Bike Share Expansion Planned for the Castro

Castro residents are enthusiastic about the San Francisco bike share program's proposed expansion into the neighborhood, expressing hope that a location in Jane Warner Plaza might help solve ongoing problems with anti-social behavior there.

The proposed expansion, announced last week by Bay Area Bike Share, calls for a dozen locations in the Castro and Duboce Triangle neighborhoods to be added to the program by the end of the year (http://www.bayareabikeshare.com/expansion). This is the first of a five-phase expansion that will take the program from its current 700 bikes in 70 stations to 7,000 bikes in 700 locations in the Bay Area by 2018.

The bike share program, operated by the private firm, Motivate Co., is continuing to seek neighborhood input while it prepares its final plans. The company will then seek city permits and hopes to have all locations operating by the end of 2016.

Over the past year, Motivate has held public meetings with residents and businesses in the Castro and Duboce Triangle, according to Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, the company's outreach and communications manager.

"Everyone has been very excited and nobody has been categorically opposed," said Cosulich-Schwartz, the former business and program communications manager of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "We heard over and over again that people were especially pleased that we had proposed a location in Jane Warner Plaza."

The plaza, created in 2009 to honor the late Castro Special Patrol officer, has drawn widespread criticism from local businesses and neighbors, who feel that the transients who spend time there are discouraging tourists and locals from coming to the neighborhood.

The plaza is "totally being abused," said Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter last year.

"A bike share station will be positive for the plaza, in terms of activating it," gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener said. "The more we can activate Jane Warner Plaza, the better. I've been a longtime support of bike share and helped strike the deal, through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, on which I serve, to expand it dramatically throughout San Francisco. I'm thrilled that this transformative project is moving forward."

But installing a bike station in the plaza may be difficult, Aiello said in an article posted on Hoodline. According to Aiello, there are "very few" locations within the plaza where anything permanent can be installed.

Bike advocates are very positive on the program expansion.

Chris Cassidy, communications director for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an advocacy group, said in an email, that this phase of bike share's expansion "looks great."

"The challenge," he added, "will be to ensure that they are building our city's first new transportation system in 40 years in a manner such that it reaches and serves all San Franciscans - not just those already well-served by existing alternatives."

Cassidy said, "It's important that people aren't excluded from bike share by not having station in their neighborhoods, by being unable to afford the fees, or by not having a credit card, which may be necessary for a membership. We're eager to see Bay Area Bike Share take these challenges head on, and develop a system that gives people access to this important new transportation alternative no matter where they live or how much money they make."

While bike owners in San Francisco have been plagued with an increasing number of thefts, the bike share program apparently does not.

"Only a very small number of bikes go missing and never return," said Dani Simons, director of communications and external affairs for Motivate. "This is due to the fact that in order to ride the bikes you must join the program, and we have credit card information for everyone who joins. If the bike is kept out longer than 24 hours we can communicate with the riders to remind them to return the bike, and if it is not returned we can charge for a lost or stolen bike. We find this is a powerful incentive to bring bikes back into the system."

Since the program began in the Bay Area, there have been seven accidents with bike share equipment, Simons said. "Bay Area Bike Share bikes are extremely stable and sturdy. They are routinely maintained by professional mechanics to check safety features such as always-on lights, reflectors, chain guards, and bells," according to their website.

Community activists have suggestions about the program implementation.

Longtime Duboce Triangle resident Mark Scheuer, secretary of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association and a past president of the Friends of Duboce Park, told the B.A.R. that two proposed locations in the neighborhood - one at Steiner near Duboce and the other at Sanchez and Market - each have heavy traffic and "would not be the best choice" for bike stations. The former would work better around the corner on Duboce Avenue and the latter, on the sidewalk or in the parking lot of Chase Bank, he said.

Scheuer said in several meetings with bike share officials, DTNA members offered these suggestions, which, he said, "seemed to be received well."

But when the new bike share map proposals were issued, neither of their suggestions was incorporated, Scheuer said.

"It does make me wonder if they were really listening," he said.

Scheuer said some residents will "undoubtedly complain that the bike stations have taken up parking spaces."

According to the bike share program website, the "on-street stations typically 'repurpose' two parallel parking spaces, though we are exploring technologies that would allow for shorter stations in residential neighborhoods."

Ten of the 12 stations proposed for the Castro and Duboce Triangle are on-street stations.

Castro resident Rob Roberts, in an email to the B.A.R. , said he has been a bike share member for almost two years and was "pleased" to learn of their expansion.

Roberts wonders, however, if the proposed Castro stations, "which are at much higher elevations than the majority of bike stands" will have a regular supply of bikes if people will tend to ride them down hill and return them to other stations.

Roberts, referring to nudists who have gathered in the plaza, also asked about other reactions "when photo-shoots emerge of the Castro's finest taking their clothes off and sitting on the bikes in Jane Warner?"