Capital Bikeshare program looks to spread into the Washington suburbs

The sturdy red bikes that arrived in the District and Arlington County as a curiosity and now blend into the urban landscape will swarm into suburbia this year.

By summertime, the bikes should be rolling through the streets of Rockville and Alexandria as the popular Capital Bikeshare program expands into several outer Washington communities. If grant applications come through, they might also appear in the inner-ring areas of Bethesda, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Friendship Heights and Forest Glen. The development of White Flint and Wheaton make those neighborhoods likely candidates as well. College Park, with thousands of students looking for cheap transportation, is also a tempting location. Greenbelt is in the mix, as are Frederick, Howard and Prince George’s counties.

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 Grab a red bicycle — and your helmet — and explore the city on two wheels.

A key reason the bike program has flourished in the District and Arlington has been the expansion of bike lanes and bike-related improvements to encourage cycling. As Bikeshare moves to areas outside the city, the same accommodations are important, said Shane Farthing, director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

“I do think that the next places that come along are going to have to step it up a little bit to make sure that conditions are right, that people are safe, that there’s space for people to bike, and that drivers and cyclists are educated on how to ride responsibly,” Farthing said.

(VOTE: If Bikeshare moves to your neighborhood, would you use it?)

The purpose of Bikeshare is to provide an alternative to driving, primarily to and from work. The challenge of suburban expansion is to introduce the program to communities large and compact enough to make a “short-hop” bike service viable. In Bethesda, for example, Bikeshare riders might pedal around town or to and from Metro stations into the District.

Since its inception in 2010, the Capital Bikeshare program has grown more swiftly than almost anyone imagined. It has more than 1,100 bikes in more than 130 locations and 15,000 annual members.

“The District and Arlington were the places that had the most [bike] infrastructure, and it was a good place to test whether bike share, as a concept, worked,” Farthing said. “I don’t think that other jurisdictions can just assume that that groundwork was unimportant. There needs to be some intensive investment accompanying bike share that will bring things up to a standard [in which] people will feel comfortable biking. It’s all about the comfort and the ease.”

Rockville and Alexandria invested in creating a cycling-friendly environment, as have the communities that might get Capital Bikeshare programs this year.

“Rockville is pretty advanced,” Gary Erenrich of the Montgomery County transportation department said. “They have a pretty good network of bike lanes and bicycle facilities. The infrastructure in Bethesda and [at the Walter Reed National Military] medical center also is there, and we’re continuing to add bike facilities.”

Rockville is planning to install Bikeshare docking stations at 20 locations with 200 bikes to follow. Alexandria plans to deploy 70 bikes at eight locations and has sought federal funding to install docking stations at nine more locations.