Traffic-reduction grant boosts Bikeshare

Using money from the federal transportation department's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, Capital Bikeshare will expand by about a third early next year, DDOT announced today.

"Additional bikes and stations will help grow membership and revenues, putting Capital Bikeshare on the path towards self sufficiency," the department said in a statement.

In D.C., it will add 20 stations and 200 bikes.

Across the river in Arlington, a founding partner of the bikeshare program, "[f]unding has been identified for 16 new stations," said Dennis Leach, the Director of the Arlington Department of Transportation. "The County is interested in partnering with businesses in the corridor to expand this development."

Elsewhere in the country, it has been suggested that bikeshare systems would be eligible to claim carbon credits for moving a trip from a polluting car to a bike. The system could then sell those credits to factories or other companies to offset their pollution.

Capital Bikeshare has 5,000 members, and DDOT noted that while ridership in the city has been increasing for years, the bikesharing program has helped it along. Other measures adding to bikeability in the city include a bike lane on 15th Street, which laborers were hard at work installing last night. Those lanes converted a single lane of car parking into two narrow, bi-directional bike lanes.