Seattle Bike‐Share Feasibility Study  Public use bike‐share programs allow short‐term bicycle rentals from unattended, fixed stations and permit renters to borrow bicycles from and return them to any station in the system.  Bike‐share programs have successfully operated in European cities for a number of years and are seen as an effective and “green” tool to enhance urban transportation systems.  This project analyzed the feasibility of a bike‐share program within Seattle. The project was contracted by the City of Seattle’s Department of Transportation and was completed as a studio class by six University of Washington Urban Design and Planning graduate students, advised by Professor Edward McCormack.  The City provided $10,000 to the University of Washington to pay the salary of the faculty advisor and for minor expenses.  As of 2010, approximately 160 bike‐share systems have been installed throughout the world.  In the United States, bike‐share programs are implemented in Washington, D.C., Denver, and Minneapolis.  A number of other cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle, are actively considering programs.  Decisions to install these existing bike‐share programs have been typically based on professional judgment and personal knowledge of a city.  While some of the early bike‐share implementations used demand estimation methods with an analytical basis, they relied on broad generalizations about density and a coarse resolution for analysis.  Given the growing demand for such systems, more effective methods for estimating user demand are needed.  The student team, recognizing this need, developed a transparent, defensible, and transferrable quantitative planning process for Seattle while also evaluating regulatory and policy challenges and opportunities for a bike‐share program.  Their report can be found on the project’s website at: http://seattlebikeshare.org/.  The student team developed an analysis framework by refining a ridership demand methodology developed for Philadelphia and effectively utilized experiences from other bike‐share programs.  Their approach used GIS software and twelve key bike‐share demand indicators (such as job and population density, bike facilities, and topography) to quantify potential bike‐share ridership in Seattle.  The GIS software was used to conduct a weighted‐sum raster analysis, based on the influence of the twelve indicators on bike‐share success, to identify the geographic market for bike sharing.  This process resulted in a series of shaded demand maps that clearly and visually communicated ridership demand.    The student team then evaluated a range of regulatory, policy, safety, and social justice issues that might be relevant to the operation of a bike‐share system. Prominent among these were the King County helmet law, City of Seattle sign codes, and policies related to the use of curb space.    On the basis of these findings, the project team concluded that a bike‐share system could be successful in Seattle.  Although the report provided an analytical basis for the potential success of a bike‐share system, it also acknowledged institutional challenges and developed a series of recommendations to the City that would help to ensure that a bike‐share system would work.  The report concluded by noting that any proposed bike‐share program would be subject to a wide variety of governance structures, and the team recommended that the sponsoring agencies streamline the relevant processes to the greatest extent possible.  The team finalized the project effort by giving a number of presentations about the process and findings to staff from the City of Seattle, King County, and several surrounding cities.    This innovative project provides a great example of how a well‐designed and well‐executed project by urban planning students can make significant contributions to understanding and addressing contemporary issues.  Staff from the City of Seattle, as well as the reviewers from other public agencies, 

universally had positive comments about the project’s approach, findings, and the quality of the final report.  For example, the team’s main contact from the City of Seattle (Casey Hildreth) noted that the demand analysis and recommendations will be “extremely helpful” and will have “ongoing value.”  A number of reviewers mentioned that the results were as good as or better than those that could be obtained from a professional consultant.  Reviewers from King County “found the study to be an excellent assessment of the local bike‐share market, providing value to planners and decision makers working to bring this exciting and innovative transportation alternative to King County.”    Another indication of the value of this project is that after the project’s official completion, individual team members were asked to present the findings to both public agencies and bicycle advocacy groups.  Several well‐regarded regional transportation and infrastructure blogs have also commented favorably on the report.  (See MIS1.htm (or http://www.publicola.net/2010/04/08/learning‐to‐bike‐share/) and MIS2.htm (or http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/04/19/seattle‐bike‐share‐a‐few‐comments/) in the application package).    In summary, this project is an outstanding example of what a team of diverse and motivated planning students can accomplish.  They developed an innovative and transferable technical approach that addressed the planning concerns behind the implementation of this increasingly popular alternative form of urban transportation.  Their approach was comprehensive and included quantitative bike‐share ridership demand estimates and a detailed examination of institutional concerns.  The results of their project have been well received by the agencies who will directly use their findings, and this report should be of value to planners and decision makers nationally who will need to evaluate bike‐share programs.  

410 Gould Hall Box 355740 Seattle, WA 98195-5740 206.543.4190 udp@uw.edu

http://urbdp.be.washington.edu

December 7, 2010 AICP Student Project Awards Leadership Department American Planning Association 122 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600 Chicago, IL 60603 Re: Nomination letter for Seattle Bike Share Feasibility Study Dear Members of the AICP Awards Jury: As Chair of the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington and head of our Department’s PAB-accredited Master of Urban Planning program, I am delighted to nominate for the AICP Student Project Award in category (a) Contribution of Planning to Contemporary Issues. This nomination is based on the recommendation of an ad hoc committee consisting of three faculty members who are AICP members and who are most familiar with our students’ recent projects. Seattle Bike Share Feasibility Study is the product of a graduate-level Urban Design and Planning studio class in which 6 students participated. This studio was contracted by the City of Seattle and taught in Winter 2010 by Research Assistant Professor Edward McCormack. Public use bike-share programs allow bicycles to be rented for short times from unattended, fixed stations and permit renters who have taken bikes from one location to return them to any other station. Bike-share programs have successfully operated in European cities for a number of years. The first U.S. program began in 2009 in Washington D.C and programs are currently being studied or implemented in other North American cities. This report presents an analysis of the feasibility of a bike-share program within the City of Seattle. The project initially analyzed the potential ridership demand in Seattle for a bike-share system and then evaluated policy and regulatory issues that might be relevant to installation or operation of such a system. Based on these findings, the project team concluded that a bike-share system could be successful in Seattle. However, they identified institutional and operational barriers that will need to be addressed. With these barriers in mind, they developed a series of recommendations to the city that would help to ensure a bike-share system would work.

This innovative studio provides a great example of how well-designed and well-executed projects by urban planning students can make significant contributions to understanding and addressing contemporary issues. Bike Share programs, due to their successful application internationally, and to their ability to enhance an urban transportation system, are of increasing interest to North American cities. Decisions to install the early bike-share programs were based on professional judgment and personal knowledge of the given city. Given the growing demand for such systems, more effective methods for estimating user demand are needed. The students recognized this need and developed a transparent, defensible, and repeatable planning process while also effectively identifying and evaluating both problems and opportunities. The great strength of the project was the multidisciplinary team of graduate students was able to develop a comprehensive report that identified the range of issues that a bicycle share program needed to address including legal restrictions, municipal policies, safety concerns, public benefits and social justice. The resulting findings are communicated in a report that reflects excellent scholarship and craft, as seen in the narrative and high quality graphics, which effectively enabled the project sponsor to clearly comprehend the project finding as well as the supporting and underlying methodology. The technical modeling results are presented in an innovative way in the appendices that visually communicates to a mixed audience with creativity and clarity. The studio’s results and report were clearly appreciated by planning staff at the City of Seattle. These sponsors indicated their appreciation for both the usable findings and the quality of the report. In fact, several indicated that was the study was of greater quality than could be obtained by hiring professional consultants. I am convinced that the some of the innovations approaches developed by the students will see future application as cities assess Bike Share programs. The studio provides a wonderful model for how students can work on contemporary planning issue and develop innovative, and eminently usable technical tools to explore these issues. I hope the jury will appreciate the accomplishment this student project represents. Thank you for your consideration! Sincerely,

Qing Shen Professor and Chair Department of Urban Design and Planning