The Next Stop: METRO's Podcast Episode 34: Bike & Ride with METRO and Houston BCycle Bryan Reed: People realize just how different your experience with the city is when you're on a bicycle. We want to be that last mile solution for riders. Hop on one of our bikes, take it to a METRO stop. Laura Whitley: I'm Laura Whitley. In this edition of The Next Stop, we check in with Houston BCycle, how the growing bike share, non-profit is helping more transit riders reach their destinations and gain a new perspective of the city from two wheels. [music] Laura Whitley: Well, I am pleased to welcome today Mr. Bryan Reed, who is the Executive Director of Houston BCycle, and Abby Fernandez, the Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for Houston BCycle. Thank you for joining The Next Stop. Bryan Reed: Thank you for having us, Laura. We're both excited and honored to be here. Abby Fernandez: Yes, yes, I'm very excited. Laura Whitley: So, as we have been doing now for about a year, we are recording this virtually so that is the difference in the audio, but we will continue to soldier through. Bryan, for those who aren’t familiar with Houston BCycle and bike share, can you just kind of provide an introduction of what this transportation service is? Bryan Reed: Absolutely. So we are a non-profit. We're one of the largest non-profit bike shares in the entire nation, which we're very proud of. We operate almost 1,100 bikes around Houston, and our bikes are docked. So we have docks, we have 125 stations mixed throughout Houston where you can go. If you're a member, you get a free hour ride for every ride, so you can go check out a bike. If you're a guest as well, you can rent one. Laura Whitley: 1,100 bikes, that's a lot of bikes. I know that folks who maybe haven't used your services before have probably seen stations, and I know when I drive around, it seems like they're everywhere. Is that accurate? Bryan Reed: Well, our growth has been just absolutely tremendous. We're really fortunate to have a lot of sponsors in terms of elected officials, local businesses, management districts. There's just a lot of energy in Houston. You'll see quotes online that world class cities have a bike culture and bike share and different ways to get around the city, so I think we're at a really unique time. A lot of tragedy and trauma has happened this past year with COVID, and it has pushed a lot of people outside in different ways. So throughout this entire period, we've seen our ridership skyrocket. About three years ago we were at, and Abby, you can fact check me on this, but we were at about 50 stations, and at the end of this year we'll finish with about 150 stations total, and about 1,300 bikes, so our growth, people realize just how different your experience with the city is when you're on a bicycle. Yeah, we hope to, we're a non-profit, so our goal is just to get people out there and see our city. I think the beautiful thing as well is you, on a bike you see people differently. When you're perhaps driving in a vehicle, when I'm in my car, I'm commuting. When I get a chance to be on a bike, I am listening and I am seeing the community. So we're excited to play a small role in that. Laura Whitley: Absolutely. Did you want to hop in there, Abby? In terms of growth? Abby Fernandez: Oh, yes. I was actually right now I've been here for two and a half years. When I first started, it was just 40 stations and honestly like only 100 bikes. It's been huge growth. From the pandemic, adding on 10 more mechanics, making sure that we have safe, sanitation protocols and making sure everybody is kind of all together. It's been really great to see the growth of it and everybody learning more, with the e-bikes, and adding more stations to right next to the bike lanes, especially in downtown and in mid-town. So it's going to be really more visibility and building more partners, too. It's having the Parks Board as a partner to other non-profits to Legacy Clinic and American Heart Association. It's nonstop. It's really great just giving people this fun new way to get around. Especially now. This has been the best spring weather I've seen so far. Laura Whitley: Yeah, it has. It's been pretty fantastic. It's a great time for those who haven't tried to definitely get out there and try commuting utilizing bike and METRO, of course. Talk a little bit about BCycle in terms of its connection when it comes to the larger, multi-modal transit world. Many of these stations are located very close to METRO stops and certainly METRORail stations and how does that help riders to move around? Bryan Reed: Sure. Well, we want to be that last mile solution for riders. Hop on one of our bikes, take it to a METRO stop, and we, METRO has been phenomenal partners with us in terms of strategically placing our stations and on a hot Houston day, we know our ridership actually increases significantly through the summer months, so I give Houstons a lot of credit. We are tough and we can endure some very hot circumstances. But hop on a bike, feel the air, take that last mile solution from your place of work, from your community. Take it, dock the bike at a METRO station, and have access to the remainder of the city. So we see us playing whatever role someone needs us to play in terms of helping their commute. Laura Whitley: And one of the things like METRO that is also shared with Houston BCycle is the level of accessibility when it comes to affordability. Transportation, it's been a challenging year plus now for so many people who have struggled with employment and other losses, and Houston BCycle is certainly economically less expensive than operating a vehicle and again in terms of the connection and providing people that vital link for transportation, it's so important as well. Bryan Reed: So for, I heard this number a few weeks ago and I was like, “Oh, this is the number that we need to be sharing.” For 22 cents a day, you can become an annual member with us. So that gets you access, unlimited one-hour rides in our network. So that's an affordable number, and we also have different programs and we're looking to expand into cash-only options so that folks that may not have credit, because understanding that an obstacle to using our app and having credit and a credit card, could be an obstacle for folks. We're trying to remove all those barriers possible, so we're in the works right now. COVID and this past year in terms of being in-person has put a little bit of a damper on our ability to work with our cash-based partners to offer some memberships, but as Abby mentioned earlier, we're working with the Legacy Clinic and the American Heart Association to offer, they're offering free memberships for folks based upon health conditions to get them outside. We see there's just tremendous opportunity to partner with local non-profits, as Abby said, and just the community. I think the key point that always floats through my mind a lot in these conversations is some cities have for-profit bike shares, we're non-profit. We have a lot of pride to take into the fact that we have over a 90% farebox recovery rate for our service, so we're really able to fund our operations just through ridership. So we're really proud and excited about that. I think that gives us tremendous opportunity and flexibility moving into these next few years to continue to expand our service and expand our access. That's part of our mission statement and we really want to live into it and not just say it. Laura Whitley: Absolutely. And Abby, can you walk us through just a little bit in terms of the mechanics of how one goes about renting a bike. I know, Bryan, you mentioned the app. How does that work? Abby Fernandez: What's really great that there's two different ways for someone to go check out a BCycle. They can go to any of our 125 locations and counting, go to the kiosk, really easy touchpad screen on there, and the other one that we actually added is going to be the app. So it's a free BCycle app that you download. That helps you check out to see the rest of the network and it's more of a contact list so then you can check out a bike on there. So we want to give people that extra visibility. We had to add that feature because of the pandemic, but it's actually been a lot easier for people to check out bikes now just using the app since they can see surrounding stations that they can easily just travel to. So there's the kiosk and the BCycle app. Laura Whitley: That's cool. So on the app, will it, does it have the intelligence to tell someone if there's a bike available at whatever station? Abby Fernandez: Yes. So since we added the e-bikes as well, you can see if their station has an electric bike on there, so you will see they'll have a lightning bolt indication, but whenever you see the map, it'll give you the number of bikes that are there and the number of open docks. So if you're trying to go to another station, making sure that there's an open dock available so you can dock it in safely and securely. Laura Whitley: That's awesome. I'm going to have to try that. Abby Fernandez: Mm-hmm. Laura Whitley: I have not gotten your app. I'll have to download that. Abby Fernandez: Mm-hmm. Laura Whitley: When you're talking about utilizing your service and its connection to transit, I think we'd be remiss if we also didn't mention the growing number of bike lanes that are going all over. I know METRO has been very involved in developing those. I know there's more coming. There's some I know going down Hillcroft. I was just, that's been announced. How does that aid those who are using BCycles? Bryan Reed: This is so great, Laura. I was just looking at the data earlier today, so it's fresh in my mind about station performance. You look on a map and you can predict our station performance. If it's located on a protected bike lane, if it's located in a park or a trail, essentially the performance is going to increase when people feel safe. I know we've got the safety month coming up next month, too, and I think this is where we're really fortunate in Houston to have elected officials and just a lot of energy around building safe streets, Vision Zero. Abby Fernandez: Yes. Bryan Reed: There's just a ton of momentum around we're all living in a city in which the only mode of transportation is a car and planning around public transportation and different multi-modal transportation like BCycle. Laura Whitley: So when it comes to safety, for those who utilize the bikes, what are some things that are important to keep in mind? Abby Fernandez: So one of the things that we started doing is whenever someone docks in their bike, or even checks it out, you'll get a text message saying to remember to wash your hands before and after every ride and to keep that 6 feet distance. What's really great is that even in our website, we have bike safety tips and even discounts if you're a member to get a helmet, because we want to encourage people to be safe, wear a helmet if they can, as well as the biking groups, and a lot of the times now that bike month is in May, coming up, we're adding some more bike events, but still being as safe as possible. Requiring masks whenever you're not on the bikes, still keeping that distance, as well as at any event having ambassadors and myself there to just give people some safety tips, making sure they're staying to the right of the lane and kind of making sure that they're in a group, just be as visible as possible because we want to make sure there isn't any accidents. We are huge supporters of the Vision Zero program, and we want to make sure that this is, we're doing our part as well. Bryan Reed: And we also, Laura, to add, one thing that I find really compelling is that safety goes up the more people that are actually on bikes, that we've seen. The data show that out that cities start to turn that corner and commit, people become accustomed to it. Other modes of transportation are more aware of bikes, so I think it definitely goes both ways, and we want to ensure that all cyclists out there are following procedures. We also want to ensure that it's not an oddity to see someone on a bike in Houston, that we can expect it and that driver behavior can adjust accordingly in all different modes of transportation to ensure that we're keeping each other safe as Houstonians. Laura Whitley: Absolutely, and driver behavior is a major part of safety, both for cyclists and certainly for just the larger safety on the roads, particularly when you consider about Vision Zero, which is the city of Houston's initiative to end traffic deaths, I believe by 2030. I'll have to go fact check myself. When it comes to interacting with cyclists, what are some key things that drivers need, those behind wheels in motor vehicles, should keep in mind when interacting with cyclists? Bryan Reed: One, I'll punt this to Abby in a second, but one piece of information that I find really compelling, and I hold myself accountable to now, is that if a speed limit of 25 miles an hour or less significantly increases the driver's ability to see what's around them and react in time. So I know that there's been current legislation, and there's a lot of groups in Houston that are doing great work to educate folks that 25 mile an hour speed limits really make a difference and can save lives, so I think from a policy standpoint that's something that's very aligned with ensuring that our folks are safe and that everyone on a bike, my wife taking our son to the park on a sidewalk, just on a stroller, I want to live in a city where I feel assured that she's safe. So as a driver myself, knowing this data and this information, it's really in my mind now to just slow down. So that's definitely one aspect of it. I'll kick it to Abby for the rest. Abby Fernandez: What's really great is that last year some of our field techs and myself did this bicycle/driver awareness safety course from BikeHouston and it helped out a lot. One of the things that I want to tell drivers is whenever they're even stopping at an intersection, one of the biggest accidents is at intersections with cyclists whenever they're right on the right side of their passenger door, and so one of the things that I told my riders and drivers is never kind of drive right next to them. You have to be as visible as possible, and for yeah, just how we were saying kind of slowing down and making sure that you see them and giving them enough space for them to cycle because you never know where they're going to be driving to or cycling to. They don't have blinkers, and so that's one of the main things. Visibility is definitely key. Laura Whitley: Absolutely. And really, yeah, just kind of keeping your distance, right? Because a vehicle has so much more power than anybody who's on two wheels that that makes a lot of sense, and certainly pedestrians and all of that. I just wanted to sort of open up the conversation a little bit in terms of and talk about the future or what folks have to look forward to here in this year with Houston BCycle. I think you mentioned it a little bit, but you guys have had just crazy ridership growth over the past year, again folks wanting to get out and discovering the city. What do we have on the horizon? And also, if there's not a BCycle station in your neighborhood or you kind of feel like it would help with that last mile solution, what do we do? Bryan Reed: Yeah. Let me take that question, Laura, and then… Laura Whitley: Okay. Bryan Reed: Abby's got some fun events on tap for us. So for folks who, so the exciting part about this year is we'll be adding over 25 stations by year's end, so we're continuing to grow our profile. We're really blessed to have support from Commissioner Ellis and Commissioner Garcia as well as different City Council districts who have supported our growth. We, from a financial perspective, we are able to cover the costs of our operations, but for new expansion we really need partners. The beauty of that is that it really allows us to establish stations in partnership. We're not coming to drop a station out on someone. We are really wanting to work with neighborhoods and communities to make this their station and meet the needs that they have. So, yeah, our expansion is in large part just by some visionary leaders that we have within the city who are willing to make this investment for their constituents. Then, Abby, has a bunch of amazing events teed up specifically for the upcoming bike month. Abby Fernandez: Right now, it's honestly almost every weekend we'll be having something and hopefully into every different neighborhood, too. We have been adding it on our BCycle events page, which is on our website. Just go to the "About Us" and under "Bike Rides" and there's going to be East End bike ride with a tour of the mural, which is going to be with artists themselves, taking you around all these really great murals, using BCycles, and BCycle Awareness Days, which I highly recommend to find out where the locations will be on our social media at Houston BCycle. But we're giving free rides to people because a lot of the times at these Awareness Days, people are at these parks and they have, they're just biking around or just walking and having picnics and we want to give this opportunity to give people more information about bike share and showing them where other bike ride stations are at. Yeah, there's going to be, the really big one is the Bike to Wherever Day, which is May 21, on a Friday, and during the whole day we're giving everybody a free 30-minute ride card. All they need for that promo code is BTWD, or 0521, but all this information's on our website. Yeah, we definitely want people just to utilize it. It is Bike Month and this spring, yeah, it's going to be great. Bryan Reed: And then to, I failed to answer your question, Laura, about how to reach out if someone needs a station, so just to answer that… Laura Whitley: Oh, cool. Yeah. Bryan Reed: We have an e-mail address on our website, Info@HoustonBikeShare.org. If somebody's really interested and finds a location, we get a lot of e-mails from local citizens who find a location and say, "Oh, it would be so incredible," this makes sense for so many different folks in our communities and that allows us, with the elected officials I mentioned and the local management districts, TIRZs, all of those entities that are looking to really make solutions for their constituency. We can compile a group together and, yeah, once we get the cost of the station on the ground, then we operate those stations and put out some really awesome bikes. Laura Whitley: Absolutely. There's just so many benefits, I know from again lowering our carbon footprint, increasing safety, and again awareness of community. One of the things that I'm thinking about, too, I know over this past year it's become incredibly difficult to actually find a bike in a store and purchase a bike, there's just been a global bike boom, and bike share is such a fabulous solution, because you're not using, even like you don't use your car all the time, you're definitely not using your bike all the time, and it's neat, the whole share part of that, I don't know, it seems like a perfect solution, particularly right now. Bryan Reed: Yep. No, I love that point, and let us do the work of the maintenance and service. It's nice to walk up to a bike and know you won't have to grease this chain later or put air in these tires, so let us do that. Every ride that someone takes helps support our network and allows us to bring service to others, so every Houstonian can do their part, get out, ride our bikes. Look for the free coupons that Abby will be posting, the promo codes. I'd be remiss if I didn't share my wife is not the biggest bike fan in the world. She tried out one of our e-bikes and the smile on her face, so if you haven't tried an e-bike yet, it's a pedal-assist, it's very gentle, you don't realize it until it kicks in, and it's just really a great opportunity to get out on a bike, but maybe not do as much calorie burning as you might otherwise do, so be on the lookout for those. Yeah, enjoy it. Let's get out this summer and enjoy ourselves. Laura Whitley: Well, that sounds really neat. Well, Abby Fernandez, Bryan Reed, I really appreciate you all. Thank you for joining us today on The Next Stop. Bryan Reed: Absolutely proud. Thank you, thank you, Laura. Abby Fernandez: Yes, definitely. Thank you. Laura Whitley: METRO riders save big on Bcycle. Visit RideMetro.org/BCycle for promo codes, and you'll also see a map to help you find BCycle stations that are closest to your favorite routes. [music] That's all for this edition of The Next Stop. I'm Laura Whitley. If you'd like to check out more episodes, you can find them on our website or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Google Play. And if you could please do us a favor and leave a rating or review, that'll help us out a lot. Until next time, drive less, do more, with METRO.