Bike Rack Activity Update
April 2nd, 2012
Metro has been busy in February and March installing and upgrading bike racks, preparing for the upcoming bicycle season. Metro’s Plant Maintenance crews installed over 70 new racks, with space for 140 additional bikes at Braddock Road, Glenmont, Morgan Boulevard, Rockville, East Falls Church, Takoma, and Dupont Circle. We continue this work under Metro’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Element of 2012-2017 Capital Improvement Program.
These show excellent progress, but the obvious question is: what about bikeshare stations? Offhand I can’t think of even one that’s on WMATA property (would love to be wrong on this point). Even the Park Service has manged to get on board with the concept – when will Metro catch up?
@Bikes are Intermodal
It’s a great point. We’ve actually communicated our willingness to install bike share stations on our property.
In the District, where the program is strongest, we have less land generally and the city has lots of ROW to work with. That is why you see bike stations near Metro stations like Judiciary Square or Brookland. Similar in Arlington. In the further out suburbs, the bike sharing programs are not as far along, so having bike share at our stations just isn’t as timely, though I’m sure we’ll get there. The key will be to locate these bike share stations at places with balanced “back and forth” traffic, such as College Park or near other higher bike-accessible education locations, like Montgomery College.
At any rate, great point, thanks for your comment and observation!
By the way, the comment above mentions places with higher-education institutions, but any place with relatively balanced bike traveled within a large, bike-acessible suburban district makes sense, many examples come to mind.