Students, faculty, and staff at Nazareth College and Rochester Institute of Technology can borrow a bicycle from a shared pool to get around on and off campus. The schools have bike-sharing programs, just like countless other campuses and cities across the world.
Public bike-sharing services, similar to those at Naz and RIT, could soon emerge in the Rochester area. The Genesee Transportation Council — the regional transportation planning organization for the nine counties around Rochester — is studying the feasibility of a regional bike-sharing program.
Planners and consultants are studying public interest in a potential program as well as demographic information, potential locations, financial factors, and possible benefits, says Rich Perrin, executive director of the Genesee Transportation Council.
“In short, we’re looking at what is the business strategy to fund, set up, and operate a successful bike-sharing system in the Rochester area,” Perrin says.
Right now, planners and consultants are looking at what people are willing to pay to use a bike-sharing service, among other data, Perrin says. They also want to hear from people who have experience with bike-sharing services, he says.
The GTC will hold its first public meeting on the project from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 19, at the Central Library’s Kate Gleason Auditorium, 115 South Avenue. People will have a chance to learn about the study and to offer input at the meeting. The council also has a website devoted to the study, rocbikeshare.org.
The council hopes to finish the study by the end of the year, Perrin says.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2014.
I would bet that there wouldn’t be enough people willing or able to pay the necessary fees. Therefore, the City of Rochester would have to subsidize this program.
So, for me, this ends the discussion.
Bike Sharing in Rochester, NY can work if you give it a chance. To do that properly, active transportation (walking and bicycling) must be seen in the proper context: as a real transportation option.
Renting or owning a bicycle is real cheap compared with fixing 500 bridges ‘considered deficient’ for greenhouse gas emitting vehicles in our region, real cheap for adapting to Climate Change (EPA says our present transportation systems emits 27% of GHG’s), real cheap compared to not exercising and stiff hospital bills (that the public often gets stuck with), and very inexpensive compared to buying and insuring and repairing and gassing up gas-guzzling behemoths that eats up our public monies maintaining this unsustainable infrastructure—and by the way kills over 30,000 of us every year.
The only thing stopping a bike sharing program in Rochester is a business-as-usual attitude.
More on Transportation in our area: http://rochesterenvironment.com/communting…
Look. I love bikes. I know they are great exercise and they cost less than a car and they don’t pollute, etc. But here is the problem; There’s no place for them.
The few bikes out there now are dangerous. Bicyclists often ride on sidewalks putting themselves and others at risk. They do it because they’re afraid of getting hit by a car or a truck or a bus. I can’t blame them and I’ve done it myself; many times.
Well, part of the problem is that the infrastructure isn’t bike friendly. Adding a few bike lanes isn’t enough because bicyclists still have to use streets that don’t have them.
I’m sorry, but more bikes equals more problems. Tip for walking: ALWAYS stop and look in all directions before entering any sidewalk or street. Tip for driving: ALWAYS expect bikes to materialize out of nowhere. Tip for bike riding: Leave the bike at home if you can’t ALWAYS follow the law!
As someone who lives downtown and is an all season cyclist, I really don’t see this working out at all. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great idea, but there are so many other issues that need to be tackled first. I’ll list some of my concerns below.
– For starters, bicycles are meant to be ridden IN the road with traffic, not against it. I’ve lost count how many people I’ve seen riding either in the sidewalk or (even worse), riding AGAINST traffic. Not only are both of these actions illegal (not that RPD enforces these law at all), they’re unbelievably unsafe. There are a bunch of groups in Rochester attempting to alleviate this problem through education, but I think a lot of people default to riding in the sidewalk or against traffic because they don’t feel safe otherwise, which leads me to…
– Driver education. There are far too many idiots (notably, from the suburbs) driving two ton metal death machines that think bicycles are supposed to “get in the sidewalk” and that it is perfectly okay to lay on their horn while riding a cyclist’s ass. I have video from last week of some douchebag in his mid-20s that did exactly this to me. He ended up getting stuck at a red light after passing me and I caught him at the light, telling me that I should be in the sidewalk. Unfortunately, it’s a mindset that a good portion of drivers seem to have. These drivers need education more than they need a ticket, which is the only recourse currently.
– Infrastructure. Okay, so the city/county has been trying to make some progress on this, putting in bike lanes and sharrows, opening new bike trails, publicizing bike week in mid-May, etc. However, this is only going to make a difference if they’re utilized properly. Nearly every time I go out riding, I see someone using the bike lane on Monroe as another lane to pass someone turning left. Not only is this illegal, I’ve been nearly hit about a half dozen times by people doing this because they’re not even checking for cyclists. Silly idea, right? Who would think to check a bike lane for a cyclist before illegally driving into it? Moreover, I see people, parking, walking, skateboarding, or biking in the wrong direction in these bike lanes on a semi-regular basis. Until people are ticketed by RPD patrols for parking or passing in the bike lanes (and pedestrians spoken to and/or ticketed), there’s really no point in having them. I’ve been out to Montreal and the some of the side streets have concrete barriers separating the bike lanes from the road, with directional arrows. More importantly, the SPVM (Montreal Police) ACTIVELY enforce proper use of these bike lanes.
– Enforcement. I’ve already mentioned this a few times above, but what I really want to rip on is RPD’s selective enforcement of inane laws requiring lights and bells on a bicycle, especially the latter. I’m hesitant to open Pandora’s box by drawing attention to this. Anyone biking at night should have some kind of lights, but at the same time, bicycles are seen as a cheap, efficient alternative to driving a car. Giving someone a $25 – $100 ticket for riding a bike without a light at night (especially when they can’t afford it) is on par with giving the motorist I mentioned above a ticket instead of education. As far as not having a bell goes, it’s a ancient law that should be removed from the books. However, it takes an unnecessarily amount of political power to get a law removed and in the meantime, it’s used by our local police department to stop anyone “suspicious” on a bike or charge any cyclist that has brought forth the ire of a police officer for whatever reason.
– Urban cyclists. I couldn’t think of a better word for this paragraph, but it’s a lesser issue involving a relatively small group of cyclists in the city that mindlessly bomb red lights, weave in and out of traffic, cut in front of cars, and generally piss off motorists, giving people a bad perception of cyclists or reinforcing an already hostile one. Don’t take me wrong, I’m all for blowing a red light or stop sign IF there isn’t any oncoming traffic (this article does a good job of explaining my thoughts on this http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/po…), but this isn’t what they’re doing. It’s this kind of behavior that perpetuates this motorist vs. cyclist/us vs. them attitude that scares away potential new cyclists.
To paraphrase, a bicycle sharing program in Rochester without addressing these issues first is either going to:
– a). unleash more clueless people biking the wrong way on the road or in the sidewalk; or
– b). not take off at all because there are so many existing issues that make biking downtown scary and unsafe for the uninitiated.
Disclaimer: when I started typing this out, I didn’t expect it to become this long. I’ve needed to vent on this topic for a while now and I’ve only scratched the surface.