Bike Sharing

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency has released a map of 41 locations [PDF] being considered for the first 35 bike-share stations in downtown SF. Six of those stations will be installed, "pending additional funding," after the launch of the initial 350-bike pilot project, the agency's website says.

While San Franciscans eagerly await the repeatedly-delayed launch of the Bay Area's small-scale bike-share pilot program, which has now been downsized to a minuscule 700 bikes (350 of them in SF), Supervisor Scott Wiener says San Francisco needs to take the initiative to move ahead and launch a "full-scale system" throughout the city by next year.

Bike-share in the Bay Area will now arrive no sooner than the summer of 2013, roughly a year and a half after the original launch date, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Alta Bicycle Share, the chosen vendor, is still negotiating a contract with agencies in the five cities in which the system is planned to launch, said BAAQMD spokesperson Ralph Borrmann. Once the contract is signed, he said, the launch will come at least six to eight months later.

The Federal Highway Administration has come out with a handy report [PDF] for communities thinking about getting into the bike-sharing game. Based on a study of 12 planned and existing bike-sharing systems from around the U.S., the report is intended to help explain the basics of bike-share and guide cities through the choices they'll face when launching a system. While the specific advice isn't exactly groundbreaking, the mere fact that the FHWA has produced the guide indicates that bike-sharing is becoming increasingly common in America.

In yet another delay, the Bay Area's bike-share system will now launch as late as January, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

[Editor's note: This post comes to us from Streetsblog NYC, but San Franciscans may also find the video useful (and exciting) in anticipation of the launch of the Bay Area's bike-share system in August.]

The Bay Area's bike-share system will likely be run by Alta Bicycle Share, an American vendor that already operates several systems in North America and Australia.

This is the third in a series of reports about sustainable transportation policies in Mexico City. Last week, Streetsblog participated in a tour of the city led by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Previous installments covered pedestrian improvements and the city's new bus rapid transit system.

The Bay Area's regional bike-share pilot program will now launch no earlier than August and may be phased in over a two-month period.