in New York.)
New Yorkers, then, are being asked to spend much more money per year than bikeshare users in just about any other major city — even if they never take out a bike for more than 45 minutes.
There is one thing that appears to be making that extra price worth it, however. And that is that map. If this baby turns out to be as convenient as those proposed share locations make it appear to be New Yorkers are going to be signing up for this thing in droves.
Is it mid-July yet? We wanna go for a ride.
Tagged
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citibike
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Garth Johnston
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