Capital Bikeshare can help get people to a Metro station when they live or work too far away to walk there. As a result, the region’s busiest bikeshare stations are next to Metro, especially outside of D.C.
Although some people do use bikeshare as their primary mode of getting around the same way others use bus and rail transit, one of bikeshare’s most important functions is to act as a first and last mile connection, meaning people take it to and from home and wherever they board another service. That’s where bikeshare has the most benefit when it comes to increasing transit access and use.
The graph below takes a look at how many of our region’s Capital Bikeshare stations are located near Metrorail and how many trips begin and end at those stations. As you can see, Capital Bikeshare stations near Metro are more active than those that are not: Chart by the author.
Nearly a third of our region’s CaBi stations are within a quarter-mile of a Metro station, but nearly half of all trips begin or end at them. Also, 8 percent of CaBi stations are located at the Metro (I determined by counting the stations whose names include a Metro station name), and 9 percent of all trips begin and end at them.
Read the rest of the article over at Greater Greater Washington.
Photo: A Capital Bikeshare station at the Pentagon City Metro station (mariordo59, Flickr, Creative Commons).