This map of Divvy bike trips (overlaying bike stations, somewhat visible as dots in the background) illustrates a relatively ubiquitous concern within US bike-share programs; bike-share schemes tend to disproportionately serve neighborhoods primarily occupied by middle-to-upper-class white people. In Chicago, Boston, New York, and DC, all successful bike-share cities, the same pattern of development and use exists. A 2013 Chicago Tribune study claimed that, at the time, 50% of white residents had nearby access (within 1/4 mile from home) to Divvy while only 19% and 16% of Latino and African-American residents, respectively, had similar access (articles.chicagotribune/2013-07-10/news/ct-met-divvy-bike-location-20130710_1_bike-sharing-program-divvy-pink-line). Justification for this inequity tends to include some discussion of the often strong positive correlation between neighborhood density and whiteness (a relationship particularly true in Chicago and a large, wildly-complex topic in and of itself), and, accordingly, the importance of this density to bike-share viability. However, in my mind, this rhetoric obscures the basic truth that bike-share schemes have proven to be net financial losers, even with focus on the densest of neighborhoods, and that their value (and thus the reason municipal governments and sponsors like Blue Cross Blue Shield keep funding), rather, comes from providing more equitable access to healthy, inexpensive, and flexible transit options to ALL of a citys residents. While Divvy and other US programs currently maintain quite inequitable service, it is at least hopeful that there does now seem to be some serious and frank discussion about the issue, nationaljournal/next-america/economic-empowerment/is-bike-share-for-white-gentrifiers-20140925.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 04:23:23 +0000
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