The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will be hosting the first local open house for
on Thursday, May 30. 2013 at the North Light Court in San Francisco’s City Hall, from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Attendees will have an opportunity to learn about and discuss bicycle sharing, the regional pilot, and planning and implementation details for San Francisco. The public is invited to share ideas for pilot and expansion station locations for the new bike share system.
UPDATE - March 18, 2013
On February 26, 2013, the
Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a notice to
Alta Bicycle Share authorizing them to deploy and operate a pilot regional bike-sharing system in the cities of San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Redwood City and San Francisco. The first phase of the project will deploy a fleet of approximately 350 bicycles and 35 kiosk stations in San Francisco and is anticipated to launch by August 2013.
For the system to reach its full potential in the region and San Francisco, additional funding will be needed to grow the system and the partners are actively seeking sponsors. In the short term, once additional funding is secured, the pilot system will be expanded to deploy at least an additional 150 bicycles at 15 kiosk stations in San Francisco. Longer term, a system size of up to 10,000 bikes regionally with several thousand bicycles in San Francisco is envisioned.
The
SFMTA is prioritizing locations for the first 35 stations and will be reengaging with the public and contacting properties adjacent to these locations.
If you have any questions please contact Matt Lasky at
matt.lasky@sfmta.com.
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Original Post - July 14, 2011
Bike sharing is coming to San Francisco! A regional pilot program led by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) in partnership with the SFMTA will bring approximately 50 bike share stations and 500 bikes
to San Francisco’s downtown core beginning in spring 2012. The SFMTA is working with a regional team to implement this pilot along the Caltrain corridor
in San Francisco, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City and San Jose and shown in this
Regional Bike Sharing System map. The project is funded through a combination of local, regional and federal grants with major funding coming from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Innovative Bay Area Climate Initiatives Grant Program (BACI).
What is bike sharing?
Similar to car sharing, bicycle sharing is a term used to describe a membership-based system of short-term bicycle rental. Members can check a bicycle out from a network of automated bicycle stations, ride to their destination, and return the bicycle to a different station. Bicycle sharing is enjoying a global explosion in growth with the development of purpose-built bicycles and stations that employ high tech features like smartcards, solar power, and wireless internet and GPS technologies.
Who is involved with launching the San Francisco bike sharing system?
The BAAQMD is the overall regional project lead, coordinating the planning and implementation efforts of the local partners: the City and County of San Francisco, the Cities of San Jose, Mountain View and Palo Alto in Santa Clara County and the City of Redwood City in San Mateo County. The SFMTA is leading the project in San Francisco, and we are working in cooperation with our City and County partners, including the Planning Department, Department of Public Works, San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and the Port of San Francisco. The regional partners will be selecting a contractor in fall 2011 to install, operate, and manage the system.
Where will bike sharing be located in San Francisco?
As the
San Francisco Bicycle Sharing Pilot Service Area map (PDF) presents, in San Francisco, the pilot service area will be centered in San Francisco’s employment- and transit-rich Downtown/SOMA corridor between the Financial District, Market Street and the Transbay and Caltrain terminals. This area is notably flat, has the densest bikeway network coverage in San Francisco and enjoys the highest levels of cycling, yet those who commute by transit from cities to the east and south encounter difficulties bringing a bicycle with them on BART or Caltrain. Much of San Francisco’s densely urbanized northeastern quadrant is similarly well-suited to bicycle sharing.
When will bike sharing launch in San Francisco?
The regional partners will be selecting a vendor to install, operate, and manage the bike sharing system in 2011 with the goal of a system launch in Spring/Summer 2012!
Further Information
If you have any questions, comments or feedback about bike sharing, contact the SFMTA at
sustainable.streets@sfmta.com.
Explore:
Overview
Pilot Area