Huntsville Urban Bike Share Coop

This chart is really hitting home for me. It's from Mike Eriksen and Anthony Orlando. We took a few minutes to clean it up graphically. It shows the cost per square foot for multifamily buildings based upon the number of stories constructed. Super important to note that this is just vertical cost, no land costs, no impacts of parking (surface or structured) included in this analysis. We keep seeing announcements of towers being built or converted to affordable and attainable housing across Atlanta. This is the most expensive way to provide housing. So it therefore requires the most subsidy to achieve desired lower rents. Zoning reform that allows two and three-story missing middle would be the most cost-effective way to deliver more attainable housing options. You know what's more cost-effective than commercial buildings that have to conform to the International Building Code? Compact duplex cottages that meet the International Residential Code are always more cost-effective from a building cost standpoint. But again, zoning. It's all another way to say our current housing crisis is completely self-inflicted.

“Europe's densest city cannot allocate space to everybody. Whenever Hidalgo had to choose between cars and bikes, she chose bikes. That infuriated suburban motorists who had always driven to or through Paris, using it as a shortcut. She also decided there were better uses for Paris's precious surface area than maintaining 150,000 parking spaces, many of which stored heaps of metal that might be used for an hour a day. The average car takes up fifteen square metres; plenty of Parisians lived in less. Hidalgo let cafés seize parking spaces and turn them into terraces. She pedestrianized streets around schools. Broadly, non-drivers supported Hidalgo and drivers despised her. But like Haussmann before her, she had the advantageous personality trait of not caring much what anybody thought. Since only one Parisian household in three owned a car (the lowest rate in Western Europe), Hidalgo was re-elected in 2020 on a pro-cycling platform. She then declared the temporary bike paths permanent, and added more. By 2021, according to the town hall's figures, bikes moved at fifteen kilometres an hour inside Paris; cars managed fourteen kilometres. The bike lanes turned Paris into possibly the most easily traversable of the great metropoles. With cars squeezed out, the city's air cleared. Children played on the pedestrianized streets. The terraces were more fun than the parking spaces they replaced. Cycling around after Covid, Paris never looked or smelled so good.”

𝐁𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬. Whenever someone says that bike lanes are bad for business, show them this video. A business owner from Providence, Rhode Island, explains how bike infrastructure improves the city. "We urge you to consider the bike lane not only as a lane of traffic but also in the way it has transformed the neighborhood, making it safer and more inviting to the kind of clientele we ultimately want and need to survive. ... Bike lanes have helped our neighborhood to become more than a speedway to the highway." Video by Providence Streets Coalition on X.

Complete Streets will only get us so far - it's time to think about Complete Networks, that is, picking streets to explicitly prioritize for different modes rather than trying to prioritize everyone in a single right-of-way. I'm very excited to deliver my presentation "Avoiding Conflicts Through Network Design" at the Transportation Association of Canada / Association des transports du Canada conference next week. Hope to see you there! #TACCONF Mobycon

Big News from Bicycle Transit Systems We’ve signed an agreement to acquire BCycle from Trek Bicycle. The acquisition will make Bicycle Transit Systems the only vertically integrated docked bike share company in North America. Now, we can better support the expansion of mobility options by providing cities nationwide with seamless solutions for building, installing, and managing docked, electrified bike share. We’re proud to enter this new phase of growth with BCycle, America’s first bike share company. Since 2008, this legendary brand has delivered quality equipment and hardware for dozens of bike share systems, including our Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas markets.  When the acquisition closes in October, Bicycle Transit Systems will acquire BCycle’s contracts, software, hardware, and future product development, including: • Ten BCycle-owned and operated bike share systems in communities across the U.S., including Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Madison, and Boulder.  • Bikes, docking stations, and software sales and support for 15 additional communities, including Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee. Our unified company will be the largest docked bike share provider in the U.S. by number of communities served. Synergies from the acquisition will allow us to grow even more and invest in product and technology innovation to more affordably and efficiently meet cities' unique local needs. With greater flexibility and oversight of product development and innovation, we can design real-time solutions to pressing equity, safety, and climate challenges. The bottom line is that Bicycle Transit Systems can now better meet its core mission—to deliver the best customer experience possible for our riders and advance the future of bike share in the markets we serve.  We’ll continue to be led by the Bicycle Transit Systems executive team, including me as CEO, Founder and Chair Alison Cohen, COO Ian Smith, and CFO Gloria Parker Shabazz. BCycle’s Brian Conger and Caitlin O'Connell will join the company’s roster of experienced bike share leaders as our new Chief Business Officer and Product Director to ensure a smooth transition for our partner agencies and riders. Learn more about how we’re gearing up to grow, scale, and invest for our future – and the future of bike share: https://lnkd.in/dtx_E_c6 -  Kristin Gavin-Wisniewski, CEO