Georgetown’s next two Capital Bikeshare have opened. The first one is shown above and is located on the east sidewalk of Wisconsin just south of the canal.
GM thought the other one was going to go right in front of Hardy, but he was wrong. It’s a bit higher and on the other side of the street, essentially in front of the British School:
(Sorry for the dim photos, GM only had his cell phone camera with him)
GM noticed that Georgetown is blessed with some rather large stations. Both the K St. and lower Wisconsin stations have 19 slots. That makes them two of the larger stations in the system (some of the downtown stations have 25 slots). Even the upper Wisconsin station has 11 slots. Hopefully this will mean abundant availability of bikes and empty slots.
That’s probably all we’ll get for a little while. DDOT is still promising a station at 37th and O, but GM hasn’t heard any progress on that front (it’ll probably end up on GU’s campus rather than on a sidewalk). Any further stations, like in Rose Park or on M St. and 28th (both which are no-brainers) probably await some outside funding, like that TIGER II grant that should be announced today.
Now lets start building some bike lanes!
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
They’ve put up no parking signs for this coming Friday on 37th Street (between O and P) near the GU front gates–the sign says that they’re installing bikes.
Great news — thanks GM (and Ray) for the updates. I’ve already used the Safeway stop a few times now.
Also, checking out the map, it looks like CaBi has just added another proposed stop on their station map for 25th and M in West End. This seems like a possible option for some people in the East Village of Georgetown (on the far south end of Rose Park), but just as important, it makes the Trader Joe’s on 24th into a bikeshare destination.
On the other hand, Bikeshare (like all DC area projects) was shut out of the TIGER II grants, so it’ll be up to DDOT to find some alternate creative financing options.
My guess, sponsorship of stations by local businesses/employers around the city, to get stations open near them, and give their employees or customers another transit option.
Either way, though, it appears that it will be a slower expansion than it would have been w/ TIGER II. (Maybe the Senate will come through TIGER III funds in FY2011?)
Ray:
Thanks for the info! That’s great news.
Jacques: The 25th and M stop was originally in DDOT’s proposed map, but then it disappeared as they started installing the system. I’m glad to hear it’s back.
I do think that DDOT is exploring having the host of the station pay for it. They specifically said that they were interested in putting a station on GU’s campus with GU paying for it. We’ll see if they still want to do that.
The idea of sponsored stations makes sense, especially on college campuses and other areas (and quite frankly, it could be great for GU to have 4-5 stations on campus to help students who have to travel a long way in the 10 minute break between classes).
I imagine the two issues that come up are:
1. What liability does the property owner assume for any CaBi related injuries on the property?
2. Does having a CaBi station on campus lessen the status of the campus as private property/does it assume that anyone with a bikeshare membership has authorization to be on campus?
(The second one may be less of an issue, as apparently, there’s one station–planned or actual–on the grounds of the White House/EEOB complex, which is only available to employees and those who have secure access to the property.)
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