In the the US bikes are viewed by most as a toy. What did most American kids want under the Christma

Earlier this week, Denver s B-Cycle bike-share system came under fire for allegedly side-stepping low-income neighborhoods. The accuser was City Council Member Paul Lopez, and his complaint was not something that system operators necessarily deny: There aren t many stations in low-income neighborhoods.
The broader claim that bike-share isn t serving the populations that might benefit most from it has dogged nearly every system in the country. And at its core there is some truth: American aaa travel guide bike-share systems aren t doing a good job reaching low-income and minority populations, according to a recent  FHWA report .
Only 1 percent of Boston Hubway users are black. In Washington, DC, only 3 percent of Capital Bikeshare users are African-American, according to CaBi s annual survey [ PDF ]. Denver s B-Cycle users are 81 percent white and only 21 percent have annual household incomes of less than $50,000, according to the Denver Post .
These are statistics that bike-share cities are painfully aaa travel guide aware of. And every locale has adopted different methods to reach disadvantaged groups. Denver and Boulder aaa travel guide work with the local housing authorities to make memberships aaa travel guide available to residents of public housing. Hubway offers subsidized memberships to anyone with an income less than 400 percent of the poverty rate. Minneapolis s Nice Ride requires no deposit to be held on the user s credit card.
But with many of these programs, success has been limited. One issue is siting that was the point raised by Council Member Lopez in Denver. B-Cycle has only one station in west Denver, where much of the city s Hispanic population resides.  That truly says something, he told the Post.
But Parry Burnap, executive director of Denver Bike Sharing, explained that stations do best in densely aaa travel guide populated, mixed-use areas with good bike paths. And that in order to stay afloat, the system has to think like a business.
Minneapolis faced similar criticism following its first year of operation, says Paul DeMaio, of MetroBike LLC, a consultant to Capital aaa travel guide Bikeshare and creator of the  Bike Sharing Blog . The city has since adjusted its stations aaa travel guide to accommodate low-income neighborhoods.
For example, when a local organization donated 100 B-Cycle memberships to Denver Housing Authority residents, aaa travel guide only 32 people took advantage, and only 23 used the bikes more than once, according to the Post.
Denver Councilman Albus Brook complained to the Post of a cultural aaa travel guide chasm between neighborhoods. He reported his constituents response to B-Cycle was:  Why in the world would I pay for a bike when I can borrow my cousin s?
But surely one of the biggest obstacles preventing lower-income people from benefitting aaa travel guide from bike-share is the issue of collateral. All the modern U.S. bike-share systems require a credit or debit card to rent a bike. Otherwise people have no incentive to return the bike, said DeMaio.
That effectively excludes low-income people who don t have bank accounts. About 17 million people across the U.S., or about 1 in 12 households, are unbanked, according to a recent report from the FDIC . And the unbanked are disproportionately black and Hispanic. More than 21 percent of African American households and 20 percent of Hispanic households are unbanked, compared to 4 percent of white households and just over 2 percent of Asian households, Bloomberg reports.
Washington, D.C. has gone farther than other cities aaa travel guide in attempting to reach unbanked residents with a program called Bank on DC, which allows low-income people to set up no-fee, aaa travel guide no-minimum bank accounts. Those who take part in the program are eligible for a $25 discount on an annual CaBi membership.
Russell Meddin is the founding member of Bike Share Philadelphia, an organization working to bring bike-share to the City of Brotherly Love. Meddin thinks it is absolutely crucial, if Philadelphia launches a bike-share system, that it serve low-income people, because of the city s demographics. But he doesn't think the idea of helping the unbanked get bank accounts is the right approach.
Meanwhile, it remains aaa travel guide an odd fact that, in America, private companies are able to offer low-income people without credit auto loans, cash loans, and layaway, but we can t seem to figure out how to provide them with the financial tools to ride public bikes.
Angie Schmitt is a newspaper reporter-turned planner/advocate who manages the Streetsblog Network from glamorous Cleveland, aaa travel guide Ohio. She also writes about urban issues particular to the industrial Midwest at Rustwire.com.
I m a daily bikeshare user and an economist, and I ve spent about half my adult life living in a very poor neighborhood. Now I live in a gentrifying neighborhood; the only bikeshare users are young professionals (white black).
Besides cultural issues does anything look nerdier than riding a bikeshare? is the simple understanding of what consumption niche bikeshare fills. Very few people pay for bikeshare but do not own their own bike. More often, we rent a bikeshare as a complement aaa travel guide to (not a substitute for) a personal bike. In particular, it s a complement to a *nice* bike.
Often, the poor do own a junky bike a beater. A beater is cheap, much cheaper than a year s bikeshare membership. But bikeshare is a substitute for a junky bike (it s slow, bulky, and not totally reliable). A smart poor person will forego the expensive bikeshare, buy a cheap beater at a yardsale aaa travel guide and ride it into the ground.
The poor in America have enough income to have a pretty large consumption choice set; most poor families own a car. And they are just as smart with their money as they rest of us. There s no need to paternalistically foist bikeshare onto those who don t demand aaa travel guide it.
I thought about this also while I was in DC. It s tricky. But as far as your point of offering low-income people loans and layaway bikeshare is completely different, unless someone wants to enter into the business of exploitative bikeshare which I can actually envision.
In the the US bikes are viewed by most as a toy. What did most American kids want under the Christmas tree for most of the 20th Century? A new BIKE! The need to travel/commute by bike is viewed by many Americans as a failure, ie must not be able afford a car or got a DUI. In reality many commuter cyclists make the decsision to do something that is more difficult on its face, riding a bike to work or the store, because they understand that they re paying themselves in the form of lower stress levels, better health, AND all the normal vehicular savings associated with bike commuting.
What most people fail to comment on is that when a one person chooses rides a bike to work even those who choose aaa travel guide to drive a single occupant automobile benefit in the form of lower traffic congestion, more parking spaces available, less emeissions, lower healthcare cost, etc.
In reply to Nobody because I can t find a reply button on that post bike share generally ends up being more costly than the initial aaa travel guide membership. At least in DC, there are additional charges that escalate after the first 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, there is a $2 charge and it keeps going up. I found myself paying additional charges on top of my three-day membership while searching for stations. The costs can add up quite quickly. And the thing is most low-income aaa travel guide necessity cyclists are not necessarily riding reliable bikes. aaa travel guide So I think considering aaa travel guide it to be a good deal for people with limited resources if far-fetched. You can buy a bike for $35 at Walmart during the holidays. Lots and lots of people no matter what their income level consider big box bikes just fine.
In Boston you need a credit card or a debit card with enough money to put down a $100 deposit. I m not even low income and I don t want to let the city of Boston borrow a hundred bucks from me for however long it takes them to decide to deposit it back in my account (up to 10 days). I m not really sure who would want to use it, I guess it d be OK if I were a tourist.
I m sorry to be so blunt, but in Boston it is also because the bikes are not located near where low-income people live. When a low-income person travels to where the bikes are located (substantially aaa travel guide downtown) they are likely already on transit and the system has very wide coverage in downtown making bike share kind of redundant.  Unlike other metro areas, where the bikes are stationed in Boston aaa travel guide there really isn t a last mile problem.  The last mile problem most likely exists where low-income folks live. I m actually surprised this passed the EJ/Title VI smell test since Boston s system was partially funded by FTA.  While I m not a bike share user, I am a huge supporter, but am highly concerned about what this article has asked.  I think the people that could benefit the most from bike share are being excluded in Boston.  It seems there has been some slight progress on located the stations more fairly this year with a slight aaa travel guide expansion but not good enough in my opinion.
Looking strictly at Boston, they re slowly aaa travel guide growing, and finally somewhat of a circular shape.  Last year, exclusion of Cambridge meant you had this strange crescent carved out of the north side of the coverage area, due to the meander of the Charles.  To what end?  Long distances between stations East to West.  People on that North side had a disincentive to stop and spend their tourist dollars.  Such is the fate of a new system just getting going.
Now it s about perhaps over 100 stations.  Expansion next year will indeed be a big test of the system, because it can t expand much more as an even radius aaa travel guide without penetrating int some poorer neighborhoods.
As stated more eloquently here by others while something like this needs to serve the poor, it also needs to be built out in a sustainable way.  You can t simply put a kiosk into any neighborhood, it would be an island there needs to be interconnecting stations about 1/4 mile away.
I would like to see more minorities use bikeshare, but many choose not to, this is a system