DC Shares Bikes With Arlington, How About College Park?
September 21st, 2010 | by Fazlul Kabir | Published in Bicycles, Transportation
D.C. commuters have been sharing bikes in their streets for some time, but starting yesterday that program is expanding to include Arlington.
Funded by the U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation) the program, called Capital Bikeshare , is the largest such program in the country.
According to officials, 49 stations are operational and about five are being activated each day, allowing users to pick up a bike in one location and return it at any station. The system will feature about 1,100 bicycles at 114 stations in the District and Arlington. Out of that, there are 100 stations in D.C. and 14 in Arlington, where riders can pick up and leave bicycles.
The program is currently offering a $25 discount off the $75 annual membership fee. Monthly memberships are available for $25, and daily memberships will be available at the bike stations for $5.
Though Arlington gets connected with this bike share program today, it looks like other neighboring cities like College Park will have to wait a long time to ride on this network. Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments(MWCOG) failed to win a $10 million for bikeshare expansion that it had applied through a federal stimulus program called TIGER. The City of College Park and UMd jointly applied for that grant application. The original TIGER application asked for 2,250 bikes at 225 stations in DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax City, Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, Hyattsville, and National Harbor, in addition to the 1,000 the District is already funding. A second similar application is currently under review of USDOT, but it’s unlikely to be funded.
[Source: The Wahington Post, FoxDC, RTCP, GGW]
