I was in DC a few weeks ago to hang out and see some bands play and had some time Saturday morning while my wife was out with her friends. We were staying near the Verizon Center and we were going to meet at the zoo on Connecticut. The Metro was undergoing track work on the line I needed to take so I figured it was a great chance to try out Capital Bike Share.
I started out on a little joy ride around the mall. I took the Pennsylvania Ave bike lanes to the capital then around the mall to the Jefferson Monument which I haven't ever bothered walking over to. I saw the Martin Luther King Jr monument which is really beautiful in person. Using CBS made this trip easy and quick given my limited time.
The bikes are comfortable, work well and have three gears which was plenty for DC. You're not going to win any races but it does the job.
I used Google Maps to find my route and they took me up the 15th St cycle track which RULED.
It's two way and separated by parked cars. Bikes have priority at intersections. It's a really fast route. I was able to take my slow bike and make it through light after light. 15th intersected with more streets that had normal bike lanes.
This little piece of bike infrastructure was nice. An upstream bike lane that creates a connection around some large structures.
Riding around DC was nice for the most part. Granted it was Saturday afternoon but traffic was fairly calm for a city such as DC. The only stressful part of the whole trip was Connecticut.
The price for my day was $22, but I took it for a joy ride and only used it once. Had I just gone straight to my destination it would have only cost me the rental fee plus maybe $1.50. They are also in the process of installing more stations throughout the mall which would have made my trip even cheaper since I could have docked the bike when I was checking out the monuments.
Anecdotally it looks to me that there are easily as many people using CBS bikes as are using personal bikes. It's a really popular and well used program.
