Shifting Gears: Framing Bike-sharing Trends in Sun Belt Cities

While bike-sharing is typically framed as a means of transportation for weekday commuters, a new analysis of the programs in Austin, Denver, Fort Worth, and Houston indicates that users frequently turn to bike-sharing for recreational purposes in these cities. This finding is critical to our understanding of bike-share programs, which are poised to proliferate and expand in the Sun Belt and elsewhere in the coming years.

As planners, policymakers, and program operators throughout the country develop bike-share systems, they can benefit from a richer understanding of how people use bike-share programs in lower-density, automobileoriented urban environments. However, despite the rise of bike-sharing systems, comparative studies of bikesharing activity are lacking, particularly for cities in the southern and western United States. To shed light on the role that bike-share systems inhabit in these areas, this study examines bike-sharing trips in Austin, Denver, Fort Worth, and Houston, comparing and visualizing the type and volume of trips in the four cities.