WASHINGTON — With more than 11 million trips since 2010, Capital Bikeshare has been a huge success in D.C. Now the District’s Department of Transportation has released a plan to improve the bike-share system over the next six years.
The Bikeshare Development Plan addresses how to grow the system, better integrate it with other transit systems and maintain financial sustainability.
DDOT wants to increase the number of bikeshare trips each year and increase the number of people taking Metrorail, Metrobus or DC Circulator to within one-eighth of a mile of a bike-share station. Also, it wants to add more feet of bicycle lanes, cycletracks and shared-use paths within a quarter-mile of bikeshare stations.
DDOT also wants to increase the number of retail and hospitality jobs within a quarter-mile of a bikeshare station, along with more stations near popular tourist destinations and hotels.
“Under this plan, Capital Bikeshare in the District would expand by 99 stations over the next three years. By 2018, approximately 65 percent of residents, 90 percent of jobs and 97 percent of all transit boardings in the District would be within a quarter-mile walk of a bikeshare station. Every Metro station in the District would be within an eighth of a mile walk of a bikeshare station,” DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo writes in the report.
“High usage has led to bikes being unavailable at busy locations during peak months, and docks being unavailable at popular destinations. Moreover, even in neighborhoods with good [bike share] coverage, there are still places that are outside convenient walking distance to a [bike share] station,” the plan reads.
DDOT plans to add sites in Columbia Heights, the U Street Corridor, downtown, Shaw, Stanton Park on Capitol Hill and Southwest D.C.
The deadline for public comment on the Bikeshare Development plan is Nov. 15.
