Yesterday, we shared an update on the public bikeshare program the City of Austin is working to bring to town in the next few years. There are several successful, well used programs in the U.S. including this brilliant Streetfilms piece on Washington, DC’s Capital Bikeshare.

The Phenomenal Success of Capital Bikeshare from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Love all the shots of people in suits and picking items from the store. The number of bikes they have deployed is surely part of the success: there are currently 114 stations with 1,100 bikes yielding 14,000 annual members and 40,000 day users. One user mentions the high visibility and number of bikes at stations got him to try cycling as an option. I’m also seeing lots of separated bike lanes (also present in Sevilla’s and Barcelona’s impressive bikeshare successes) so City planners take note that the bikes need to be pair with good infrastructure or bike friendly streets (read slow cars down a lot.)