The world of bike sharing continues to grow and thrive in this wild summer of 2013. Toole Design Group continues to be in the forefront, helping cities implement bike sharing in a manner that will ensure success over the long term. Quarterbacking these efforts is our new Director of Bike Sharing Services, Alison Cohen.
We have been consulting on projects both domestically and internationally. We were brought on by the World Bank to help the cities of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Cuenca, Ecuador consider their options in how to implement or grow their bike share programs. These cities are very different. Sao Paulo is the largest city in South America and one of the largest in the world, with notorious traffic congestion issues. The City is considering many factors in its quest to expand its existing 500-bike system, including potential advertising revenues, bicycle safety, and how to reach low income communities on the outskirts of the City.
Cuenca is a small city in the Ecuadorian mountains with a historic center that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Cuenca must consider its business and operations model to ensure that, even if the small system is not self-supporting on system revenues (which is a rare occasion), it can still sustain this important transportation option for its large student population.
TDG has also recently completed a Business Plan for the Bike Share Program for the City of Philadelphia. This plan is extremely important as a final step prior to implementing the system. The plan included a full business model and recommendation of a governance structure that the bike share working group, which included the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and Bike Share Philadelphia, will use in creating the procurement documents for the system.
TDG is also involved in several systems across different parts of the U.S. We were just awarded the Bike Share Feasibility Study for the City of Birmingham, Alabama, and we are wrapping up a feasibility study for Cleveland, Ohio. We have also been working with Aspen Colorado We-Cycle as they have launched their system on June 5 – the first system in a mountain resort town in the U.S. TDG is helping the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada on their business planning for a future system in the Las Vegas area.
Finally, TDG is happy to announce we are launching an initiative to help COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES launch bike sharing on campus. Our services range from initial planning to system procurement and system start-up consulting.For more information about these services, click here.
It continues to be an exciting time in the world of bike sharing!
