Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide

Future Dallas: Targeting Sustainable Mobility

View of I-35 E highway in the urban core of Dallas, US.

On April 26th, ITDP hosted a workshop in Dallas to aid coalitions of people in the city in setting a vision for shifting away from single occupancy vehicle use and towards the support of walking, cycling, and public transit. This workshop was held at a pivotal moment for Dallas. With a newly formed Department of Transportation (DOT), the city is in the midst of developing a comprehensive mobility plan. While the city has been in the habit of making forecasts based on existing trends, setting measurable long-term mode share targets that will require alignment with public budgets will be the key to the plan’s success.

The workshop focused on an assessment of mobility indicators such as people near transit, access to jobs, and low income people near frequent transit. Attendees to the workshop included representatives from the Dallas City Hall, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), Regional Chamber of Commerce, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), as well other local private sector, non-profit, academic, and advocacy organizations.

Joe Chestnut, ITDP presents mobility indicators assessment
Break-out group focused on public transit targets
City of Denver presents sustainable mobility targets.

The population of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Metroplex grew by 146,238 in 2017 – the most growth of any metro area in the U.S. – making it the fourth most populous metro area in the country. The city of Dallas alone grew by 10%. Dallas must decide how it will accommodate this growth without adding traffic congestion. The key, of course is to improve access to the city, while reducing dependency on private cars, with a substantial mode shift to transit.

The current mode shares for the City of Dallas and the metro region leave much room for improvement:

Mode City Region
Driving Alone 76% 80%
Carpool 11% 10%
Public Transit 4% 2%
Walk 2% 1%
Bike 0.2% 0.1%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (ACS 2016 Report)

ITDP made the case to Dallas in many ways. By mapping jobs near frequent transit, (defined as transit with headways of 12 minutes or less), it becomes clear where there is great potential for transit-oriented development. Dallas has 90 miles of light rail in a hub and spoke pattern branching out from the Downtown. The setting of sustainable mobility targets may be the first step for Dallas toward achieving the greater goal of reducing single occupancy vehicle use and shifting toward sustainable transport.

Source: ITDP (Data: GTFS)
Source: ITDP (Data: GTFS)

Long-term mode share targets from other U.S. cities were presented to illustrate that many peer cities have embarked on this process with the intention of decreasing single occupancy vehicle use. These cities have already begun to see the results of investing in quality walking and cycling facilities, and offering frequent transit services to move closer toward achieving their mobility goals. ITDP compared Dallas to these peers cities on a host of indicators, such as the percentage of jobs near frequent transit with first/last mile connections made by walking and cycling. Dallas performs among the worst on the list, even compared to other sunbelt cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Albuquerque and Denver.

Getting to the Targets

A major component of the workshop included an interactive exercise that challenged participants to produce a collective vision for future mobility in Dallas. Participants were arranged into groups based on transport mode, and each group developed targets. These are the results:

Pegasus Plaza with dockless bikeshare.

New development near Victory DART Station

Public Transit

  • Increase people living near frequent transit to 10% by 2028
  • Increase access to jobs by public transit to 50% by 2030

Cycling

  • Increase cycling mode share from 0.2% to 0.8% by 2022
  • Increase the number of children biking to school by 20% by 2030

Participants also outlined the policies that would be needed to reach these targets by the proposed dates. Policy changes included a desire to reduce resident speed limits to 25 mph and to make zoning changes that would cluster more people within a ½ mile of a buffered bike lane among many others. The goal of the exercise was to have the group work as a unified coalition around each transport mode. Each group developed an action plan for how they would realize all the steps needed to reach the targets.

With a growing workforce and emphasis on strengthening the urban core, Dallas has significant opportunity to apply some of the lessons learned from their peer cities and reinvent themselves as a transit oriented city with walkable urbanism and world-class cycling infrastructure.

[WEBINAR] Freight and Environmental Justice

Webinar Recording


YouTube Link

 

Presentation Slides
Freight and Environmental Justice


About the Webinar
The movement of goods is essential to urban life, but also generates many problems.  Trucks emit pollution and noise; warehouses and intermodal facilities attract concentrations of trucks and trains.  Research shows that poor and minority populations are more impacted by freight-related pollution. At the same time, poor and minority populations are less likely to enjoy the benefits of instant deliveries or wide assortments of food at local shops.  This webinar provides an overview of freight-related environmental justice problems in the US.

 

About the Presenter

Genevieve Giuliano | Director of the METRANS, California State University Long Beach Transportation Center

Genevieve Giuliano is Margaret and John Ferraro Chair in Effective Local Government in the Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, and Director of the METRANS joint USC and California State University Long Beach Transportation Center. Her research areas include relationships between land use and transportation, transportation policy analysis, travel behavior, and information technology applications in transportation. She has conducted extensive research on freight policy and planning and published over 170 papers. Professor Giuliano is a past Chair of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board, and of the Council of University Transportation Centers. She has received numerous distinguished scholarship and service awards.  She was a member of the National Freight Advisory Committee, and currently serves on the California Freight Efficiency Group. She will also be a speaker at MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam.

Momentum Grows for Bus Improvements, BRT in Boston

The Boston area is preparing for exciting new improvements to its bus service in 2018, so much that #YearoftheBus has become popular on social media and local television has taken an interest in covering the progress. In addition to the three local bus pilots that ITDP is supporting, the local transit authority (the MBTA) and MassDOT have recently initiated efforts to conduct a Network Redesign for its bus system and several other communities have also announced plans to pursue bus improvements like dedicated lanes, Transit Signal Priority (TSP), and platform level boarding.

ITDP has been working in Boston for the past six years, and has seized this opportunity to engage local transit practitioners, advocates and thought leaders in a day of capacity building and learning about bus network redesign and how it can be leveraged as a platform to create Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Last month, ITDP organized the “Greater Boston Bus Network Redesign & BRT Workshop” at our office in the Community Innovation Center (CIC) in downtown Boston. Featured presentations included international bus network design experts Jarrett Walker of Jarrett Walker + Associates and Christof Spieler of Houston METRO Board of Directors. The goal of the workshop was to give a comprehensive understanding of the bus network redesign process planned for greater Boston, including opportunities for buses to better respond to the region’s changing travel patterns and how a bus network revamp connects with potential corridors of high capacity bus service. ITDP presented the steps that could lead from bus network redesign to Gold Standard BRT, showing case studies of BRT service options from around the world.

Over 40 representatives from the MBTA, MassDOT, the regional planning agency (MAPC), transit advocacy organizations, and municipal planning departments – including from jurisdictions such as Worcester, MA –  participated in the workshop. Presentations were also given by the MBTA and MassDOT. Participants were welcomed with an inspiring presentation about the successful bus network redesign in Houston, TX that has lead to a ridership increase by 11-30%.  MassDOT and the MBTA shared some of the strategies under consideration for a network redesign in Boston which includes a focus on improving accessibility, moving away from “one-size-fits all” metrics, and identification of service gaps.

The MBTA Network Redesign will explore a variety of strategies for maximizing transit accessibility in the Boston area:

  • Pursuing a Network of Priority Bus Corridors – Build off of the Bus Service Plan pursuit of speed and reliability improvements (bus lanes, TSP, etc) to envision a system that sacrifices coverage in favor of a near-rapid transit experience in major corridors
  • Rethinking a Bus Network’s Relationship to Rapid Transit – Address capacity constraints on rapid transit and provide more one-seat ride access to employment opportunities
  • Better Crosstown Service to Meet New Travel Needs – Introduction of relatively short, high demand transit links that can respond to changing travel patterns that are not always focused on downtown Boston.

Participants got to experience an  interactive group exercise led by Jarrett Walker that challenged them to devise a bus system using wax ropes color-coded by service frequency and intended to- as sufficiently as possible- serve the imaginary city of “Prairieville”, complete with a downtown, hospitals, shopping malls, universities and an industrial flood plain.

Mr. Walker reflected on the uniqueness of the opportunity to lead his exercise in a room full of professional transit planners, and participants noted the value of being able to work creatively with colleagues from outside their particular department or agency. Each group posted their final maps on the wall and observed the variations in service planning decisions made across the room.

The challenge was to provide the best service possible for the greatest number of people, taking into consideration … residential density, income disparities, employment centers and shopping destinations–all while functioning within the limits of their resources and budget. 

It was fascinating to see the variations in service maps across the room and to observe the very real trade-offs that are often faced by transit planners when designing bus routes driven by the dual yet often counteractive goals of ridership versus coverage.  

Is it possible to achieve both high ridership and high coverage in bus network design? As workshop participants learned through this exercise and through the examples shared by both Walker and Spieler, the answer is often no. For instance, the recent network redesign of Houston’s bus network saw route coverage actually decrease while ridership increased because the buses were now able to serve the heavier ridership routes at higher frequencies. Planners can expect to receive an outpouring of public opposition when a bus route is changed or removed all together, but if the goal of the system is to maximize ridership, then these are often difficult decisions that must be made. If the goal, however, is to maximize coverage then the trade-off usually comes at the expense of frequency (a common characteristic of American bus systems). To this end, it is important for transit agencies to be clear on what their ultimate goals is when pursuing network redesign, and to be prepared to handle the consequences of compromise.

As Boston moves towards its Summer 2018 launch of its Network Redesign, and municipalities from Everett to Arlington to Cambridge to Boston prepare to demonstrate bus improvements that have never been seen across the region (or most parts of the country for that matter), we hope to see a lively continuation of the discussions had during this workshop across an even broader contingency of practitioners and hopefully in concert with real changes to the region’s bus service.  ITDP looks forward to continuing our work with partners on the Boston BRT local pilots and to further identify opportunities to channel this momentum towards a full scale Gold Standard BRT corridor.

Nominate Your City for the 2019 Sustainable Transport Award

ITDP, together with an international committee of development and transport experts, invites you to nominate your city for the Annual Sustainable Transport Award.  

Nominations are now open and will be accepted online at staward.org until April 13, 2018.

Since 2005, the Sustainable Transport Award has recognized profound leadership and vision in sustainable transportation and urban livability. These strategies should improve mobility for all residents, reduce transportation greenhouse and air pollution emissions, and enhance safety and access for bicyclists and pedestrians. Nominations are accepted from any interested parties, including government, civil society organizations, and academic institutions. Nominations must include verifiable project data and contact information for the city.

Cities of all sizes from all over the world have been recognized by the committee for best practices in sustainable transport. Past winners include:

2017 STA winner, Santiago, Chile

  • Santiago, Chile
  • Yichang, China
  • Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Mexico City, México
  • Medellín, Colombia
  • San Francisco, United States
  • Ahmedabad, India
  • Seoul, South Korea
  • Bogotá, Colombia

A complete list of winning cities with details on their win is available at staward.org.

The 2018 winner, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is the first African City to win the STA, for launching a series of transformative improvements that bring a high quality rapid transit system to its streets combined with walking and cycling infrastructure improvements. The changes are anchored around the Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit system, or DART, a high quality-high capacity system incorporating best practice design and features, the first true BRT system in East Africa. DART has reduced commute times by more than half for residents, who previously faced upwards of four hours stuck in traffic every day. In addition, the city has built cycle lanes and improved intersections and sidewalks along the corridor.

Dar es Salaam BRT system

In June 2018, Dar es Salaam will host the MOBILIZE Summit, held each year in the winning city. MOBILIZE brings together 200 international urban transport and development planners, practitioners, and officials, world-class researchers, and NGO representatives to share strategies, challenges, research and study the example of Dar es Salaam as an international best practice in sustainable transport. The winner of the 2019 STA is where the summit goes next year.

“The Sustainable Transport Award is about celebrating bold vision and momentous changes that improve quality of life for people in cities. In the nearly 15 year history of the award, the nominees have often included cities doing great work under the radar,” says Michael Kodransky, chair of the STA Committee, “There are so many inspiring changes happening on the ground in cities that aren’t known as having the usual transport best practices. The STA and MOBILIZE are great vehicles for recognizing political courage and showcasing the latest achievements. It’s also a great opportunity for those of us working in sustainable transport to learn from innovative approaches, which are shared with a global cohort of the leading influencers at MOBILIZE”.

The 2019 winner will be announced at MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam on June 28, 2018. The winner and honorable mentions will be recognized at a ceremony and reception in Washington, DC during the Transport Research Board conference the following January.

Can Private and Public Bikeshare Coexist? A Cautionary Tale from China

Dockless bike companies are increasingly taking over public spaces for private use, creating serious problems for Chinese cities.

By Deng Han, Liu Shaokun, Li Wei, Huang Runjie, ITDP China

Disruption has come to the once calm and steady business of municipal bikeshare, where the Chinese experience is a harbinger of the future for cities everywhere. Virtually overnight last year, red, yellow, and blue bikes sprang up on seemingly every corner in Guangzhou. But they had one crucial difference from the traditional public bike-share system that has been offering residents two wheeled mobility since 2010: They were dockless.

These bikes could be found – and left – anywhere in the city, thanks to a built-in lock that released when the user reserved the bike via a smartphone app and a QR code.

On the surface, this degree of convenience compared to traditional bike-share with its dedicated docking stations seemed a brilliant innovation in delivering a solution to the perennial “last kilometer” problem. After all, people who own bicycles lock them as close as they can to their destination – outside the office, on campus, at a bike rack near the grocery store – rather than leave them at designated locations. But the introduction of a private innovation did not come without headaches. For one, it seems there can be too much of a good thing, as bikes flooded the streets; for another, the sudden rush of rogue bikes for rent onto the streets of Guangzhou also upended municipal plans for expansion of the public system.

Guangzhou’s traditional public bicycle system launched in June 2010. With stations located along the Zhongshan Avenue BRT corridor, the system appeared to meet an obvious need in the neighborhood. According to data provided by the Guangzhou public bicycle company, as of December 2016, the system contained 8,850 bicycles and more than 110 docking stations. That’s an increase from the initial launch of 1,000 vehicles and 18 docking stations. A total of 35,382,400 trips have been made using this service.

Dockless bike share bikes’ surge in popularity in cities such as Guangzhou, where ITDP observed 55 percent of riders on a given day using a dockless bike, and only 2 percent using the city’s bike share bikes.

With five successful years under its belt, Guangzhou proposed a major bike-share expansion in 2015. The city government planned to launch 100,000 traditional public bicycles, which would make it one of the largest systems in the world (New York’s Citibike, for example, has 12,000 bikes). However, as of January 2016, there were still only 10,000 bikes. What happened?

Since September 2016, the privately-owned dockless companies Mobike, ofo, Xiaoming, Bluegogo, U-bicycle, and Coolqi Bike have been players in the Guangzhou market. With a simple per-ride price and convenient smartphone payment, these dockless bike-sharing systems have grown explosively. By the end of May 2017, more than 700,000 dockless shared bikes could be found on Guangzhou streets, with more than 7.5 million registered users and more than 4 million daily trips.

The impact of dockless bike-share on cycling culture has been remarkable. ITDP conducted a survey of bike volumes along the Zhongshan Avenue BRT corridor. Measured in June 2017, over a year after dockless bike-sharing came to Guangzhou, the volume of bikes in the vicinity of Gangding Station and Tangxia Station is up more than 500 percent and 100 percent respectively than in previous years. Crucially, about 55 percent of rides are on dockless shared bikes and only 2 percent are on traditional public bikes. Daily trips by the public bike-share have plummeted from 14,000 to 9,000 per day since the advent of private dockless bike-share.

While this growth might suggest that private dockless bikes are a superior product to traditional public bike-share with docking stations, the Guangzhou experience makes it clear that dockless bike-sharing companies value rapid launch over long-term management. With large deployments, shared bikes are put on the street in a disorderly manner with the hope of cornering the market. Operational costs are in turn transferred onto the back of the city, which must use its resources to keep the clusters of bikes from clogging streets, sidewalks, and public spaces. Newspapers have even reported that users are wedging private dockless bikes into the public system’s docking stations. The Guangdong/Guangzhou Consumers Commission claims that 73.9 percent of respondents expressed support for the development of dockless bike-sharing. However, at this time there is no formal agreement with the city, and these companies pay no fees to the city.

Recognizing the impact of dockless bike-share, the Guangzhou Communications Commission issued technical guidelines for parking urban bicycles in the city center and a blueprint for standardizing Internet rental bikes in Guangzhou. Meanwhile, the public system has undergone a transformation, driven in part by the innovations of the private system. At the moment, the Guangzhou traditional public bicycle system is building up its IT infrastructure to accept Yang Cheng Tong (a local transportation payment card), as well as mobile payments via WeChat, APP, and Alipay.

As private bike-share expands outside China – it can already be found on the streets of Seattle and Washington, DC – there’s debate over whether these two competitors can coexist. We think they can. Traditional public bicycle and dockless bike-sharing have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they learn from each other as a result. Traditional public bicycles are learning to go dockless and adopt online convenience from the dockless bike-sharing systems, while dockless bike-sharing is shedding its chaotic approach in favor of a more rational approach to growth and street parking. There are definitely advantages to having a set location for bikes (docked) and also more flexible bikes (dockless), but they can only work together if there is an intentional plan, with regulations for dockless to complement docked and to reserve precious space for pedestrians. Ideally, traditional public bicycles and dockless bike-sharing will become an organic blend offering a convenient service for the public’s “last kilometer” and short trips.

Progress is underway. Xiaoming, Mobike, and other companies are recognizing their mistakes and working on a virtual “geo-fence” to comply with new bike parking requirements. The public and private models are coming from opposite directions, but will hopefully meet in the middle to strike a compromise in both convenience and order, providing the best experience for all of the city’s mobility needs.

This blog post is modified from an article in the 29th issue of the Sustainable Transport magazine.  You can find the article and others here.

TOD and Affordable Housing

 

A new revitalized TOD-area near the Cleveland BRT


by R. Balachandran, Alchemy Urban Systems

Click to enlarge

The cost of housing is well beyond the money paid for rent or mortgage.  There is also the cost of access. This refers to bundle of services including water supply, sanitation, health, education and most importantly, transportation. Therefore, housing can be made truly affordable only if the whole package (housing plus services) is made affordable. In large cities where walking and cycling are not sufficient to ensure access to needed opportunities and services, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) offers a great opportunity to do this.  In this blog, I attempt to outline the opportunity and the challenges to making it happen. I write specifically in the context of transit catchments in developing/ low-income countries where the urban poor end up living in substandard housing in risk-prone areas of the city. This discussion is relevant mainly to Metrics 5.B.1- Affordable Housing, and 5.B.2-Housing Preservation of the TOD Standards, but may also be connected to others, for example Metric 4.A.1-Walking Distance to Transit.

 

The Opportunity

An affordable transit system increases accessibility and mobility all along its route, providing substantial benefits to communities in its catchment.  When cities with substantial populations of urban poor take up station area planning, or TOD area planning, they should ensure easy access to transit for low income families.  

To begin with, when transit alignments are planned, stations could be located within walking distance to existing high density low-income settlements (with measures to ensure that redevelopment pressures don’t displace the residents). Secondly, connections could be made to settlements further away using feeder buses, para-transit and infrastructure for walking and cycling.  These two interventions however only provide access to existing settlements with/ without improving their housing conditions.

The most important and forward-looking intervention possible is to enable the development of new affordable housing of acceptable standards within the station areas for low-income families to move into. In cities that have public housing and public transit programs, affordable housing projects should be located in TOD/ station areas. One example, is the Sikandar Bakht Nagar Housing Project for Economically Weaker Sections at Behrampura, Ahmedabad, India (see images), built to rehouse informal dwellers from a flood-prone area on the banks of the Sabarmati River, within short walking distance from both the river and a Bus Rapid Transit station. And while Sikandar Bakht Nagar has been criticized for a number of design, construction and maintenance problems that should be addressed, its residents do benefit from rapid and convenient connections to countless opportunities and resources throughout the city.

Location of the Sikandar Bakht Nagar within a 350 meter walking distance to a BRT station
View inside the housing complex

 

Ensuring Access to Services

A significant element of subsidy is inevitable in the process of producing affordable housing and keeping them affordable.  Fortunately, in a TOD context, there is an opportunity to capture a portion of the unearned value gained by private properties in the catchment of transit (the concept is usually referred to as “value capture”) and use it to achieve comprehensive redevelopment including affordable housing and infrastructure upgrading.  The revenues from value capture should be escrowed towards affordable housing, infrastructure upgrading and other public investments within the TOD areas.

But, while the “value capture” opportunity is seductive, it is often exploited in a simplistic manner where additional development rights are offered at a price in the catchment areas of the transit system without any planning, ostensibly to densify the area according to the principles of TOD.  However, densification without carefully planning the provision of utilities and services can result in infrastructure inadequacies.  Already deprived low-income communities suffer exacerbated shortages for water and sanitation as well as access to health, education and other community services.  They end up paying more for these services, undermining the affordability of housing as a complete package.

Therefore, TOD policy should ensure that promotion of affordable housing in TOD areas happens through planned development or redevelopment with adequate infrastructure provision. Users of the TOD Standard are advised to use their discretion to only allocate density points where infrastructure is sufficient.

BRT in Medellin, Colombia transformed access in a low income neighborhood
Public plaza near a low-income housing development in Sao Paulo, Brazil

 

Maintaining Affordability

Access to transit is a powerful driver for real estate values and could cause gentrification of affordable housing in a TOD/ station area.  Therefore, it is important to take specific measures to keep the housing affordable to the target group over time.  How to do this requires context specific policies.

Many developing countries with poor data infrastructure and enforcement systems have tried in vain to use covenants restricting the resale/ renting of affordable housing units allocated to “beneficiaries” identified through a due process.  Market forces have historically found ways of subverting such restrictions.  Another method is to prevent amalgamation of more than one small house into a bigger one.  Regular checking of the units is required for this and is best achieved by involving the community members.  Creating a “Community Land Trust” (CLT) is yet another method that is gaining favor. The CLTs could regulate or manage all transactions on these houses including sale, rental, lease etc. to ensure that the house is always occupied by the targeted income-group at a price truly affordable to them. CLTs, or variations of this model, could potentially involve the community members in the active management of the affordable housing developments.

To conclude, TOD offers a great opportunity to promote a truly affordable housing and services package for the urban poor in the cities of developing countries. However, beyond the scope of TOD Standard indicators, achieving this in the long term involves addressing the challenges of ensuring adequate services and maintaining affordability of the housing developments.

Download The TOD Standard here and visit todstandard.org for more information.  You can also read more insights from other authors of The TOD Standard here and here.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Presented with 2018 Sustainable Transport Award

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Dar is the first African City to win the STA
Moscow, Russia received an Honorable Mention

Psst… 2019 STA nominations open on Wednesday, March 14th!  You can find out more about nominating your city at staward.org.

H.E. William Masilingi with Sustainable Transport award

Over the last few years, Dar has launched a series of transformative improvements to transit, cycling and walking, the most important of which is the Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit system, or DART. These efforts have made it the first African city to win the prestigious Sustainable Transport Award in its 14-year history.

“The Sustainable Transport Award has always been about transformation. The committee is looking to call attention to political courage and regional best practices, especially in places that are often overlooked,” said Michael Kodransky, Chair of the Sustainable Transport Award Committee. “This project is transformative for Dar, and it offers a source of inspiration for other African cities, where new transport systems are being planned. We’re thrilled to promote over the next year the great work that Dar has done, and convene experts from all over the world to see first-hand what they’ve accomplished.”

Vadim Yurev receiving honorable mention from Michael Kodransky

Moscow, Russia received the honorable mention for an impressive new train line, reorganization of bus transport, and street redesigns to improve conditions for pedestrians and transit users.

On January 9th, 2018,  Dar es Salaam and Moscow were celebrated at the annual STA ceremony.  H.E. William Masilingi, Ambassador from the United Republic of Tanzania, accepted the winning award on behalf of the city of Dar es Salaam, presented by Naomi Mwaura of ITDP Africa.  Vadim Yurev, CEO of the Moscow Traffic Control Centre, accepted the honorable mention for of the city of Moscow, presented by Michael Kodransky. The ceremony also featured a talk from Laura Ballesteros, reporting on Mexico City’s groundbreaking off-street parking reform policy which was announced at the 2017 STA. The ceremony concluded with reflections from Juan Carlos Muñoz of the BRT Centre of Excellence on MOBILIZE’s lasting impact on Santiago, Chile, the 2017 STA winning city.

Dar es Salaam will be the site of MOBILIZE 2018, ITDP’s annual Sustainable Transport Summit organized in partnership with the Volvo Research and Education Foundations. The event will showcase best practices and lessons in sustainable mobility to an international group of city practitioners and researchers, spotlighting this emerging city as a learning lab. For more information, visit mobilizesummit.org.

Dockless Bikeshare: What We Know So Far

Over the last decade, bikeshare schemes have become a standard feature in cities around the world, with over 1,000 cities offering at least one bikesharing scheme. City governments have incorporated bikeshare into their transportation and sustainability plans as a low-cost and innovative mobility option for residents.  More and more cities are realizing the benefits of integrating this reliable, convenient, safe, and affordable mode into their existing portfolio of transport options.  


What’s New about Dockless Bikeshare?
In the last couple of years a new approach to bikeshare has emerged: dockless bikeshare. While stationless bikeshare systems, such as Call-a-bike and Nextbike, have existed for years in Europe, they relied heavily on government support, were not reliant on smartphone technology, and never achieved the levels of growth currently underway. The rise of dockless bikeshare, however, comes as a direct response to some of the challenges that traditional station-based bikeshare systems have faced both in terms of convenience for users and the need for public funding. Dockless bikeshare relies heavily, if not exclusively, on smartphone technology and high speed internet, and operators typically charge very low fees on a per ride basis. Supported almost entirely by venture capital funding, dockless bikeshare companies function without government subsidies, allowing them to avoid the often lengthy government procurement processes associated with traditional single-operator, station-based systems.

The current dockless bikeshare system was born in 2014, when five students from Peking University in Beijing founded ofo, a bikeshare company that aimed to serve internal transport needs within the campus. Early in 2016, as the sharing economy, high speed mobile networks, and smartphone technology gained popularity, this new approach to bikeshare began to explode in China.

Compared to traditional bikeshare systems with fixed stations and parking docks, the dockless model allows a rider to leave a bike wherever they decide to complete their trip. There are no fixed stations or parking docks; bicycles are equipped with a self-lock. Riders download a company’s app which directs them to the nearest bicycle that can be unlocked, in most cases, by scanning a QR code with their phone. Some companies, however, also offer the option to unlock a bike by having a pin sent to the user’s smartphone via text, which is then entered onto a keypad or combination lock on the bike.

Dockless bicycles can be unlocked by scanning a QR code located on the bike (as seen in the first two photos), or using a code sent to the user to open either a manual or automatic lock (as seen in the last two photos).
Dockless bicycles can be unlocked by scanning a QR code located on the bike (as seen in the first two photos), or using a code sent to the user to open either a manual or automatic lock (as seen in the last two photos).

Image Credits: (1, 3) Emma Lee, (2) Richard Darsono , (4) David Alpert


An Explosion of Bikes and Biking
As of October 2017, there were more than 70 dockless bikeshare companies in China operating approximately 16 million bikes. More than one third of these bikes, about 5.1 million, are located in just three cities: Beijing (2.4 million), Shanghai (1.5 million), and Chengdu (1.2 million) – all of which have traditional station-based bikeshare systems in place. Often, these quantities of bikes were dropped on city streets within a matter of months. The two private operators with the largest market share, ofo and Mobike, together operate approximately 14 million bikes in more than 165 Chinese cities with users taking more than 60 million trips per day, on average.

The intense influx of bikes has made a difference in mode share. In both Beijing and Shanghai, the number of car trips under five kilometers has fallen for the first time, according to The Report of Traffic Analysis in Major Cities (Quarter 1, 2017, AMAP, an online map provider). The decline corresponds with the introduction of dockless bikeshare. A white paper published by Mobike earlier this year shows total bike ridership – not just shared bikes – has increased significantly among Mobike users. An analysis done by ITDP China also found a shift away from walking since dockless bikeshare launched.


Oversupply and Lack of Regulation Creates a Public Nuisance
While dockless bikeshare has given consumers a flexible, inexpensive transportation alternative to driving a personal vehicle, it has also yielded negative consequences such as blocked sidewalks and vandalism of the bikes. Oversupply has led to graveyards of bikes, and deep concerns about quality control, maintenance, and management of these systems. According to a common position paper from UITP, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and its Platform for European Bike Sharing and Systems (PEBSS), there is a lack of redistribution efforts by private operators – with bicycles sometimes inundating popular areas in the cities – compounded by a lack of maintenance and comparatively low number of staff to manage the bikes. The initial lack of regulations and massive influxes of venture capital funds allowed these problem to quickly grow.  

Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.
Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.
Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.

Image Credits: (1) Jason Lee (2)Mark Schiefelbein (3) Gregor Fischer


Lack of Financial Transparency Raises Concerns
It is not clear how financially viable dockless bikeshare companies will be in the long term. This boom created in China is, in part, due to massive funding from private investors, which has allowed these young companies to not only flood Chinese cities with bikes, but to explore market potential in Europe, Australia, and North America. Earlier in 2017, ofo raised $700 million while Mobike raised $600 million in venture capital funding. Combined, ofo and Mobike have raised $2.2 billion of capital and are valued at more than $4.4 billion.

While dockless bikeshare operators generate revenue from a combination of user deposits, usage fees (which are very low, at about $1 per ride in the US), in-app advertising, and possibly from user data, it is unclear how stable or sustainable this business model is without continued venture capital investment. To that end, after almost two years in operation, ofo and Mobike remain unprofitable.  Several of the smaller dockless bikeshare companies have started merging to try to corner more of the market, and even more troubling, Bluegogo, the third largest bikesharing company in China, went bankrupt at the end of November causing 20 million users to lose their deposits.

Despite receiving such large amounts of funding, major operators like ofo and Mobike have not scaled up at nearly the same pace outside of China as they did within the country. This is likely due, in part, to cities raising serious concerns about the bike graveyards, vandalism, and opaque business practices seen in China. While initially, cities in the US and Europe were quick to issue cease and desist orders to companies that dropped bikes without warning, many cities have now begun to enter into dialogues with operators, allowing dockless bikeshare to come into the city under certain terms.


Cities Explore Dockless Bikeshare Regulations
According to ITDP China, self-regulation by the market will not fix the problems that have emerged as a result of dockless bikeshare oversupply in China. Governments need to take a more active role in regulating these new systems because, while privately owned and operated, they rely on public infrastructure where there is already conflict over limited space. It is also up to governments to ensure equitable distribution and access to bikeshare as a low-cost transportation mode. In the past six months, the national government and more than 10 cities in China have started implementing policies to guide and regulate dockless bikeshare systems, focusing heavily on bike parking guidelines. Some cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, have even banned any additional shared bikes from current or new operators from entering the market.

As dockless bikeshare expands outside of China, cities are bracing for the impact. In the US, Seattle and San Francisco established permit requirements for private bikeshare operators that include safety, parking, operations, and data sharing as part of a pilot project before allowing the systems to go into full operation. Other cities, such as Washington, DC and Dallas, are taking more of a “wait and see” approach, allowing multiple dockless bikeshare companies to operate during a pilot period with limited regulation, and with the intention of crafting rules based on behaviors observed during the pilot. In Europe, best practices have already begun to emerge from cities like Manchester (UK), where the transportation agency is working closely with Mobike towards city wide cycling and mobility as a service (MAAS) goals. Interestingly, operators themselves are beginning to call on city and national governments to clarify rules governing dockless bikeshare operations so that they can follow a standardized framework across their markets.


ITDP’s Role
As an organization devoted to sustainable transportation, ITDP believes that shared mobility is critical for not only sustainable transport, but also to achieving transit-oriented instead of vehicle-oriented development and reducing overall car usage and ownership. To that end, we encourage proactive, outcome-oriented policies that are flexible to context, opportunity, and technology changes. For many people, bikeshare can serve as a first introduction to the concept of shared mobility, and despite the current lack of funding needed by dockless bikeshare companies to operate, cities still need to be actively involved in how bikeshare is planned, implemented, and operated within their boundaries.

With this in mind, we’re pleased to kick off this series of blog posts exploring case studies and emerging best practices for how to integrate dockless bikeshare into a city’s sustainable transportation portfolio. Our next post looks at how one city in China, Tianjin, has approached dockless bikeshare regulation. The third post in the series will explore how Guangzhou, China is balancing its traditional station-based bikeshare system with an influx of dockless bikes. Finally, we’ll close out the series with a post presenting policy frameworks for cities open to dockless bikeshare.

Boston Area Communities to Pilot BRT Elements in 2018

On December 5, 2017, ITDP joined partners from the BostonBRT initiative in announcing the recipients of three $100,000 grants provided by the Barr Foundation to demonstrate BRT’s potential in metro Boston. Working together with the MBTA (regional transit authority) and across municipal boundaries, the communities of Arlington, Everett, and Cambridge in partnership with Watertown will use the grants to test on-the-ground elements of bus rapid transit in order to improve the transit experience of more than 30,000 daily bus riders.

In early 2017, BostonBRT issued a request for proposals calling on municipalities to lead the way through innovative pilot projects that would demonstrate the potential of BRT in high-ridership, high-traffic areas, with the goal of improving the regional transit experience. Municipalities were selected by a committee comprised of Massachusetts transportation leaders convened by the Barr Foundation and BostonBRT technical consultants, including ITDP staff, that reviewed criteria such as the number of BRT elements included within proposals, proof of concept, potential impact (including density of population and employment), municipal and community support, and willingness to partner with state agencies to create a successful pilot.

The three pilots will include a combination of dedicated bus-only lanes that take bus riders out of car congestion, technology to time traffic signals so that buses get more green light time, and platforms that allow riders, including people in wheelchairs or with baby strollers, to “level-board” the bus quickly as they would a subway. And while these BRT elements represent transit improvements for the communities served, they also introduce a new level of innovation characterized by municipally driven partnerships with the MBTA and between the municipalities themselves, which is unusual in the notoriously parochial New England region.

A sign in Everett, MA marks the temporary dedicated bus lane.
An MBTA bus travels along a temporary dedicated bus lane created by traffic cones in Everett, MA.
ITDP’s Michael Kodransky and Julia Wallerce joined partners at the Boston BRT initiative in publicly announcing the winners of the pilot grants at LivableStreets StreetTalk

 

“We applaud the leadership of organizations like the Barr Foundation and BostonBRT in building support for bus improvements, including bus rapid transit, and we appreciate the collaboration of municipal leaders in improving transit service,” said Massachusetts Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack. “We have already seen how service has improved for customers with the all-door boarding pilot in Boston, the dedicated bus lane in Everett, and the installation of transit signal prioritization systems on Commonwealth Avenue. We are hopeful that this grant funding and further conversations with communities will expand initiatives which have proven their value to our customers.”

The grant recipients are:

  • Arlington – In collaboration with the MBTA, Arlington will conduct a one-month pilot of several BRT elements on the three-mile #77 bus route along Massachusetts Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, which has the highest ridership in Arlington and one of the top 15 highest-ridership routes in the overall MBTA bus system. The pilot, which will operate Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., includes transit signal prioritization, bus queue jumping at traffic signals, and a dedicated bus priority lane.
  • Cambridge/Watertown – Cambridge and Watertown will partner with the MBTA to pilot numerous BRT elements for several key bus route. Elements to be tested include all-day, dedicated bus lanes for significant segments of roadway, inbound queue jump lanes on Mount Auburn Street and Belmont Street, and transit signal prioritization as feasible, which allow buses to travel without impediment from other vehicles.
  • Everett – In collaboration with the MBTA, Everett will enhance its new dedicated bus lane it implemented on the south side of Broadway, the city’s main transit corridor, by adding upgrades to further demonstrate elements of Gold Standard BRT. The pilot includes “platform level” boarding facilities (which allow of ease of boarding for riders in wheelchairs, strollers, or carts) at two bus stops in Everett Square, and transit signal prioritization at three locations along Broadway that give southbound buses priority during peak-hours.

Each of the municipalities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the MBTA in addition to grant agreements with the Barr Foundation. The MOUs are intended to provide a roadmap for effective collaboration and detail both the individual and joint responsibilities for key elements of the pilots including public process, technical design, enforcement, and evaluation.

ITDP in collaboration with BostonBRT is coordinating between state and municipal agencies, pilot design and implementation, communications, and community engagement. A series of workshops between the involved municipalities and key stakeholders will take shape in early 2018 with the sequential roll-out of each pilot throughout the spring, summer and fall.

For more information, visit BostonBRT.org.

Albuquerque, NM Opens First USA Gold Standard BRT on Historic Route 66

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico launched a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, known as Albuquerque Rapid Transit or ART , at a public event with elected officials, business leaders, and community supporters.

ART is the first BRT corridor to achieve a Gold-Standard with ITDP’s BRT Standard scorecard in the USA. The gold designation is awarded for design, with a separate score on operations to be determined after six months. With this score, ART sets a new precedent for cities across the country. It is also the first BRT system in the U.S. to use electric buses with doors on both sides. ART runs along Central Avenue, the city’s main street, and a decommissioned section of the famed route 66 U.S. highway. Central Avenue is the heart of Albuquerque and connects several historic and walkable neighborhoods.  

The City of Albuquerque took a comprehensive urban development approach, including ART as part of a strategy to guide development growth as well as mitigate traffic congestion. Revised land use codes along the corridor eliminate parking requirements and allow for greater mixed-use, development density. Alburquerque also upgraded 16 miles of sidewalks, adding new landscaping and pedestrian lighting as well as upgraded 39 intersection signals to give priority to BRT vehicles.

Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry (left), with Dayna Crawford, Deputy Director of ABQ Ride celebrate the first gold BRT in the USA.

ABQ RIDE, the city’s transportation agency, conducted feasibility studies starting in 2011 under Republican Mayor Richard J. Berry, who championed the project up until its opening and the end of his term-limited tenure. Mayor Berry was adamant to bring his city a high quality transit system despite the political risks and chorus of naysayers. He made sure there was community outreach and involved business perspectives, including the local Chamber of Commerce, to get support for the vision.

Albuquerque Rapid Transit is owned and operated by the city’s transit department, ABQ RIDE. It is the first form of transit in the city of 560,000 to use a dedicated guide way. The project was delivered using the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) model of alternative delivery, and is on budget at a projected cost of $133.6 million with $75 million of that budget from the Federal Transit Administration. The corridor has brought new construction jobs to Albuquerque and has already generated over $300 million worth of investments along the corridor.

“ART placed ahead of such groundbreaking and successful BRT systems as Cleveland’s HealthLine, which with a Silver Standard had been the highest ranked BRT system in the U.S.,” said Mayor Richard J. Berry. “ART was also ranked ahead of such noteworthy systems as Eugene, Oregon’s Emerald Express (EmX), Los Angeles’s Orange Line BRT and San Bernardino, California’s sbX system, all of which received Bronze Standards.”

The ART dedicated lane uses rumble strips in addition to paint. The quality and length of the dedicated lane is a significant factor in the BRT’s ranking.

So what makes ART BRT Gold Standard? More than 6.32 of 8.74 miles of the corridor have exclusive lanes (with an additional 1.1 miles of bidirectional lanes). Buses run in the middle of the roadway, avoiding conflict with surrounding traffic and almost all of the signals along the corridor give the bus priority at intersections. All the stations have off-board fare collection with proof of payment and there is platform level boarding at beautifully designed stations that consider local weather conditions.

“This rating is the culmination of hard work and planning by Transit and City staff that began in 2011 and will continue into the future,” said Bruce Rizzieri, Director of ABQ RIDE. “But we believe what put us into the Gold Standard was attention to detail; zero-emissions buses and other touches which make ART a world class, Bus Rapid Transit system.”

ART promises to offer faster and more reliable transit service, improving travel time by at least 15% and on-time performance by 20-25%. With a new Mayor in town, it will be vital to continue championing ART, one of the largest infrastructure projects in the city’s modern history.