Bicycles should be the ultimate form of inexpensive transit, allowing even low-income individuals to glide past traffic.
Yet Washington, D.C.’s immensely successful Capital Bikeshare system has largely been a plaything – and workthing – of the middle class and above. Knowledge of, and comfort with, bicycles, have been barriers to access, as has credit.
Enter the Community Partners Program, which began in May of 2016 and allows low-income people to use bikeshare for just $5 a year, paid in cash, as opposed to the $85 regular price.
How does the program do it? By partnering with existing organizations that already work with low-income individuals.
Most bikeshare users depend upon credit to ensure that they don’t simply ride away on a vehicle worth about $1,000. The Community Partners Program relies on another kind of credit – the good faith that such organizations as Back on My Feet DC, FoodCorps DC, Whitman Walker Health, and Gearin’ Up Bicycles have built up over time. These organizations attest to the trustworthiness of their members and take on the credit risk.
“We don’t want to lose our bikes,” explained Kimberly Lucas, Capital Bikeshare coordinator for D.C.’s DOT, since bikeshare is “unlike getting a bus or the Metrorail, where you can’t walk off with that form of transportation.”
“The organizations themselves share a sense of responsibility amongst their members,” presenting bikeshare as “a privileged opportunity that we all have,” said Lester Wallace, Capital Bikeshare’s community outreach coordinator. This trust has paid off. Exactly zero bicycles have been reported lost or stolen.
Another key to breaking biking barriers is educating people. “A lot had to do with simple knowledge of how bikeshare works,” said Henry Dunbar, director of Active Transportation for neighboring Arlington County, Va.
Low-income individuals may have seen the bikeshare stands, but may be intimidated by biking-safety basics, mechanics, how to use bikeshare, and even, for some, how to ride a bike. Community Partners works with its multiple organizations to impart a basic working knowledge on all these issues.
The organization also works to get bikeshare stations to where they’re needed most. This summer, eight new stations were installed east of the Anacostia River, in neighborhoods where they had been lacking. Indeed, Community Partners works to “address all barriers on every front,” said Lucas.
Understanding needs and spreading the word
The program began when Unity Healthcare and the Whitman Walker Clinic approached Capital Bikeshare with the idea of helping those in need improve their health while getting to their destinations.
“A number of health providers in the District really wanted us to provide” this service, Lucas said. Boston’s Prescribe-a-Bike had recently launched, offering a healthcare-based model for bicycling.
Capital Bikeshare then built on an existing partnership with Back on My Feet DC, an organization that helps the homeless find jobs and housing through the power of running. And Community Partners was off and running – or bicycling.
Multiple additional organizations soon signed on, with 18 organizations now participating in D.C. and two more in Arlington. Currently, more than 800 D.C. residents participate, according to Wallace. “This past summer, Community Partner members were taking upwards of 5,000 trips a month,” he added, with nearly 7,000 rides in October.
Community Partners has added diversity to the mix, getting “more women, and more people over 50 over 60 on bicycles,” in comparison to typical D.C. bikeshare users, said Lucas. This gets D.C. one step closer to European biking meccas like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, places where just about everybody bikes.
The program is also adding one to two new partner organizations each month. “The size or scope fluctuates based on the organization itself,” said Wallace. Some are on a smaller basis, with 10 to 20 people participating, while others feature larger programs, with “literally hundreds of members.”
Both Wallace and Dunbar point to steadily increasing numbers. Proponents hope that these numbers rise even more as word of the program spreads.
“We’re very encouraged with how it’s been going,” Dunbar said. “Word of mouth is very important in any community.”
As new riders “see the benefits of bikeshare, they can start spreading the information” to family and friends, and to whole communities, Lucas added.
Taking low-income bikeshare beyond the city core
Biking for all income levels is spreading in the whole region.
In Arlington, for example, the Community Partners program is administered by BikeArlington and relies mainly on two other organizations, the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing and Phoenix Bikes. There are about 100 low-income individuals participating, according to Dunbar. BikeArlington uses events in places with affordable housing and also sponsored a family ride with Phoenix Bikes to publicize the program.
“Our goal is to at least double” the number of participants “by the end of this fiscal year ,” Dunbar said.
The organizers are hoping to add a new partner – AHC, formerly called Arlington Housing Corporation – which would greatly increase its impact. Because the program is so new, AHC has been a bit reluctant, but “we now have a track record of more than a year,” said Dunbar, who is optimistic.
Just to the north of the District, Montgomery County, Md., has its own separate program, MCLiberty, which funds Capital Bikeshare memberships for low-income residents who apply, on a first-come basis.
And back on the Virginia side, BikeArlington is beginning a partnership with Fairfax County to bring the Community Partners program to a bigger stage. “We’re in the very early stages of reaching out to nonprofit organizations there,” said Dunbar, with a series of events tentatively planned for springtime.
The whole Community Partners program is designed to break down barriers and widen the health, mobility, and recreational opportunities of Capital Bikeshare.
Lucas summed it up: “We wanted to make sure that all of the benefits of bikeshare were reaching all community members.”
Photos courtesy of BikeArlington.