Near the end of 2015, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a plan to grow Bay Area Bike Share from 700 to 7,000 bikes. That means the City of San Francisco itself will go from having 350 to 4,500 bikes, giving it the largest number of shared bikes per capita in the nation.
The proposal was sponsored by Mayor Ed Lee, and approved by Supervisors Scott Wiener, Eric Mar, Jane Kim, Mark Farrell, John Avalos, David Campos, Norman Yee, and President of the Board of Supervisors London Breed.
“A robust and sustainable bike-share network will allow us to reap the benefits of bike share, including reducing traffic, improving public transit, and stimulating the local economy,” said Supervisor Wiener, in a prepared statement. “Through my work both on the Board of Supervisors and on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, I’ve pushed to bring bike share to San Francisco, and to expand it throughout the city. This is great news for our city, our transit system, and our residents.”
To kick off the expansion, New York-based Motivate, which manages the program, is co-sponsoring public workshops to discuss bike-share locations. According to a statement from Motivate, the public is invited to attend workshops where they live, work, or visit and provide input on potential stations. The first one is tonight.
San Francisco bike-share workshop dates:
- January 12th, 2016
District 8 Bike-Share Workshop, co-sponsored by Supervisor Wiener
6:30PM – 7:30PM and 7:30PM – 8:30PM
Harvey Milk Rec Center, 50 Scott St, San Francisco, CA 94117 - January 20th, 2016
District 6 Bike-Share Workshop, co-sponsored by Supervisor Jane Kim
6:30PM – 7:30PM and 7:30PM – 8:30PM
Gene Friend Rec Center, 270 6th St, San Francisco, CA 94103 - January 21st, 2016
District 9 Bike-Share Workshop, co-sponsored by Supervisor David Campos
6:00PM – 7:00PM and 7:00PM – 8:00PM
Mission Neighborhood Center, 362 Capp St, San Francisco, CA 94110
The workshops are offered twice on each date and are tailored to the areas where they are held. If you can't make one, there's also a bike-share website for making station suggestions.
Other Bay Area cities, such as Emeryville and San Jose, approved similar contracts. Oakland and Berkeley are working to finalize agreements with Motivate. Motivate manages bike share systems in ten cities spread throughout the US plus Melbourne, Australia and Toronto, Canada.
“The easier we can make it for people to get out of our crowded Muni buses and off our congested streets, the better our transportation system is for everyone,” said Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district was included in the original pilot program. “And expanding the bike-share program will make it easier for people to choose biking as their mode of transportation.”
The goal is to have the 7,000 bikes available in the Bay Area by 2018.
