After One Year of Ford GoBike in Oakland: How is it Going?
It has now been one full year since Ford GoBike launched in Oakland, offering about 800 shared bikes for one-way trips. The one-year anniversary got us thinking, how is Ford GoBike doing in Oakland, and how are people using it?
Ridership
Since the Ford GoBike system launched in July 2017, over 1,600 Oaklanders have signed up as annual members, and thousands more have taken a few casual trips. More than 200,000 trips were made during the system’s first year of operation! On an average day, each ford GoBike in Oakland is ridden about once. At .93 trips per bike per day, Oakland’s bike share usage is in-line with similarly sized cities. As more people try the system, we expect ridership to increase over time.
Where are Oaklanders riding?
In order to figure out how Oaklanders are using bike share, we visualized three months of data about where their trips started and ended. Since some stations were installed more recently than others, we only looked at the trips taken since the system was completed in April 2018. Take a look at our details map here.
The dots on the map represent Ford GoBike stations, with larger dots for stations with more trips. The lines between the dots represent the frequency of trips between those two stations, with thicker lines indicating more trips. When visualized together, these trips help to paint the picture of where people are going, and how often. This led us to some simple conclusions and recommendations for the years to come.
Bike share is popular with BART riders
There are 79 bikeshare stations in Oakland; but a few of these are more heavily used than the rest. Topping the list are the stations at 20th and Broadway (19th Street BART) and MacArthur BART, with around 5,000 and 4,000 trips respectively since April 2018 (both surpassing 12,000 trips since the system’s launch). Other heavily used stations include “El Embarcadero at Grand Ave” and “Grand Ave at Perkins Street” in Adams Point and “2nd Ave at E 18th Street” in Eastlake.
Even though Oakland’s BART stations aren’t labeled on the interactive map, it’s easy to pick them out by looking for a “hub and spoke” pattern. The bikeshare station at MacArthur BART, for example, is a hub while trips to and from McArthur BART form the “spokes”, demonstrating that bikeshare is frequently used as a last-mile solution for BART riders.
19th Street BART sees a similar pattern of use, with most trips coming from adjacent neighborhoods. The stations at Lake Merritt BART and West Oakland BART also demonstrate this pattern. All the highest used bikeshare routes start or end at BART stations.
About 55% of bikeshare subscribers use their Clipper Card to unlock their Ford GoBikes, which enhances the conclusion that bikeshare helps expand the use of Oakland’s existing transit network, especially BART.
Ridership in East Oakland
Bike share trips in East Oakland appear to follow a slightly different pattern than Downtown, West Oakland and North Oakland. Fruitvale BART station, for example, does not draw quite as many trips it would be expected to draw in other parts of the city. It appears that Fruitvale and San Antonio residents are using bike share to get to BART, but are also using it as a direct connection between their neighborhoods and downtown Oakland or Lake Merritt. This information is useful as we plan for further expansion of the bike share network in East Oakland.
The Eastlake neighborhood is underserved
The bikeshare station at 2nd Ave and E 18th Street is the fifth most heavily used station in Oakland. This station’s success may be due to a few factors: Eastlake’s high residential density, proximity to beautiful Lake Merritt, and because this area is just a bit too far from BART to walk easily, but is an easy bike ride. Most of the trips beginning and ending at this station connect with Lake Merritt BART or Frank H. Ogawa Plaza/12th Street BART. Despite the high usage here, there are few stations nearby to help handle demand. Many users have reported seeing few bikes available at the station after the morning rush and very few docks available after the evening rush back home (see screenshot below).
Eastlake residents are clearly taking full advantage of bikeshare. The success of the station at 2nd Ave and E 18th, combined with Eastlake’s high residential density and proximity to BART stations is a clear call for bikeshare expansion in that neighborhood.
Lake Merritt is a key destination for recreational trips
Even though Ford GoBikes are not tracked by GPS, we can guess where people are riding by looking at the most direct route between stations. Many of Oakland’s bikeshare trips happen between Downtown Oakland and the lake-adjacent neighborhoods of Lakeside, Adams Point, Eastlake, Grand Lake and Lakeshore. However, it’s not just commuters that use Bike Share! The fourth most common bikeshare trip in Oakland starts and ends at the “El Embarcadero at Grand Ave” station. This means that users are picking up and returning their bikes at the same place (presumably after a beautiful and relaxing trip around the Lake).
Luckily, ongoing investments in safer infrastructure around Lake Merritt have provided residents with improved bicycle infrastructure, making it more inviting for bike share users and others. Bike share goes hand-in-hand with better bike infrastructure, by helping reduce barriers to bicycling.
Thanks for reading! To provide feedback about Oakland’s bikeshare program, contact us at bikeshare@oaklandca.gov.
