Low-income New Yorkers not joining bike share

[PamNY]

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131022/lower-east-side/nycha-residents-make-up-less-than-05-percent-of-citi-bike-riders


This news isn't a surprise -- Citibike stations are, right now, in higher income neighborhoods for the most part. And I'm sure the credit card requirement is an issue for some folks.

I've seen several rather lame stories about Citibike -- made me wonder if the program is going so well that reporters can't find much to write about.

Nonetheless, I am glad attention is being paid to this particular issue, and I hope efforts to get the word out in public housing are successful. It will be interesting to see what happens when the program expands to more neighborhoods.

ETA a superb example of one of the lame stories:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/opinion/sunday/color-me-blue.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1382467603-Jka7O1p6gHOCwLhdNBQlxQ

[tulip]

Washington, DC requires the Capital Bikeshare operator (Alta Bikeshare) to place stations in lower-income areas AND to make sure bikes are available in those stations at all times. I believe that Alta operates Citibikes, too, but I don't know if NYC and boroughs have the same requirement as DC does.

[rebeccaC]

It seems inclusivity has been a hurdle for bike-share programs in the U.S. Boston has a business model that has had some success. It subsidizes the cost to as low as $5 vs $85 and made sure to include low-income areas in the placement of stations. They spent time visiting and working with social service agencies in those areas to raise awareness. They also raised the usage to 1 hour vs 30 minutes for those low-income areas that needed it to better integrate them with the public transit grid.

The credit card issue is another big hurdle for a lot of low-income people. Hopefully we’ll see the systems develop partnerships with banking agencies to find ways to provide access for those who haven’t used traditional financial institutions. There are also some cultural issues and bicycling that have to be addressed by the systems with outreach efforts.

tulip....did you see how the european systems dealt with this?

[nuliajuk]

I don't know about the credit card thing. It seems to me that credit card companies give cards to anyone at all these days. I remember being turned down for a Visa because I hadn't yet worked a full year in my place of employment, but now students with no jobs at all are pressured into getting them.

[shootingstar]

Toronto has had their public share for over a year or so. I just visit the city since I have family living all over the area. I also tend to frequent downtown area.

There some public bike share locations on the edge of low-income areas which are near major streets where there are bike routes /tourist destinations/ restaurants and business districts. Also "poor"/low-income isn't just in some downtown areas ...not always in some cities.

Certain suburban areas have become poor....because it's cheaper to rent/buy housing out in those areas. There are some areas like that in Toronto. Would public bike share work? Only if one had an annual subscription and near subway stations to major neighbourhood. It definitely doesn't work in sprawling suburban areas.

Whereas certain downtown core areas are becoming slowly gentrified.

I don't what NYC is like.

[PamNY]

For the most part, NYC is densely populated with multi-family dwellings. Suburban sprawl isn't an issue.

Since most of the money comes from private sponsorship, I wonder how much influence the sponsors had over location of bike-share stations.

Citibike officials reject the idea that bike share is inherently classist, but a quick glance at the map shows bike stations are not prevalent in low-income neighborhoods. Of course, the program is very new -- lots of wealthy areas don't yet have Citibikes.

This recent article from Streetsblog gives some insight:

http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/09/18/after-100-days-architects-of-citi-bike-success-take-stock-of-nyc-bike-share/

[ny biker]

In DC, they started by placing bike share stations near Metro (subway) stations. As the program's popularity grew, they expanded into some nearby suburbs, and are still expanding. These suburbs are generally pretty built up and Metro runs through them.

They're now expanding to areas that are not necessarily right on a Metro line. I think in general the new stations are close to bus stops if not Metro. They also have some physical requirements when choosing locations, such as flat ground and adequate exposure to sunlight because the stations are solar powered.

My new office is in a not-very-nice part of DC, with some gentrification going on nearby. The nearest bike share station is about 1.5 miles away, under a train trestle that delineates between the gentrified area and our area. However there is a college campus near here, on our side of the tracks, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them set up a bike share station near or on that campus.

I really don't know about the demographics of the bike share users here.