down in cost and we have been able to implement systems for more cheaply and incorporate a cellular technology, radiofrequency id. it took up in europe recently, starting now in the united states, but the biggest growth you are seeing is in asia right now. as i mentioned, this is taking off in the united states. montreal was the first city in the north america to have a large third-generation bicycle system. there is another system in washington, d.c., denver, minneapolis, boston. coming soon will be new york, a vancouver, and chicago, all online to launch in the spring or summer of 2012. bicycles are typically -- there is actually a wide range of bicycles in the system, but i

will focus on the system that will likely to be found here in san francisco. these are very advanced systems. the bicycles are designed from the ground up as public bicycles, so they are designed to be left out in the public realm. they are unisex-type step through frames, internal gears so there are not many parts that can be broken, lights which run on generators, keep shining once they stop, fenders, seats that cannot be removed. as well, all the parts on them are proprietary and are designed to be removed only with special tools. they could not be put to use somewhere else.

the actual stations themselves consist of individual stocks that a bike in gauges into and locked securely into. typically, there is a kiosk, like a atm system, with a touch screen pat, perhaps with a solar map, for power. we will be specifying an rfp here in san francisco. these are essentially portable and modular, so they can be expanded or moved across the street. two guys pull up with a small boom truck, dropped in on site, and it does not require any external power hookup. as i mentioned, there is the kiosk and a map panel.

this slide shows an example of the golden gate park in 2009. that is when the station is being lifted off of a truck from one of the industry leaders, coming to demonstrate this from montreal. it is being dropped into place. the bottom slide on the left -- as i mentioned, you can drop them off anywhere within the system. they do not all magically end of where you need them to be, so what the vendor does is rebalance the bicycles. bicycle need to be rebalance to get optimum distribution throughout the system. part of the system is also a back end website, call center. that is where the dispatcher is, mainframe computer, which talks wirelessly to the individual stations. operators of the system know where the bikes are at all

times. there is a lot of data collected on the use of the bicycles and the behavior of members. for someone like myself, i look forward to seeing a lot of value, how the people are using the bicycle's. >> you can tell where the bicycles are at all times? >> they will use radiofrequency id cards. something like a clipper card. you know where they are locked up. we are requesting that they also have gps chips in them. my sense, from a cost standpoint, that should be doable. the users of the system. as i mentioned, is a membership- based system. even if you are just a day member, you can be a member. the main focus is on short

trips. the idea is to provide bicycles as a first or last mile in your trip. basically, looking to get people from transit to their ultimate destination. members need to be 18 years or older. you do need a credit card. an interesting bit of trivia that we found in a couple of cities we have been tracking, the safety record of their users. contrary to what you may think, people who are members of bicycle sharing tend to be safer than average cyclist. talking about pricing, this is something which is a to be determined -- which is yet to be determined here in san francisco. you can have a membership or an annual membership, or anything in between.

an example on the right. that is the key fob from the london, barclays byte system. -- bike system. user fees are typically not the largest source of revenue from the system because generally once you're a member, the first half an hour is free. the pricing structure is discouraged -- discourages people from using the bicycle for more than half an hour. the first 30 minutes is free. what that means is, you are to rent a bicycle for four hours. that would cost you $40. by contrast, if you were to rent a bicycle at the waterfront, you

could get a much more comfortable, lighter weight bicycle for only $30. the pricing of the program is intended to not compete with the businesses we have that are doing great things, renting buys a goes to people on the waterfront. -- bicycles to people on the waterfront. just a bit of history on bike sharing in san francisco. it was a priority of gavin newsom. i have been working on this project for a couple of years now. now that we have a grant, we are able to get going. it is now also a big priority of mayor lee. we are happy to have his support. we have that technology demonstrations from industry leaders four or five times now, so we are familiar with the technology. the two pictures there are from civic park plaza from last

december. the one on the bottom is golden gate park. a little bit about the pilot project i am involved in. the over all lead is the air quality management district. together, with the valley transportation authority in the south bay, caltrain, the county of san mateo, the city of redwood city, we applied for a grant with the air district being the grantee. we were having to get a $4.3 million grant. the air district will also be putting another $1.3 million of their own money. then all of the local partners are bringing in various amounts of match and in kind staff. this is just to show visually all of the participating jurisdictions lining up along the caltrain corridor.

our plan now is to launch in spring 2012. the overall pilot is 1000 bikes at 100 stations. half of those are coming to san francisco. we have identified a pilot direct service area that stretches from van ness down to the waterfront. and from mission bay in the south as far as pier 39 in the north. station placing will vary somewhat more throughout the introductory area, but we are aiming for more less one station every two to four blocks. this shows a map of the proposed pilot area.

i think i've said enough on that one. aside from this pilot area, 500 bikes, we feel san francisco should be able to support a system of six or seven times that. maybe 3000 bicycles, immediately. but to determine beyond the pot and where we would go with like sharing, we did a city-wide suitability and analysis. we looked at 11 different factors. parks and into the bikeway network, to transit, tourist sites. we put all of these factors

together on one map, and we have this over all which shows the northeast corner of the city which would be the most suitable areas. darker blue would be the most suitable. white areas are least suitable. this really confirms for me the original choice of the pilot area. you may notice mission bay is conspicuously white. we attribute that to the fact that there is more than enough going on in mission bay to support bicycle sharing. at this point, we are doing out reach to other agencies, and we are working on figuring out where the station will be placed. preliminary spots are fairly easy. we need it to be near the

caltrain station, at the ferry building, bart stations, the temporary transbay terminal, where the golden gate transit buses are, picking up and dropping off. aside from that, at large employers and a large job attractors where there is a lot of retail activity. again, what is important, other than hitting the specific spots we need to be is the spacing. if someone wants to drop off or pick up a bike, they can do so conveniently. the stations themselves will be located in the public right of way mostly, so on the sidewalk where there is room, or in the street, like some of our bike corrals. we are familiar with that idea

because we have put the bike racks into the public right away. where it is not right, we may negotiate with private landowners. a quick overview of the project schedule. we plan to release the rfp this fall. we have a draft that is close to being done. this week, it will be going to caltrans for review. this is a federally-funded project, so they need to review the parker documents. we intend to select a venue and contractor by the end of next year and give the vendor 5 to six months to manufacture the bicycles, deploy the people, and launch, hopefully for bike to work day in may 2012. it is a one-year pilot but there

may be some staggering of launch dates up and down the peninsula between the different partners. after 18 months, the project will close out for the purposes of the pilot and federal funding, and then there will be an evaluation. there will be one done by the metropolitan commission, and one done by the air district. next, we are continuing to hone in on where want to put the stations, dealing with the port, dpw, redevelopment agency, other city agencies as well. we are reaching out to individual businesses. even if we put it in the public right of way, we want to do so with the cooperation and invitation of adjacent businesses. and we are doing public out reach. as discussed, we will be working on selecting a vendor.

we have been working with ports have to identify spaces along the waterfront. i just have a couple of slides talking about two in particular. we have four which we have identified to date as likely spots. the first is roundhouse plaza, on the west side of embarcadero, pier 27. it is difficult to see here, but the blue box here is the bcdc corridor. at the very bottom, there is a green rectangle. that would be the actual station itself. these are closeups of the site. the yellow outlined in profile is meant to represent the station itself on one hand, the upright pieces being the kiosk

and solar mask. the other part is the method panel. -- map panel. this particular spot the not have many issues, is near the bar station -- bart station. the other place we're looking at is on pier 40. there is the yellow rectangle in the middle. that is where the station would go. and there is up close again. -- there it is up close again. that is the space it would take up. the station themselves are about 6 feet wide. they are modular, so we can expand them to be as long as we want this one is about 40 feet long?

a minimum of 40 feet to 60 feet. there is a little bit of space behind the station which we need to accommodate for entering and exiting the station. that is all i have for you today. happy to answer any questions you have. >> we do have public comment. andy thornley. >> thank you, commissioners. you will not be surprised to hear we are very supportive of this pilot. i want to point out, this is not for cyclists. folks who have bikes right now have bikes. bike sharing is marvelous because it gives an option to folks who do not have a bicycle but want to make a quick trip. it is a great taxi substitute, a great muni substitute. no date on muni.

let's say i am here, i have a lunch date in palo alto. i can make a 10-minute trip to the station, ride the muni, and then make it to my lunch. i would not think of myself as a cyclist, but i would have made a trip. if you have been to paris, barcelona, minneapolis, you may have tried one of the systems. they are wonderful and growing. it really makes short trips convenient and sustainable. density is the key. to the extent that we have a pilot, we want it to be a fair test. there is no point in throwing out 10 stations a mile apart and saying, nobody used it. you need to have those stations close together. in paris and london, the rule of thumb is you need to be able to see the next station. when i get done with my trip, i

do not want to have to walk 1 mile to drop the bike off. so the ports of participation in this is important, density is as well. to the extent that mta is looking at four locations, that is probably a minimum. i appreciate this is real estate, this is an encroachment issue, to some extent, but there are answers to all of that. i am glad to hear that staff is resolving these issues. it really promises to be a huge success if we do it right. i just want to make sure that we all think about how to to do it right. again, this is not for cyclists. this is for people. there are a whole lot of people that need to move around, especially to port properties. i hope that you will give this your fullest regard and support it as it goes forward. >> thank you. is there any other public

comment on this item? commissioners? >> your objective is to displace cars. since you mention being close to the transit centers. you are going to have people who used to walk 10 minutes ago on a bike for three minutes. would that change if you are trying to reduce cars and emissions? i read somewhere that that was one of your objectives. so you are giving people who use the transit already an easier way to get to where they need to go to, versus increasing or decreasing people using public transit. my second question is related -- i understand it has been successful in other cities. is there any feedback from san francisco public, in terms of how they would adapt to this idea? have you done any consumer feedback to understand how quickly people would adopt this or not?

whether you are dealing with a transit customers or somebody who would change the way they commute. >> definitely, the goals of our founders are to replace single occupancy vehicle trips. that is the major goal of the program. there are lots of goals with bike sharing. survey data from other systems in europe and the united states show it is switching trips from cars. in europe, on the order of 5% to 8% of members state they previously would have driven. in denver and minneapolis, tidbit -- two cities which were operational last year, far more car-oriented cities, the mode shipped was far greater than in europe, where people were already walking or biking or taking transit. on the order of 12% to 20% of

trips taken by by sharing by members formally done by car. in san francisco, my sense is something in between. san francisco is a little bit more of a european city than minneapolis or denver, so we could see it anywhere between 8% and 10% of trips switch from cars. people will also be switching from other modes. sunday will will get on it that were previously walking. i do not see any trouble with that. i do not think my colleagues at muni have any trouble with that as well if we had taken some off of a muni going outbound at 5:30. that is part of the evaluation. there is a lot of data that we can get directly from the technology, but we do not know what people would have done until we ask them what they would ever done. in terms of outreach to the community, we have been taking

our show around. we have been to the bicycle and advisory committee, working with the bicycle coalition -- >> i agree with the previous speaker, this is not for cyclists. >> we have not had much feedback from non-cyclists. we had unlimited funding for this so we have not conducted a thorough and far reaching feasibility analysis, other than the city analysis which i showed you. but having seen the success in other cities, knowing the characteristics of san francisco, the sense is if this can success anywhere in north america, which it has, it will be able to succeed here. one of the biggest dowdies from sharing, aside from another motor transit, -- mode of

transit, it is great advertising for bicyclists. it puts bicycles in the public realm. in san francisco, i am optimistic about what the results will be in terms of increased bicycle rideri use a . a couple of questions. you mentioned some of the maps were outdated. i am assuming those are general concepts and we will ascertain flow differently? for example, we have our blue- green way. i would love to see some thought pu of station being put into th.

and large number of users may come from tourists, so have done work with the visitors and convention bureau to work with them to figure out how they might be using that? >> right now, we are reaching out to different groups. we have not met specifically with the bureau. >> they have changed their name, item no. no. what it is. >> just yesterday i spoke with one of the largest bicycle rental companies here in san francisco. they're obviously concerned and interested. the gentleman who i spoke with stan to be heavily involved in bicycle sharing. probably will propose as part of the team, one of the vendors. as i showed, as i tried to

show, although tourists will be major users of the system, my sense is tourists using bicycles who did not use them before. the pricing is such that you would not take it to run across the golden gate bridge, ride it out to sausalito. that is where the core of the business comes from the operators on the waterfront. my hope is it not compete because of the pricing structure. but also, my suspicion is it will actually increase business for the rental companies because people will be introduced to bicycling for $5 and they will see is something that is not so scary after all. then they will be more likely to rent a bike for eight hours and do that longer trip. >> i assume liability will be dealt with? >> absolutely. that is everybody's first

concern. i have been working with the city attorney, the port attorney. we have an interagency agreement between the five agencies i mentioned and a lot of the language in there is about mutual indemnification, holding people harmless. there will be a waiver. really, the city and port will not be a party to the contract with the vendor, and we will not own the bicycles. there will be owned by the vendor or the air district. this is for the duration of the pilot. once the pilot period end, our hope is we put transition seamlessly into a more permanent system, which would be expanded. at that point, we would have to transition into intricate -- different arrangement. we do not know what that would look like, but we have all sort of sign on the line that we would figure it out as it goes.

in other cities, it is done differently. in washington, d.c., it is done on a franchise basis. in minneapolis, it is operated by a private nonprofit. >> i think i have seen them in d.c., i thought that they had credit card machines. >> if you are a day member, or a month remember, it would not make sense to get a fob. the technology for the cards is the same as the clipper card. it is a radio frequency id chip in the card. for the duration of the pilot, we would number in the program for integrating -- we would not burden the program for integrating that into the program.

>> i have a question on liability, more about safety issues, taking into consideration we had an accident here on the waterfront, unfortunately, and a fatality. in other cities, how do they ensure that the people that rent the bikes are people that can actually ride them? i know that you have cover the liabilities side, but just on the safety issue? maybe not for the pilot, but in terms of the people already being conscious -- a lot of cyclists. creating more people on bikes, the safety patterns in downtown san francisco, since there is no secret here, how will that be considered in order to keep the bicycle lists as well as the motorists, and any other pedestrian to say?