Two years after its inception, Guadalajara’s public bicycle system, Mi Bici, inaugurated a huge expansion Thursday — a doubling of both the number of rentable bikes and the areas served.
For weeks, the coming of the labor-intensive extension was heralded by the appearance of new, solar-powered kiosks and stations outside the core areas of downtown Guadalajara and Zapopan, with stations appearing along far-flung streets in Chapalita and Tlaquepaque — but still bikeless.
“The bicycles are here but they’re in storage,” a Mi Bici maintenance worker told a curious passerby weeks ago.
But that changed Thursday, along with a jump in the time permitted per ride from 30 to 45 minutes. (Users, whether buying annual memberships or temporary passes, may take as many 45-minute rides as they wish, and in order not to incur extra charges, must return the bike to any station within the time limit and wait 1-5 minutes before taking a bike for another 45-minute ride.)
The expansion represents the fruition of the brainchild of organized young cyclists who, modeling Mi Bici on similar systems worldwide, hoped it would reduce urban auto traffic. These visionaries prided themselves on getting local government, in this case Jalisco, to take on such a program.
“There were various bicycle organizations who started this initiative,” said Malintzin Negrete of Jalisco’s Instituto de Movilidad y Transporte, referring to cycling advocates involved in nocturnal bike rides, the Via RecreActiva, and other activities.
“The impact on traffic has been very positive,” she added enthusiastically. “People say when they ride Mi Bici bikes, car drivers are more respectful than when they’re just riding their own bikes.
“Besides that, in 80,000 trips taken here, we’ve only had nine accidents and only one of them was serious. None were mortal.”
She said that her office’s education efforts continue with daily presentations to various groups, such as neighbors, government workers and schools.
“The bike drivers have been a little hard to contact,” she said, noting that some bike driver problems continue, such as using the thin lanes painted with diagonal, white strips as bike lanes, instead of as buffer (no-ride) lanes, as they were intended.
“The lanes painted as Bicycle Priority lanes are working, although it’s a big social change. Cars on these streets slow down. Of course, there have been all types of reactions from cars, from yelling at the bicyclist to being very respectful. Overall, we’ve seen an improvement in the core areas [downtown Guadalajara and Zapopan] in how car drivers treat both cyclists and pedestrians.
“Whether cyclists are riding in Bicycle Priority zones, with green triangles, which are generally slower streets, or on unmarked streets, they are supposed to ride in the middle of the rightmost lane, and cars are supposed to stay behind them, going more slowly.” Mi Bici staff suggest that, as a courtesy, when bikers in this situation get to an area that is amply wide, they can move to the right and let any cars pass.
Staffers note with pride that the cost of an annual membership in Guadalajara is among the lowest in the world (365 pesos a year, compared to 400 pesos in Mexico City and the equivalent of 1,300 pesos in New York and 1,900 pesos in London). She noted that some health, robbery and damage to third party insurance coverage is included in the purchase of passes and memberships.
Negrete mentioned that passes for one, three or five days are available with credit cards only (not debit cards) at kiosks and that these may be best for tourists who only visit sporadically.
“You touch the screen, choose your language, pay with a credit card and your pass comes out of the kiosk.”
Some users suggest that for annual memberships which yield a “key” (small, rigid plaques to attach to a key holder), a visit to the Mi Bici office at Federalismo 403 near Avenida La Paz works best, as the key is immediately provided after payment with credit or debit card.
Negrete noted that day passes are intentionally quite a bit more expensive than annual passes.
For more information, see www.mibici.net or Mi Bici Publica on Facebook.