Wednesday, September 29, 2010
 

Kate Ryan, WTOP reporter, writes bike blog

Kate Ryan is a reporter for WTOP. She's also an avid cyclist who often covers bike-related topics for WTOP. See her story entitled Bike death prompts change to Md. driver laws. Kate maintains a good bike blog, Lane Change: Kate Ryan Reports. It's frequently updated and has lots of good DC-area bike news. See CaBi: My Test Ride and Bikes and Cars: We May Struggle to Share the Road...

We also recently rode our first Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) bike in  Crystal City during Car Free Day. The bikes look very sturdy and are great for getting around town. The density of stations in Crystal City seemed very good and it looks like the system there will be a success. It's a great accomplishment to have a system that's compatible in two different states (oops... a state and the District of Columbia).

Here's our latest CaBi story: When we had a meeting downtown this week we took Metro and wanted to test out the bikes again. We exited the Orange line at Foggy Bottom and planned to ride the bike to the McPherson Square area (don't tell anyone I didn't have a helmet with me). At home I had looked at the map of current stations and saw there was one near the Foggy Bottom Metro station. When I arrived, I whipped out my iPhone, pulled up the map from the CaBi site and .... couldn't see a thing. Well, I could see a few streets and what looked like station symbols but couldn't read the street names and the map navigation was very hard to control.

I ended up walking from Foggy Bottom, along K Street, all the way to 16th St and saw no stations; no CaBi stations that is. There were two SmartBike stations but they didn't do me any good. I was told there is an iPhone app for finding stations, and after some searching just came across iFindBikes, a free (for now) app: "iFindBikes is the ideal tool for users of city bike rental around the world. iFindBikes shows you where are the bike stations around you and how many bikes and docks (parking slots) are available." Guess I'll study the online map a little more closely before heading out next time. I'll also check out iFindBikes.

Labels: ,

Comments:
SpotCycle is probably the best (and free!) smartphone application for finding Capital Bikeshare bikes:

http://www.commuterpageblog.com/2010/09/we-got-an-app-for-that.html
 
Thanks Tim. I've downloaded the app and it looks like it will be very helpful, although the map display is a bit slow and seems to get hung up once in a while. I'll use it the next time I'm looking for a CaBi bike.
 

Post a Comment

Contact FABB via email: info@fabb-bikes.org

Subscribe to the
FABB e-newsletter


Subscribe to posts:
[Atom 1.0] or [RSS 2.0]





  Bike to Work Day 2015 at Wiehle Station

  Transportation choices

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Archives

  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007