New York, Chicago and about 30 other cities across the United States already offer public bike-share programs, through which bicycles can be rented to get around and dropped off at various stations.
Now, grass-roots advocates have teamed with city and state leaders, hoping to bring bike-sharing to Honolulu’s urban core by the summer of 2015.
Mayor Kirk Caldwell touted the idea recently after discussing Chicago’s program with Mayor Rahm Emanuel during Caldwell’s visit to the Windy City for a public transportation conference. A group of about 40 cycling enthusiasts, public health advocates and local transportation officials later met to discuss how bike-sharing in town would work.
Honolulu, with its year-round mild climate, could be a great place to get more commuters onto bicycle seats, Caldwell said. But for decades Hawaii’s capital city neglected to make its roads more bicycle-friendly, and it now requires a lot of catching up to encourage more islanders to travel by bike.
Bike-share programs typically provide users who pay an annual, monthly or daily fee to use a network of bikes. The programs set time limits on how long a bike can stay out before it’s returned. If it’s kept past the limit, fees are added.
Honolulu is one of the nation’s 10 most visited cities, but it’s the only one in that group without bike-sharing, said Tom Brennan, a principal with consulting firm Nelson/Nygaard, which is studying the issue for the city.
The firm proposes starting bike-sharing in an area from Kapiolani Park through Chinatown. It would also include the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus.
It would provide up to 1,700 bikes at up to 180 stations, according to a Nelson/Nygaard report.
Such a program would cost up to $11.9 million to start, the report said. It would be financed with a mix of public grants, city transportation dollars and private sponsorships from companies, including those whose names would appear on the bikes and stations, said Shem Lawlor, a transit-oriented development planner for the city Department of Planning and Permitting. Some private developers are interested in purchasing the stations, Lawlor added.
Once it’s running, the program would generate up to $4.7 million in user fees in its first year — enough to cover operating costs, Brennan said.
Caldwell said Chicago’s program, launched in July with 4,000 bikes, has raised $5 million in advertising revenue.
It would not be Oahu’s first bike-share program. A pilot program in Kailua that started in 2011 already pays for itself through user fees, state Department of Health officials say.
The Kailua program offers 12 bikes at two stations and cost $100,000 in Tobacco Settlement Special Funds to start, according to Bronwyn Sinclair, a department public education coordinator. It sees between 40 and 100 rides a month, according to the program’s coordinator, and officials are evaluating how well it has worked.
The Hawaii Bicycling League has participated in the discussion to create a program in town for about a year, said the group’s executive director, Chad Taniguchi.
"We feel very good about it," he said. In cities with bike-share programs, "a lot of people get used to it, and then they buy their own bike. In a way it’s an introduction to how good and easy bicycling can be."
Taniguchi added, "It’s going to drive demand for bike facilities."
Caldwell said the city aims to create "protected" bike lanes around town that would make some roads friendlier for bike-sharing. The lanes would have cars park several feet from the curb using plastic barriers. The space creates a lane for bicyclists to ride in between cars and the sidewalk.
An August 2012 update of the city’s bike plan, prepared for the Department of Transportation Services, calls for 310 miles of additional bikeways at a cost of $68 million.
The city’s transportation budget has slightly more than $1 million this year for bike projects, officials say. However, a massive street repaving project that’s underway will drastically reduce the costs to stripe new bike lanes.
Caldwell said the protected lanes would also be less expensive to create. "The costs drop dramatically," he said Tuesday, because "you’re not building a new lane."
