Logo by Jeff Horton of Commuter Services of North Florida

Several years ago my alma mater Florida State University attempted a spectacularly unsuccessful bike-sharing program (click here for more on bike sharing).  They painted a number of bikes a bright yellow and then set them in various locations around campus, unlocked.  The idea was that students would use them to get from one building to another and then leave it for someone else to use.  The problem was the organizers ignored (1) accountability and (2) all the hills that make Tallahassee so topographically different from the rest of the state.  First the bikes collected at the bottoms of hills, then they were stolen.

Universities are nothing if not places of rejuvenation.  Any student involved with that first effort is long gone but the institutional memory of the failure remains.  That means new students can come along to try again but old voices will still be around to point out what did not work the last time.

Enter Sandy Simmons a student and student senator at FSU.  His Big Idea was reCycle, a bike rental program composed of the skeletal remains of abandoned bicycles on racks in front of dorms.  It turns out Florida Statute 705.18 prevents the use of any abandoned property on state property and the abandoned must be sold at a public auction each year. Even though the abandoned bikes were not available, they still pointed in the right direction.

Looking for donations Sandy then placed 50 flyers around campus asking students to donate their used bikes.  Sandy says “most of the bikes we got were bikes that students were going to throw out anyway, so we only got about 5 usable bikes from donations last spring. Since reCycle was still a brand new program, and we weren’t renting bikes to anyone yet, we knew that most students probably would not want to donate their bikes until they saw that the program was legitimate and that we weren’t just selling their bikes to pawn shops.”  He also appealed to Commuter Services of North Florida, a commuter assistance program funded by the state, which came up with the money for 12 more bikes.  reCycle was born.

Some students only need the bikes for a semester or so.  It is pretty clear they don’t always follow the student elsewhere.  So the reCycle program works on a semester basis.  The cost is only $20 per bike per semester and the rental is tied to the student’s account—no bike at the end of the semester, no grades and no graduation until the program is reimbursed.  Through more donations each student gets a bike helmet, backpack, and information and student government came up with the money to buy locks for all the bikes as well.

All 17 bikes were rented within 3 minutes of them being offered and there are 50 people on a standby waiting list if a one comes available.  Sandy collected $340 that will be used for repairs at the end of the semester and he hopes there will be more donations.

The most important lesson to take out of the reCycle program is not to let past failures get in the way of a new approach.  “I have heard about FSU’s previous attempts at a bike sharing program hundreds of times,” Sandy says.  “Almost every single time I pitched my idea to a faculty or staff member, they would always bring up the bike program that was started here five or six years ago which did not work out well at all.  But, he adds, “it’s worth it to put your time and effort into implementing the idea all the way through, even if you have someone at every turn telling you that it will never work.”

FTA Section 5307 funds are non-discretionary funds, meaning they go out every year to eligible recipients and are distributed to regions on an urbanized area formula that depends on the size of the urban area.  90.68% of the 5307 funding goes to cities of 200,000 people or more; 33% of that is for fixed-guideway projects (trains, basically) and 66% goes to the bus tier which is broken down by non-incentive (90.8%) and incentive (9.2%) portions. 

Flow Chart of 5307 Funds

Non-incentive just means the formula is based on population and revenue miles (50% revenue miles, 25% population, 25% population multiplied by density).  26.61% of the non-incentive bus tier money goes to cities under one million people, the rest to larger bus-tier cities.  There remains the 9.2% of the 5307 funds that are incentive-based on a formula that multiplies passenger miles by itself, divided by operating cost.  It is a measure of performance and efficiency that provides a modest benefit to agencies that achieve higher levels of both.

In general, large urbanized-area-formula funds (the 90.68% chunk) can be used for transit capital purposes only, things like new rolling stock (bus or rail), vehicle rebuilding, laying track, and building facilities, but not for fuel or driver salaries (that is operating).  (Small urbanized area formula funds can be used for both transit capital and transit operations.)   Two percent of a recipient’s 5307 funding is obligated for use on safety and security (1%) and transit enhancements (1%); use them or lose them.  The available balance may be used at the discretion of the transit agency.  Section 5307 is the largest federal transit funding source; FY2010 appropriations and apportions total $4.1 billion.

In days gone by FTA Section 5309 funds were apportioned directly by FTA and getting money was a formality, a few papers to fill out, but today it is earmarked by Congress, competitive, and harder to get.  Earmarks are commonly known as pork and some famous projects like the bridge-to-nowhere in Alaska help to give earmarks a bad name; everyone hates them unless the earmark is for his or her own city.  Then they are good. 

5309 funds are for new and replacement buses and facilities, modernizing existing rail systems, and building new fixed-guideway (FG) systems and in 2010 the nationwide total funding for this program was more than $1.6 billion.  5309 FG funds, naturally, are for large urbanized areas only whereas the 5309 Bus Funds can go to any recipient.  Total 5309 funding for FY2010 is $2.6 billion.

The other 53s with 2010 funding amounts

Section 5303 Metropolitan Transportation Planning Program.  Funds are available for planning activities that support comprehensive planning for transportation investment decisions in metro areas.  Section 5304 (Statewide Transportation Planning Program) and Section 5305 (Planning Programs) are closely related to 5303.  $94 million.

Section 5308 Clean Fuels Program is a discretionary grant program for clean fuel buses in air quality non-attainment and maintenance areas, including supporting emerging clean fuel and advanced propulsion technologies for buses.  Up to 25 percent of the funds nationwide can be used for “Clean Diesel” buses.  $51 million.

Section 5310 Special Needs of Elderly Individuals and Individuals with Disabilities Program.  5310 provides grants to non-profit agencies that provide transportation services to the elderly and disabled.  134 million.

Section 5311 Nonurbanized Area Formula Program funds are distributed to the regions on non-urbanized area formula. These funds are used for transit capital and operating purposes in non-urbanized areas.  $438 million.

Section 5311(b)(3) Rural Transit Assistance Program (RTAP) $8 million.

Section 5311(c) Public Transportation on Indian Reservations $15 million.

Section 5316 (formerly 3037) Job Access and Reverse Commute Program (JARC) funds are directed to services that provide transportation to low-income individuals.  As cities have decentralized over the last 70 years or so jobs—particularly service jobs—have moved to suburban locations.  JARC is intended to get people from low-income neighborhoods to work on the periphery.  It can also be used to get those people back home again.  Service jobs are rarely 9 to 5, so JARC funds can be used for extending service later at night.  $175 million.

Section 5317 New Freedom is often mentioned in the same breath as JARC but instead of low-income people New Freedom focuses on the disabled.  It is a new formula grant program for capital and operating costs of services and facility improvements in excess of those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  $99 million.

Section 5320 Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Program is intended to address traffic congestion in our national parks and other federal properties.  It can be used for bus, rail, or other modes and may include sightseeing services.  5320 can also be used for pedestrian and bike trails and all these projects may incorporate communities and land surrounding federal properties.  $27 million.

Section 5339 Alternative Analysis Program is for studying “reasonable modal and multimodal alternatives and general alignment options for identified transportation needs in a particular, broadly defined travel corridor” (FTA).  $25 million.

Section 5340 Growing States and High Density States Formula is basically additionally 5307 funds available for urbanized areas in states with greater population densities than 370 people per square mile.  $464 million.

Section 5314 National Research Program.  It’s for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technology that has a national significance for transit.  $66 million.

Transit is very good at getting people from A to B, but the distance from B to the final destination or the need to run errands during lunch may limit the effectiveness of the transit network to a passenger—or a potential one.  The so-called first mile of a passenger’s trip is likely covered by a relatively short walk, a bicycle ride, or a drive to a park-and-ride.  But if the destination is in a dense urban environment—a central business district, a university, or even a major “edge city” like a Tyson’s Corner in Virginia—advanced bike sharing may be a perfect solution for many of your passengers’ last mile problems.

Bike sharing has been around since at least the 1960s when a radical group in Holland called Provo started White Bicycle, leaving unlocked white bicycles in public places that people were supposed to use once then leave for the next person.  Most of those bikes were stolen, the rest thrown into canals. 

White bikes live on in a national park in Holland. Photo Elly Waterman

These informal community bike sharing programs have been tried repeatedly over the intervening years, most commonly in the U.S. on university campuses, and the experiences seem to have been the same.  A stock of basic bicycles painted in bright colors to discourage theft are left in a few locations and the baser instincts of human nature take over: the bikes are vandalized, stolen, or left clustered at the bottom of a hill because no one wants to ride it back up.  (The Provo white bike program lives on in the Hoge Veluwe National Park, a flat, well-used, completely enclosed space that discourages misbehavior.)

Bike sharing has matured, however, with the use of technology.  “Smart Bikes” is the term for the next generation of bike sharing, first used in Rennes, France in 1998, but later and more famously launched in Paris in July 2007 with Vélib’ (a portmanteau of the French words for “bike” and “freedom”).  Vélib’ now has more than 20,000 bicycles at nearly 1,500 self-service stations, which are spaced usually less than a quarter mile apart.  Smart bike sharing is now used from Scandinavia to Spain to Italy and points in between.

In the U.S., Washington D.C. saw the first commercially viable smart bike sharing system.  SmartBike DC is a partnership between the D.C. DOT (d., as in d-dot) and Clear Channel, the outdoor advertising company.  Smartbike DC is a member-only subscription system ($40.00 per year) with 100 bikes at 10 stations.  D. made the initial purchase of the bikes and docking stations and collects all the revenues from subscriptions.  Five of the stations are located at a Metro station and the other five are within a block or two, so DC has a bike sharing program nicely integrated with heavy rail transit.

A bike sharing station in Washington D.C. Photo Seth Morgan.

The newest company in bike sharing, B-cycle, is truly interested in mass marketing bike sharing (the “Who Wants It More” page on their website, bcycle.com, is essentially a dare to cities to be the next bike sharing city).  A three-way partnership between the HMO Humana, the Trek Bicycle Corporation, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky (interestingly, another advertising company), B-cycle sells bike sharing systems and provides the know-how to make them successful.  In 2008 Humana joined with national bicycling advocacy organization Bikes Belong to create Freewheelin, which provided bicycles in Denver and Minneapolis/St. Paul during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. The B-cycle joint venture was formed in the wake of the Freewheelin initiative with Denver as the home base.

Here is how it works.  There are two ways to engage with the B-cycle system.  Users can register for a membership on the website or swipe a credit card at the kiosk for immediate access.  Whether a member using the B-Cycle RFID (radio frequency identification) or a non-member using a credit card, the system releases a bike and off the user goes.  When finished, the user returns the bike to any B-cycle station by inserting the bike in one of the docks.  Annual memberships are $60, the first half hour of every ride is free, and the number of rides is unlimited during the membership period.

The B-cycle illustrated. Click to enlarge. Courtesy of B-Cycle

The B-cycle bike was designed by Trek to be easy for inexperienced riders to use and rugged enough for outdoor use and storage. The bike features three or eight speeds, front and rear lights, and a basket that can carry up to 30 pounds.  The company refers to itself as a “next generation” bike sharing program because the built-in GPS system not only tracks the location of the bike (anti-theft protection) but also reports to the user through a web interface detailed information about his trip making like the distance traveled, calories burned, and carbon offset.

The stations for the bikes are modular and scalable (they can be made to accommodate different quantities of bicycles).  According to Andrew Davison of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which handles communications, design, and marketing, “B-cycles are focused on the needs of modern communities. The visual design creates an iconic look that will become a readily identifiable element in tomorrow’s streetscapes.”  In other words, it is a brand people will recognize like the “M” of the DC Metro or the famous London Tube signs.

B-Cycle bikes come with a bike chain and lock, which is helpful for running errands, and since there is no need to put a bike on transit, bike sharing avoids the problem of full bike racks on buses .  The one downside to bike sharing is that if the station near your destination is full, the user must travel to another to return the bike.  The stations indicate the nearest vacant space, so there won’t be an endless search for a parking space, and the company gives a 15-minute credit for the search time, but to some extent walking a half mile from a more distant docking station defeats the point of renting a bike in the first place.  At the same time, the chances of this happening are slim and members can lock a bike to a pole or tree with the included chain and lock, so full racks are a minor difficulty, probably no worse than what a driver experiences looking for empty on-street parking in a downtown.

Bike sharing holds considerable promise for plugging holes in a transit service area and for helping passengers and potential passengers run errands during the day.   The start-up cost is high, but not excessively so, about $2,500 per bike, including the station.  You will need a lot of them but even a few hundred would be about the same cost as a pair of new buses, to put that in perspective. 

While for some people an excuse will always be just an excuse (“I would use transit if I had a way to get around at lunchtime.”), for others bike sharing can be the missing link in the transportation network that allows them—finally!—to access the many benefits of transit.

In response to our story on shelter advertising, Bill Brinton has a very different take on the encroachment of ads into public space.

The citizens of many cities in this country desire to improve their communities’ appearances and to reduce sign clutter along roadways.  In November 2009, an overwhelming majority of voters in San Francisco approved a ballot initiative to halt the placement of ads on transit furniture.  Cities like Houston, TX and Arlington, VA, hard at work in improving their communities’ appearance, do not allow advertising on transit furniture. 

While some cities do allow curbside advertisements that target passing drivers, the fact is that the ads distract drivers from the task of driving, diverting their attention to ads for fast food, personal injury lawyers, and an array of commercial products and services.  In 2008, an expert for Clear Channel Outdoor noted the distraction caused by such advertisements because they force drivers to read them at shorter distances than billboards.

The City of Orlando still prohibits advertisements on downtown shelters because city leaders know that beauty is good for business.  There is no doubt that roadside ads erode a community’s interest in visual enhancement.   In December 2009, a federal court in New Jersey observed that a city’s interest in aesthetics was diminished by allowing an exemption for bus shelter advertising.

In Jacksonville, voters went to the polls in 1987 to approve a citizens’ initiative to halt further billboard construction.  It should be no surprise that Keep Jacksonville Beautiful, Greenscape, The City Beautiful Coalition, Inc. and other visual enhancement and neighborhood organizations vigorously opposed plans to place advertising on bus shelters that will admittedly “target” Jacksonville residents and drivers.  Jacksonville Transportation Authority’s Board Chair acknowledged that these ads will increase visual clutter, and opened the door to discussions to find alternatives.  This was a good sign (pardon the pun).

Some neighborhoods were exempted from the controversial scheme, while other neighborhoods were not spared.  But if some parts of a city are free to advance the goal of beautification, shouldn’t all parts have that opportunity?  One does not need to diminish roadside beauty to improve transportation amenities.  It is a false choice.  Just as landscaping and streetscaping are part of sound transportation planning, street furniture should also be taken into account and not made into the Yellow Pages.

Gulf to Bay Blvd, Clearwater, Florida, then and now.

Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said that cities should be surrounded continuously by a maximum of beauty.  The battle for beauty repeats itself over and over as citizens struggle to improve their communities.  Transportation planners and agencies must pay close attention to this struggle, and reject any scheme that does not advance both beauty and transportation.  They are not mutually exclusive.  In his last public appearance before his death, the late Charles Kuralt spoke these words: 

“America does not belong to the franchisers and the developers and spoilers who do not give a damn about their country.  The land is ours.  Ordinary Americans, I am persuaded of this with all my heart, ordinary Americans want a beautiful country.”

Here is an open question for the transportation community: will you give ordinary Americans a beautiful country or one that is awash in clutter and visual pollution?

William D. Brinton is a board member of  Scenic America .