Looking for Opportunities to Increase Area Bikeshare Service & Stations
Over the past several days I’ve been digging into the community amenities proposed by the redevelopment of Park Morton and thinking about ways to enhance and improve the proposal. One thing that came to mind is the potential to improve the Capital Bikeshare program in the Park View area. While this may not sound like a big thing, a quick look at the locations of Bikeshare stations in the area, and how they are being used, gives an indication that the community is a heavy user of the system and there aren’t enough bikes or stations to go around. It also seems like the Park Morton development project could help enlarge the Bikeshare station that is currently at Columbia Road and even establish a new station on the 600 block of Morton Street with minimal impact to the project’s design or bottom line.
The map below shows area Bikeshare stations shortly after noon on Monday, June 20. The amount of red indicates the number of available bikes. It is worth nothing that several of the stations have 1 or no available bikes. The significant exception here is the one at the hospital center, which is a commuter destination rather than a point of departure.
(Capital Bikeshare stations near Park View and Columbia Heights mid-day on June 20, 2016.)
It has been established for a while that our area tends to lose bikes over time as there are many residents who will bike to work, yet not all of them will bike back home after work. This requires Bikeshare to visit stations with a van to fill up the empty bike docks on a periodic basis.
Looking at the same bike stations shortly after 9 p.m. shows the inverse relationship as there are many more bikes in the area — but also highlights that there are still many empty bike docks and some empty bike stations. Having another Bikeshare station on Morton Street would be of benefit to the community and help ensure that those who use this service would have an easier time of having an variable bike when they need one.
(Capital Bikeshare stations near Park View and Columbia Heights shortly after 9:00 p.m. on June 20, 2016.)
Tags: bikes and biking, Capital Bikeshare, Park View
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Park View, D.C. 
June 21, 2016 at 8:07 am
Completely agree with you Kent. I’ve been saying this for years and am constantly adding this location to CaBi’s suggested bike station map. I would fully support additional Non-motorized public transport in the area, and as you said, it shouldn’t have any real impacting the developed as CaBi and the city are the ones who bear the cost of installation and maintenance.
June 21, 2016 at 8:42 am
Looking at this map reminds me why I don’t have a CaBi membership yet – the paucity of bikes in this area is major drawback. The Georgia Ave corridor has very few stations and limited bike availability at the ones there. Maybe two more – one at Lamont/Morton, and one a bit further up at Newton/Otis? This would encourage even more biking for short trips and commuters rather than more congestion on Georgia Ave, especially going south with the new bus lanes.
June 21, 2016 at 2:23 pm
Rock Creek Church Road and Warder Street – wide sidewalk next to the corner market would be a great location.
June 21, 2016 at 2:52 pm
How about a community amenity that improved the lives of people who live near Bruce Monroe, since we’re the ones giving up our park?
June 21, 2016 at 6:18 pm
New Construction that potentially will look better than that dump is not an amenity?
June 28, 2016 at 12:37 pm
A location closer to the Park/Irving entrance to Washington Hospital would probably see a good amount of use. Perhaps a location can be placed in a space freed up with the removal of some of the access roads there as part of the Crosstown Multimodal Study changes.
July 29, 2016 at 7:02 am
[…] Increase and expand Capital Bikeshare in the neighborhood (posted earlier here); […]
September 14, 2021 at 8:10 pm
Completely agree even 5 years later: the issue is still there, with most station in the area always empty (a good sign that people use bikes, but also a lack of interest on the part of the management company – Lyft/Cabi in this case).
Definitely an article to update and repropose in 2021 (can gather data and write some lines, if needed)! Thanks!