Signal 2: Creating an Equitable Bike-Share System: Convenience and Density is Key

As bike-share is widely adopt in more than 30 cities around North America, equity becomes the most crucial concerns. According to a new analysis from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) that considers ridership data and station density in five major cities: Minneapolis, Boston, Washington, Chicago, and New York, it can be found that ridership grows exponentially with station density. Also, in all other cities except New York, density is not uniform across the network, and lower-income neighborhoods have the lowest density of bike-share stations, which makes bike-share an inconvenient option. The pictures below show different pattern in Chicago and New York.

Therefore, NACTO points out that increasingdensity of bike-share stations and convenience can make current bike-share system more equitable. Indeed, in order to truly realize city-scale bike-share system and improve the accessibility and efficiency of the system, it is significant to build more bike-share stations, particularly in low-income neighborhood because many of them, in fact, may not afford automobiles and have more intense demand for bike-share than others.

At last, further problems will be triggered: How do people in low-income neighborhoodactually think about bike-share system? How to find the locations to build more stations so that the government can both minimize budget and maximize the efficiency?

Citation:

Goodyear, Sarah, Sarah Goodyear, and CityLab. “New Recommendations for How to Make Bike-Share More Accessible.” CityLab. April 29, 2015. Accessed September 24, 2018. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/04/for-bike-share-equity-convenience-is-key/391790/.