Toward an Equitable Bikeshare System

The Better Bike Share Conference convened in Philadelphia on June 22-24, 2016. Attendees gathered to find solutions for challenges of equity, social justice, and mobility in the country's emerging bikeshare infrastructure.

2 minute read

July 5, 2016, 5:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Bikeshare

Seth Ryan / Shutterstock

April Corbin tells the story of the Better Bike Share Conference, held recently in Philadelphia, through the use of Storify and a collection of Tweets blasted out under the #bikeshare4all hashtag.

Among those giving presentations at the event were Tamika Butler, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.

Corbin also produced a separate article to examine one of the big ideas from the opening presentation by Tamika Butler: How are we supposed to talk about equity when we don’t even have a shared definition half the time?

The issue of equity in bikeshare has been gaining prevalence in the discussions about transit and mobility. A 2014 report by the Mineta Transportation Institute dug into the systematic challenges of delivering bikeshare to low-income neighborhoods. Washington, D.C.'s bikeshare system, Capital Bikeshare, made news in April 2015 when data revealed a widening gap in use between people identifying as white, Hispanic, and black. A more recent article from May 2016 presents a kind of playbook for bikeshare equity.

Monday, June 27, 2016 in Better Bike Share Partnership

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