What's the best way to pay for bike sharing?

Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) rolled out in September with considerable fanfare. Washington, D.C., now has the largest bike-sharing program in the country, and most early reviews of the system are positive.  

Most District cyclists know Capital Bikeshare as the successor to a smaller pilot program called SmartBike DC run by a different company, but how does the new system fit into the broader context of bike-sharing schemes around the world?

Paul DeMaio, a consultant on the CaBi program and the blogger behind the informative Bike-sharing Blog, published a comprehensive look at the history of bike sharing last year in the Journal of Public Transportation that's well worth a read.

The first bike-sharing programs began in the mid-sixties. The very first attempt, launched in Amsterdam, failed in mere days as users tossed the painted bikes into canals or stole them. Somewhat more successful programs emerged in subsequent decades, but it wasn’t until the mid-nineties that Europeans started to see large-scale systems complete with electronic docking stations and credit card technology. 

And it wasn’t until 2005 when JCDecaux, an outdoor advertising company, launched a 1,500 bike program in Lyon, France that the concept truly began to catch on. Two years later, Paris launched a massive system called Vélib that remains the gold-standard. Today, the Paris system features some 23,000 bikes. Globally, there are now more than 200 bike-sharing systems.

The various systems may seem superficially similar, but a number of different management and funding mechanisms underpin them. In some cities, governments manage bike sharing, whereas in others management duties fall to universities, non-profits, or private companies.

JCDecaux, for example, spent approximately $140 million to run Vélib for a decade in exchange for a contract with the city that allowed the company to advertise on some 1,600 billboards around the city. Usage of the system has been high, but so has vandalism of the bikes. The entire fleet has been replaced in just a few years due to theft and vandalism. The company claims it is running the system at a loss and has demanded the city inject public funds into the system.

In Washington D.C., Clear Channel Outdoor operated SmartBikes under a similar system. In exchange for operating it, the city gave Clear Channel exclusive advertising rights on hundreds of bus shelters around the city. SmartBike's small size markedly limited its impact, but DDOT and Clear Channel officials announced in the spring of 2009 that they planned to expand the system to first 500 and then 1,000 bikes. 

The plan fizzled, however, as DDOT later announced it would opt instead for a new system run by a different company. Why the abrupt change?  The problem, it seems, stemmed from an ambiguously worded contract that failed to make clear who was responsible for an expansion of the system beyond the first 100 bikes. 

City Ryde reported last year that the District expected Clear Channel Outdoor to foot the bill for new stations, but that Clear Channel didn’t consider an expansion their responsibility. Likewise, the Georgetown Metropolitan reported that Clear Channel was opposed to expanding into Arlington since advertisements aren’t permitted on bus stops there.

In retrospect, it is difficult to fathom how neither DDOT nor Clear Channel officials insisted on including details about expanding SmartBike in the original contract, particularly since DDOT officials considered the 100-bike system a pilot program. In Paris, in contrast, the original Velib contract made clear that JCDeaux was ultimately responsible for expansion up to 20,000 bikes even though the initial system was much smaller.  

Velib is not perfect. However, its success does suggest that an advertising-supported system has potential. Yet, the District’s contracting flub means that costs for the upgrades to CaBi will likely rely on taxpayers instead of the private sector. The new Capital Bikeshare system is funded by a $6 million Department of Transportation grant, as well as $835,000 of public money from Arlington. The federal dollars come from the Federal Highway Administration's Congestion, Mitigation, and Air Quality Program (CMAQ). The Crystal City Business Improvement District and the Potomac Yard Transportation Management Association also support CaBi.  

The new Capital Bikeshare bikes are spiffy, and the density of the stations suggests the system will be far more popular and successful than the SmartBike ever was.  Already, preliminary ridership numbers bear this out, and it seems quite likely the bikes could profoundly transform the city's approach to transportation, particularly if DDOT can iron out another a bureaucratic contracting problem with the National Park Service that prohibits CaBi stations from all park service land.

Relying on government funds, however, exposes CaBi to near certain criticism from free-market Republicans, many of whom have a deep distrust of bicycles as a matter of principal. Eric Cantor, for example, criticized plans to expand SmartBike with stimulus funds. Other Republicans have lampooned a poorly-conceived Capitol Hill bike-sharing program. 

Meanwhile, there is little reason to believe there will be much more appreciation for the Capital Bikeshare program on the right, particularly among the Republicans taking control of the the House. In an ideal world, enlightened conservatives would appreciate and value alternative forms of transportation.  

Until then, CaBi supporters ought to be looking hard for ways to make CaBi financially viable over the long haul without federal assistance. We are moving rapidly into a political environment in which politicians will feel compelled to trim government spending to control the deficit, and it would be a shame if a promising program such as CaBi suffers as a result.

A story about the C&J Trailways bus route, published by a New Hampshire newspaper in October, offers a hint of what the future could hold. The round trip-trip bus service has received about a million dollars from the CMAQ program each year since 2007, but the CMAQ money was only supposed to last for three years.

By the fourth year, the route was supposed to be financially viable. Yet, C&J still needs to attract about 20 more riders to make ends meet. In the meantime, C&J has been left hunting for bridge funding to keep the service afloat.