Share and Share a Bike

The Bicycle Coalition is trying to bring a bike share to Philly. Not everyone's on board.

by Sam Tremble

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Published: Jan 16, 2008

A dry-erase velo-ciraptor — half-bike, half-dinosaur — roars on the white board between diagrams illustrating safe ways bicyclists can maneuver through intersections. On the adjacent wall hangs a bike map of the Greater Philadelphia region. Stacks of copy boxes filled with old promotional material nearly block the doorway. A half-dozen bicycle advocates huddled around two folding-tables fill the rest of the cramped office.

This is the Bike Coalition of Greater Philadelphia's (BCGP) second meeting in 10 days. Today they dedicate themselves solely to finalizing plans for the upcoming Bicycle Sharing Forum on Jan. 17, part of the ongoing sustainability forums at the Academy of Natural Sciences. The BGCP has no preferred model to follow and no plans of their own to create a bike-share program — they're hoping the forum will create public interest and attract potential planners and sponsors.

BCGP members need to print and distribute postcards to inform the public of the forum's date. Their typical PR campaign strategy: Walk the streets, stick cards in the spokes of parked bikes and drop off additional stacks of cards in area bike shops. There's one bike shop that BCGP will not be visiting, however.

That's Trophy Bikes, whose owner, Michael McGettigan, is vehemently opposed to the bike-sharing program as discussed at BCGP meetings over the last year.

"People have been quite shocked to find that I don't wholeheartedly embrace bike-sharing programs, especially as practiced in Lyon and Paris," says McGettigan, a lifetime bicyclist, a dedicated bicycle advocate, and a former City Paper columnist. He has served on the BCGP board twice. During his first time on the board, he helped to establish Neighborhood Bike Works, formerly known as Youth Cycle & Recycle. He is an Effective Cycling Instructor, certified by the League of American Bicyclists. His opposition to the program has nothing to do with fear of diminished revenue.

"As a bike shop owner I've been assured — and studies have seemed to bear out — that my sales will increase slightly," he explains. "Yet I still have strong negative feelings about bike sharing as practiced in the big corporate bike programs, which is being pushed so hard."

As oil prices continue to rise, over 100 cities have started bike-share programs worldwide, though there are no citywide programs in the U.S. — yet. Most programs help connect people between other transit systems, like bus and rail lines. They also help to make better use of lunch breaks, increasing travel range in a short period of time. Since most programs equip bicycles with baskets, they can be useful for shopping, too.

"It will be extremely good for the city of Philadelphia," says BCGP member Russell Meddin, who began pushing for a program after discovering Velo'v, the successful bike-share program in Lyon, France. "It has the ancillary effect of really and truly improving the health of people who use it. Besides reducing traffic congestion and making it easier for people to get from A to B, it's a healthy alternative to sitting in a car at a traffic light."

Velo'v's initial success makes it a useful model for new programs. The city has a partnership with ad agency JCDecaux, which maintains the program in return for advertising space throughout the city. Users of the program sign up using a credit card. It requires a $200 deposit and a nominal subscription fee, approximately $8 a year. After that, users pay an hourly fee, usually about $1/hour, though the first half hour of each ride is free to encourage using the bicycles for short commutes.

Users have a swipe card or pin number to unlock the bicycles at centralized kiosks. They don't necessarily have to lock them back at the kiosk because the bicycles come with two built-in lock systems — one for locking to posts, and the other to immobilize and lock the bicycle. A pair of feet unlatches and raises the wheels off the ground, similar to what a Vespa uses to park. Though this increases convenience, it also increases the weight of the bicycle, which also helps deter theft. A crew of 30 maintains the bicycles and ensures that they remain evenly distributed. They use a large van that doesn't hold more than six bicycles to relocate bicycles.

McGettigan's primary opposition to such a program: It is not a pure transit program. "It's a billboard program with bicycles lashed onto the front like hostages."

He fears that having one large corporate sponsor (Clear Channel is a candidate for Philly's) would homogenize Philadelphia's distinctive landscape with ads. What kind of program would he rather see?

"Do it homegrown, use Philly CarShare and Neighborhood Bike Works and local bike expertise and get a system that works efficiently, without a lot of corporate overhead dragging on everything," says McGettigan. "Bike sharing may have a place. But if you look at it clearly, it's the most energy-intensive way to put people on bikes. It needs billboards, it needs shuttle trucks, it needs GPS satellites, it needs debit cards, it needs ID systems, it needs robot parking kiosks, it needs video touch screens and card readers."

Rather than selling public space at a bargain rate to a private company, some reason, the city has the ability to create wider access to the same public space for the purpose of fostering and indefinitely sustaining an already vibrant bicycle culture.

According to BCGP's Bike Count report, bicycle traffic over the Schuylkill bridges has increased 189 percent since 1990; 58 percent of that increase in 2005 alone. If the city were to actively improve conditions, bicycling might increase exponentially on its own, with no corporate help.

BCGP has already formally made specific recommendations to the Center City District for ways to improve bicycling and reduce congestion. First, it recommends the city create (and fill) a new full-time position: pedestrian and bicycle coordinator. The position would oversee development of a citywide bicycle plan. Second, they say the streets need more bicycle parking: Convert retired meters into parking racks, create in-street parking (14 to 16 bicycles can fit in one car space), allow indoor parking in garages and install U-racks on every block. They have also made specific long- and short-term recommendations on a street-by-street basis, believing that the city's narrow streets — already at car capacity — could easily accommodate an additional flow of bicycles with some minor changes. Planners could use these recommendations as a model for the rest of the city. No matter how many people have access to bicycles — whether through a bike-sharing program or through private purchase — it won't matter without safe street access.

The city's Streets Department has never had a dedicated bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. Such a position would be a useful addition to a new administration looking to make reforms and help re-plan the streets to safely accommodate and increase bicycle use and reduce auto congestion. And no bike-sharing program could last long without one.

(tremble.sam@gmail.com)

For more information on the Bicycle Sharing Forum, visit bikesharephiladelphia.org.

 

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