Bike share in san José: who will use It, how much money people

will pay for it, and what they will use it for

Kenneth Rosales and Dr. Rachel O’MalleyDepartment of Environmental Studies, San Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0101

In the Bay Area, 36.4% of Greenhouse gases come from transportation, thus significantly contributing to global climate change. In response to this issue, the cites of San Francisco, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Jose will implement a pilot bike share program funded by the Metropolitan Commission, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and Valley Transportation Authority in the summer of 2012.

One hundred and fifteen (115) surveys were conducted throughout the principal areas where the bike share program kiosk stations will be disseminated to find out if a significant correlation between participants' age and their willingness to pay . The average age and willingness to pay, information about whether they will use bike share or not, why they wouldn’t use bike share, and what they would use bike share for were also acquired.

No significant correlations between people’s age and willingness to pay were found because of an imbalanced distribution of young people over older individuals surveyed. However, most people who would use bike share would use it to run errands, and those who would not use bike share would rather use another mode of transportation. Most survey participants would use bike share at Diridon Station over any other area and would on average, pay much more compared to Washington D.C. or Boston, Massachusetts. Therefore, San Jose’s bike share vendor should be a non-profit organization that survives through low costs from in-kind sponsorships, subsidies, subscriptions, and local affiliates.

Materials: • 120 printed surveys, 40 for each region• Two clipboards• Five pens • Three quartersDesign: • With the help of two colleagues, San Jose Diridon Station, San Jose City Hall, and San Jose State University were surveyed (Figure 1).• Participants/groups were randomly surveyed with the flip of a quarter. • A landing on heads resulted in a “yes” and tails resulted in “no”• Participants were educated on what bike share is, where the stations will be located, and how the paying system works before filling out each survey.

The regression analysis performed between people’s willingness to pay and their age showed no significant correlations (Figure 2). All p-values resulted in scores over .05 value and all squared multiple R numbers were well below .05. Although there were no significant correlations between age and the willingness to pay, several other figures had arisen. The number of people surveyed, 115, are almost exactly split in half in the decision of either using bike share or not. The number of people who chose to use it was 58 persons while 57 chose not to (Table 1). Most people who participated in the survey were 18- 27 year olds (Table 1). Most people would use bike share in DiridonStation than any other region for general purposes and specifically for errands (Table 3). In contrast, most people who would not use bike share were located in City Hall and would mainly not utilize it because they would much rather use some other mode of transportation (Table 4). On average, for all regions, the average person with the average age of 29.44 would pay $6.44 for a daily pass, $28.43 for a weekly pass, $88.62 for a monthly pass, and $227.29 for an annual pass (Table 5) .

Table 1 Participants’ ages and whether the they would use bike share or not

Figure 3 Bike Share usage- yes or no

Table 3 Reasons to Use Bike Share for Errands by Region

Table 4 Alternative Reasons to Not Use Bike Share by Region

Table 5 Distribution of Average Willingness to Pay and Average Age over all regions and by regions.

Figure 2 Negative correlation between Age and Willingness to Pay for an Annual Pass. This calculation was the closest to reaching a significant correlation. However, the R2 shows that few plots are located near the line of best fit.

Figure 1 Map of survey area: Diridon Station (Region 1), San Jose City Hall (Region 2), and San Jose State University (Region 3).

In 2008, transportation contributed to about one-third of greenhouse gas emissions (slightly less than 7 billion metric tons) in the United States (EPA, 2011). In the Bay Area, 36.4% of Greenhouse gases come from transportation (BAAQMD, 2010). As a remedy, bike share programs can be used to promote bicycle use; a healthy lifestyle; efficient public transit connection; energy reduction by decreasing over one million car trips per year; traffic alleviation; reduction in air pollution emissions, and the avoidance of 3.5 million pounds of greenhouse gas discharges (Martens, 2006). Several municipalities have applied a bike sharing program within the United States and beyond. Washington D.C., Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota, Washington D.C., Boston, Massachusetts, Copenhagen, Denmark, London, England, and Paris, France are examples of bike share implementation. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (regional pollution control agency), and the Santa Clara County transit service provider, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has secured money for a pilot bike share program that will launch in the summer of 2012. The $70.9 million dollar project will supply over 1,000 bikes for the entire Bay Area Region. Furthermore, the cities of San Jose, Mountain View, Redwood City, Palo Alto, and San Francisco will receive about 100 bicycles each and 10 to 12 stations. These stations will be available for bike share within a 1 to 3 mile radius from the DiridonStation located at Santa Clara and Montgomery Street in San Jose (VTA 2010, 7). VTA states that “priority areas considered for potential pod sites include the downtowns, universities, and City Halls.” However, the exact locations and prices are unknown. ,Objective:• To evaluate whether there was a significant correlation between people’s ages and their willingness to pay for daily, weekly, monthly, and annual passes San Jose’s Bike Share pilot program will provide. • To find quantitative and qualitative measures as to why, why not, and what people would use the Bike Share program to ultimately determine where stations should be placed.

Table 2 Survey Regions of Bike Share Use

The regression analyses between age and willingness to pay were all considered insignificant because of their p-values. Therefore, it is surprising that there is no perceptible trend between the two. While the study’s age distribution was unequal and in favor of the younger populace, it is also interesting that both young and old individuals would pay relatively high prices for bike share regardless of region in comparison to prices cities like Montreal, Boston, and Washington D.C have adopted. The San Jose Bike Share program is mostly supported by a young population with an elevated price for willingness to pay.

It would be reasonable to place Bike Share stations near the beginning and end of residential areas, local shops, transit corridors, schools, and work areas, but not near public parking areas, bike rental and bike shops, skateboard shops, car dealerships, and bike racks due to the fact that most people who would not use bike share would rather use another mode of transportation or own a bike themselves.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Valley Transportation Authority, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission have all been looking at the City of Minneapolis/Saint Paul as an example to pursue the non-profit sector to be the bike share vendor. Dossett, B., Munger, J., & Bono, K. (2008) recommends non-profit organizations as vendors because the system they set in motion in Minneapolis/ Saint Paul function at low costs due to the utilization of public subsidies, and private in-kind sponsorships from local contractors and employees. Furthermore, the non-profit sector is obliged to sell subscriptions and must please its customers in order to continue its business.

Assuming that the prices will reflect what other cities have done, the analyses of results indicate that San Jose bike share may be a success because people are willing to pay more than what may be put in place.

3) Valley Transportation Authority, (2010). Bike Share Pilot Project Phase 1 Implementation Plan Draft 4) Martens, K. (2007). Promoting bike-and-ride: the dutch experience. Transportation Research Part A, 41, 326-338. 5) Dossett, B., Munger, J., & Bono, K. (2008). Non‐profit business plan for twin cities bike share system. The City of Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development Department, Public, 1-49.

Acknowledgements: Felix Rosales, Austin Roberts, Chad Inman, Jessica Johnson,and Eduardo Pereira

References: 1) "Climate Change." Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html#emissions (accessed September 9, 2011).. 2) Bay Area Air Pollution Summaries” Bay Area Air Quality Management District.http://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/Files/Communications%20and%20Outreach/Annual%20Bay%20Area%20Air%20Quality%20Summaries/pollsum09.ashx (accessed September 9, 2011). Continued to the right ->