First impression after subscribing: it's fantastic! The bikes are well-designed and well-maintained (at least so far), and comfortable. The basket is a great convenience when you're carrying things.
It also seems to be garnering a lot of interest. At least, pretty much every time I've gone to a station, or even gone past a station, it seems like there's usually at least one person checking it out. Even people who already have bikes have asked me about the program when they see me going around on one. Everybody seems to think it's a cool idea... but then they always walk away.
A few things that I think get in the way of more people using it:
- the $10 price tag for just one day is prohibitive. It should be $5 for a day, or $20 for 7 days. Otherwise... we can take the bus all day, farther, and with more free time, for $4.50.
(Speaking of which, I was promised a text message with a code for $10 off the annual fee when I tried it for a day, which I never received. That almost put me off, right there).
- We need more! I know it's a work in progress, and the stations that are there are great, but it's still not really worth it if you have to travel several blocks from your home in the opposite direction from where you're going, just to grab a bike. Often, this results in the trip taking just as long, or even longer, than it would if you just walked there directly.
Specifically, these are the four places I can think of that could really use a station (indicated by the green "bike" icons. I've also tried to estimate who would be helped the most if there were stations in these areas. All areas and icons have descriptions. The blue lines point to the areas, since they're kind of hard to find otherwise) (click on areas to see descriptions):
View Recommended B-Cycle locations in a larger map
- If I'm passing a B-cycle station and I've never heard of B-cycle before, and I'm going to be making a spur-of-the-moment decision about whether I want to pick up a bike and take it where I'm going, there are a bunch of things that factor into that decision. Price is one consideration, of course, but then there's also, "Is it safe? I've never biked this before (obviously, because I don't own a bike). I don't know what the safe routes are." The first time I tried B-cycle, it was an impulsive decision that I made as I was passing the station on foot. It was the Wisconsin and E. Mifflin station, and I decided to go to Tenney.
Because I'd never biked in Madison before, I wound up riding along East Johnson. It was ok... until I got to Brearly... and then I was scared to death. Again, not an avid bicyclist, here. If I were, I'd own a bike.
What we really need, is for that map that's posted by every station, to also suggest safe bike routes from each station to the most likely destination station in each direction. This should be based on the green routes in the Bike Map and Guide that's put out by the city.
Something like this:
It's basically the same map, just with some lines added to suggest the bike routes. Especially note the route going North from Tenney Park, which isn't really intuitive for a person who's deciding on the spot that they want to bike without knowing the bike routes or having a bike map handy. But that is the quickest way to go west, safely, for someone who isn't an avid (bicycle-owning) bicyclist. This should be part of the B-cycle station map, so we can see how to safely get to where we're going. It's not necessary to include all of the green routes from the city's map, btw... just the best ones between stations.
Think that's about it for the first impressions. :) Thanks for reading!
