With the rollout of Honolulu’s first major bike-share rental system, “Biki,” we’ll get a peek at a possible future — a future envisioned in the city’s bikeways plans and Complete Streets ordinance. But the company’s present-day riding grid, bounded by Diamond Head and Chinatown, is not ready-made for the addition of up to 1,000 turquoise bicycles.
Self-service bike stations, or “Biki Stops,” began surfacing earlier this month, and some 500 casual-rider bikes were locked into stalls this week. A single ride (up to 30 minutes) costs $3.50. That’s a bit more expensive than hopping on a city bus or street parking. Single-ride bus fares are slated to soon go up to $2.75 from $2.50; and parking rates for metered street stalls in Chinatown, downtown and Waikiki are set to double to $3 an hour. Even so, spending some extra pocket change may be well worth the opportunity to pedal a few miles for the wind-in-the-hair fun of it.
Oahu’s year-round T-shirt weather makes it a perfect place for bicycles. The trouble is that our car-clogged streets can make cycling a risky mode of transportation. That’s slowly changing.
For example, South King Street’s 2-mile protected bike lane was installed two years ago amid much resistance from motorists unhappy about losing a traffic lane and worried about colliding with cyclists zipping in and out of intersections. Since then, the busy street’s regular travelers have adjusted to the green-painted cycling strip, and grousing about making room for bicycles is fading.
Earlier this year, work crews striped new two-way bike lanes on McCully Street, which link to the King Street lane and create a bike route from Waikiki to the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
And last month a protected bike lane opened along the Ewa side of South Street, from King to Pohukaina streets, situated near new residential high-rises and the site of the proposed Civic Center Rail Station. From Pohukaina Street seaward, 5-foot-wide, less-protected bike lanes are now in place to connect to Ala Moana Boulevard and the Kakaako makai area.
This trio of connected and protected bike lanes — all within easy reach of Biki’s current network of 87 rental stations — represents laudable progress toward a Honolulu Hale goal of establishing the island as the bicycle-friendly place it could be. In addition, Oahu has 59 miles of less-protected bike lanes and 46 miles of bike paths.
Cycling in the urban core is becoming more common and safe. But a bike-friendly reputation calls for many more miles of protected lanes. And now, with Biki folding into our multimodal mix, we need to further hone a heightened sense of what it means to share the streets. In addition to maintaining a working knowledge of the rules of the road, cyclists, motorists and pedestrians must look out for one another by prioritizing safety over swift travel time.
Five years ago, when the City Council adopted its Complete Streets philosophy, it joined a nationwide movement that stresses designing streets to be comfortable for users of all ages and abilities, whether traveling by foot, bus, car, bicycle or any other mode. How to do that in car-centric Honolulu?
Mike Packard, the city’s Complete Streets administrator, says it starts with reworking public right-of-ways to “accommodate people rather than prioritizing vehicular movement.” That sort of emphasis evokes bygone days when community hubs were compact walkable areas. While there’s no chance we’ll do away with our large, high-volume roadways, Complete Streets admirably aims to tweak existing design as a means to ease neighborhood navigation and enhance a sense of place.
Cyclists represent roughly 1 percent of all commuters on Oahu. Mayor Kirk Caldwell has said a bump to 5 percent would represent a victory in the ongoing bike-friendly push. Biki could play a role in nudging the city toward that mark. Here’s hoping that the bike-share rental system will help spur on the movement toward a flourishing multimodal future.
