These are my posts on Yolo 80 Managed Lanes Project, or related and relevant. The category ‘managed lanes‘ will surface most of these posts, and future ones if there are any. My main purpose is to inform the public so we will be better informed for the next project (and there will be a next project). The only thing that might stop the Yolo 80 project is a lawsuit or lack of funds. Public opinion will not stop it.
I now will get back to other issues that I’ve been neglecting while focused on Yolo 80 and managed lanes.
All-lanes tolling means that all lanes of a freeway or bridge are tolled, or priced. Freeways and bridges are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, even if they are not way over budget as most bridges and many freeways are. Gas tax or road charge (road charge) will never be enough to pay for these infrastructure projects and maintenance. Therefore, more than half of the cost is shifted onto taxpayers who use less of these facilities, or don’t use them at all. In the future, either more and more taxpayer funds will go to keeping these facilities in state of good repair, or they will deteriorate, which is already happening in many places. The solution is to have the users of such facilities pay the full price of such facilities.
Caltrans approach to transportation is to continually build more and to under-maintain what they already have. Anyone who says the era of big, expensive bridge and freeway projects is at an end doesn’t know Caltrans. Caltrans is like the heroin addict who needs ‘just one more hit, and then I’ll quit’. The only solution is to have Caltrans go ‘cold turkey’, ceasing all freeway expansions and focusing on maintenance. Of course most Caltrans engineers would be suddenly superfluous, and that it the real issue, that freeway and bridge building is just an employment program for engineers, having little to do with meeting the needs of the traveling public.
MTC (Metropolitan Transportation Commission) is the Municipal Planning Organization, MPO, for the nine county Bay Area, similar to SACOG in the Sacramento region. MTC is considering all-lane tolling in a study to determine how to fund maintenance of freeways. I encourage you to view the MTC presentation at the SPUR Digital Discourse in January 2023 (https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/NGFS_SPUR_Jan2023.pdf). The best summary page is below. Keep in mind that this is a long term study, and solutions might not be implemented before 2035. Nevertheless, the Sacramento region could learn a lot from the study, and even implement some ideas before 2035. Other MTC pages and documents of interest: Express Lanes START, Next Generation Bay Area Freeways Study, Bay Area Express Lanes, and Open Road Tolling. Yes, Sacramento is not the bay area, but anyone who claims we can’t learn from each other is stupid.
Note that it says ‘in Transit-Rich Corridors’ for two of the options. Sacramento currently has three corridors that might be considered transit-rich: Capitol Corridor between Sacramento and the Bay Area (if frequency were improved), light rail to Watt/I-80 for I-80 (if access and connections were improved), and light rail to Folsom for Hwy 50 (if access and connections were improved, and after 15-minute service to Folsom is implemented). I-5 does not have an alternate transit corridor. None of these are comparable to transit-rich corridors in the bay area provided by BART, Caltrain, Capitol Corridor, and several high frequency and BRT-ish bus services. To achieve this level of transit-rich in the Sacramento region will require funds beyond that which might be available from a new sales tax measure (which has been delayed until 2026, or beyond). I believe that tolling/pricing is the only practical source of funds that will allow our region to develop transit rich corridors parallel to our freeways, and beyond, as well as maintaining what we have. Note: I can’t find an official definition of high frequency rail, so I’m going to say 30 minutes during peak times and 60 minutes at all other times. Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins do not achieve this yet.
I believe that all-lane tolling is the best ultimate solution. Freeways should not be free. The illusion that they are free to use is the same that biases motor vehicle drivers over all other modes and users. The money is coming from somewhere, so the question is, is it coming from the users of the freeways, or from everyone? For individuals, paying for what they use would cause them to use less, and shift travel to other modes. Yes, people would still drive, but less than they do now. For freight, paying true costs would no doubt increase the price of goods transported by truck. Truck freight traffic is highly subsidized, most prominently by not making trucks pay their share of road damage. Rail freight is not directly subsidized, though in a sense accepting the diesel pollution, disruption of travel across rail corridors, and dominance over passenger rail are indirect subsidies.
Below is a map of the SACOG region showing freeways, rail, and high frequency transit (light rail and bus). If you squint hard, you may be able to pick out the transit. So the following map shows the area focused on Davis to Folsom. These are sketch maps meant to give a general idea, so pdfs are not provided, and I intend to update and refine the maps.
map of freeways, rail and high frequency transitmap of freeways, rail and high frequency transit, focused on Davis to Folsom
Road charge is not a tolling system. It charges per mile driven, no matter what the classification of roads (freeway, arterial, collector, local). The California gas tax funds maintenance of mostly large infrastructure, bridges and freeways, but to a lesser degree surface arterials, collectors and local roads. In every place in California, the gas tax, as well as motor vehicle fees, pays for only about half of the cost of roadways. The rest is paid for at the county and city level, by all taxpayers regardless of how much they drive, or even if they drive. As such, transportation funding is in part a subsidy to motor vehicle drivers by people who don’t drive. The same is true at the federal level, where gas tax accounts for less than half of the highway trust fund. The inflation adjusted yield of federal gas tax has been declining since 1994.
A road charge, which drivers pay when they actually use the roadways, is an equitable system because every driver can choose, to some degree, to drive more or less. Though many low income people live in locations where access to jobs and other destinations is difficult without a car, there is always some choice involved. That doesn’t mean there are no equity implications, but a road charge is definitely more equitable than the gas tax because high income people can afford higher gas mileage or electric vehicles, whereas low income people cannot.
Many road charge proposals charge all vehicles the same per-mile rate. This is not equitable. The damage to pavement, and the pollution generated by tire and brake wear, is directly related to the weight of the vehicle. Big rig trucks cause many times more damage to roadways, and produce many time more tire and brake dust, than passenger vehicles. And large SUVs, so popular these days, also produce much more roadway wear and tear and tire and brake dust. And of course since electric vehicles weight considerably more than fossil fuel vehicles, they also produce more. Therefore, road charges should be ‘weighted’ by the weight of the vehicle. This information is available for every vehicle, as it is required when registering; yes, people can modify to create heavier weight, but the initial weight is close enough. Caltrans claims that all vehicles under 10,000 lbs GVW cause the same amount of road damage, even the elephantine electric Hummer, but this doesn’t pass the smell test. The standard calculation is that road wear goes up as the square (conservatively; fourth power is well documented for heavy trucks) of the weight. So the Hummer (9500 lbs) causes about 100 times the damage of a Prius (3000 lbs). Even at the conservative second power, it causes 10 times as much damage. Heavier vehicles of course also require that bridges be built for heavier loads, increasing their built cost as well as maintenance.
California has carried out one road charge pilot, a demonstration for different charging mechanisms, and is soon to start another pilot. It is hard to say when a road change might be implemented across the state. It has a lot of opposition from drivers who think the roadways should be free and that others should pay instead, or that gas tax covers infrastructure needs, which is only partially does.
San Diego County (SANDAG MPO) was slated to start a road charge for that county, but the board chickened out and removed it from the regional transportation plan draft. However, it is unlikely the plan will be accepted by the state unless it is either returned, or a viable alternative is proposed (KPBS: SANDAG board nixes ‘road usage charge’ from transportation plan).
It is a universal truth that drivers don’t want to pay the true cost of their driving. An appropriately designed road charge comes closer to the true cost than anything else.
A reminder: A road change is different from tolling/pricing. The road charge applies to all roadways at all times. Tolling applies to high cost infrastructure such as bridges and freeways, and may vary with time or other criteria.
I often take Capitol Corridor to and from the bay area, and sometimes back from Davis (riding my bike there, usually). My observation is that I-80 is indeed congested at times, never more so than on Friday afternoons with traffic heading to Lake Tahoe area, but to some degree at AM and PM commute times. And of course when there are crashes that slow or stop traffic, which seems to happen pretty regularly. Though transportation agencies and most drivers see this section of I-80 as a bottleneck, and want the congestion solved, I see this section as a control valve on the whole system between the bay area and Nevada. Some people will make a choice to travel at a different time, or to avoid the trip completely, or to use other modes of travel. But many will just sit in traffic and cuss the government for allowing congestion. As the say goes, “You are not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic”. In that sense, the three lanes each way segment of I-80 through Yolo County serves as the pressure valve on the cooker of motor vehicle traffic. If the bottleneck is removed, traffic will expand to fill the available space, just as the steam does when I turn the valve to release my pressure cooker. Caltrans does not deny that the project will induce more VMT, so it has a list of mitigations for that induced VMT.
There are more or less two views on the Yolo 80 project: Alan Hirsch/Yolo Mobility (and others) believe that we should not expand the freeway or remove the bottleneck. Instead we should better fund transit and rail to provide an alternative to freeway travel. The others, such as YoloTD and Caltrans, believe that expanding transit and rail is important, but we can only fund that with the income from managed lanes. They also want to ‘solve’ the ‘congestion problem’.
HOV lanes should be removed from consideration, as they do not work. Alternatives 2 and 7 in the draft EIR include HOV lanes. I don’t support alternative 6 to add a transit only lane (part-time of full-time) because under this scenario, no source of sufficient funding to run frequent bus service is available, and if no frequent service, a bus lane is a waste of space, whether it is a new lane or an existing lane. This is not to discount the value of transit lanes, but to say they must make sense under current or near term service plans. Alternatives 3 and 4 add HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, 3 is 2+ occupants, and 4 is 3+ occupants. I don’t know enough to distinguish between these, though I do know that 2+ is common in the bay area and 3+ is common in southern California. However, I don’t think that HOT lanes are the best tolling solution because they allow vehicles with the requisite occupants to avoid tolls completely. They do have some congestion reduction benefits and some VMT reduction benefits, but the research available indicates they don’t have significant benefits, and there are equity implications since it may be mostly higher income commuters and travelers that can arrange for higher occupancy over long distances.
If the corridor is to be widened at all, I believe alternative 5, express lane tolling, is best. It should be designed so that every vehicle (except transit) pays for every trip. There would be discounts for lower income people, probably using the CalFresh or other program discount of 50%. There would be discounts for the number of occupants for users of the FasTrak Flex transponder that can be set to 1, 2, or 3+ occupants. Caltrans is also exploring technology that would allow sensing of number of occupants without this particular transponder. The could be and probably should be discounts for travel during non-congested times when all lanes of the freeway are mostly free-flowing. But every vehicle should be paying something at all times. There is a clear equity advantage to express lane tolling in that all users are paying into the system so that tolls per use can be set lower. People talking about Yolo 80 tolling, including those opposed to any tolling at all, have bandied about charges of $10 to $40, but I believe that express lane tolling would set full price tolling at no more than $5, and likely less. A detailed operations and charges plan would await creation of the tolling authority, so nothing is known for certain about tolls at this time. I have not been able to find any projection of tolls in Caltrans or YoloTD documents, though certainly it may exist.
FasTrak Flex with occupany switch (from VTA); different agencies use different models
My preferred alternative is 1, no build. I want the Yolo bottleneck to remain a bottleneck so that it sets a ceiling on VMT in the entire I-80 corridor from Nevada to San Francisco. We don’t need, now or ever, more motor vehicle capacity. We need travel mode alternatives. The best alternative, I believe, is higher frequency for Capitol Corridor between Roseville and San Jose. Other actions such as better bus service, both local and regional, better walking and bicycling facilities, e-bike subsidies, and effective bike share systems are all part of the solution. More lanes, of whatever type, is not the solution.
I was recently asked what model for bike share could work in the Sacramento region, given the recent pull-out of Lime, and the small fleet offered by Bird.
The current situation is:
SACOG no longer wants to be involved in bike share
it is not clear whether Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District wants to be involved
private bike share companies have pulled out of Sacramento twice now, without notice to the permitting agencies nor users
privately owned and operated bike share systems are struggling in many cities, and they have either ended or cut back
City of Sacramento does not want to be involved in managing bike share beyond issuing permits; it isn’t clear whether West Sacramento wants to
Davis, under a partnership between UC Davis and the City of Davis, has a bike share system operated by Spin, and was not part of the SACOG program before it ended
when the system was in operation, it covered only parts of Sacramento and West Sacramento, excluding many lower income neighborhoods
discount programs offered by Lime, and still by Bird, are important, but are meaningless if bikes are not available in low income neighborhoods
It is clear that the privately owned and operated model is not working, and will not work, for Sacramento and West Sacramento. I believe that bike share is an integral part of our transportation system, and it is the responsibility of the transportation agencies to ensure that there is viable bike share in urban areas. So what model might work? Please understand that I do not have special expertise in bike share programs, beyond having used the local ones extensively, used systems in several other cities, and in fact was a primary enabler of the SoBi and initial JUMP systems by rebalancing bikes when the companies were understaffed to do so. I encourage you to look at NACTO’s Bike Share and Shared Micromobility Initiative and Shared Micromobility in 2022 to educate yourself about bike share.
Note: I am not addressing scooter share. My observation of scooter share is that it mostly replaces walking trips, and therefore has no VMT reduction value. Bike share seems to be used mostly to replace motor vehicle trips. Therefore bike share is the important issue to be solved.
My model
Bike share would be publicly owned, including bikes, bike parking areas and racks, and docks or charging infrastructure if that turns out to be the system model.
Bike share would be privately operated under contract with a public agency. The private company would be required to give a minimum of 60 days notice to terminate the operation.
The best public entity to own and contract the system in the Sacramento region is SacRT. I don’t say this because SacRT has any expertise or competence in bike share, but because they are the one regional entity that covers nearly all of Sacramento County, and might be interested, and through MOU, could cover West Sacramento as well (Yolobus is likely to eventually be annexed by SacRT, but the two agencies already cooperate). There is a nexus between transit and bike share, because bike share fulfills the first mile/last mile needs of many riders. Bike share locations would not be limited to transit stops, but that would be one of the criteria for system design and bike locations.
SacRT, or other entity, would contract with a private company with experience in bike share management to operate the system. It is also possible that a nonprofit might be created to operate the system, as this has been a successful model in several cities, particularly as private systems failed.
The system would be operated in areas with enough residential or commercial activity to justify productive and profitable (for the private operator) operation. Since there are such areas outside of the cities in the county, and since there are also areas within the cities that are too low density to justify bike share, it does not make sense for operations to be contracted by the cities. Criteria for successful areas would have to be developed, and adjusted as appropriate.
There is a role for the cities, and the counties, to fund bike share infrastructure. Though grants are a possibility, there are no existing and reliable sources of funding for the publicly owned system. Either the cities and counties fund it, or it doesn’t happen. Once the system is in operation, there may be enough ‘profit’ to maintain and upgrade the system, so that the cities and counties might not have to supply ongoing funding. Or it may require ongoing subsidy.
The private operator would be subsidized by an amount subject to negotiation, for perhaps two years, but the system should not need ongoing subsidy. The initial subsidy would cover the start up period during which the system would rebuild knowledge and support among the users. The withdrawal of LIme, and JUMP/Uber before that, has certainly damaged the reputation of bike share, and the new system will have to rebuild trust.
There are three types of bike share systems:
Docked: Bike must be returned to a dock after use. Docks are provided in areas of higher use.
Undocked: Bikes can be parked anywhere, though them must be locked to a rack or within a designation parking area.
Hybrid: Bike may be returned to a dock or hub, or parked elsewhere. JUMP had a highly successful hybrid system, where users were rewarded for returning bikes to a charging hub, but could park elsewhere. The bay area Bay Wheels is hybrid for pedal assist e-bikes (not regular bikes) in that they can be parked away from docks for a small fee.
There are plenty of other issues to resolve before we get to which type of system, but I provided that for people who will ask. Each system has its advantages and disadvantages, and its proponents and detractors.
HOV lanes are a failure. They save time for the drivers using them, but always less time than was asserted when the project was designed, funded, and built. And they do not save average drivers any time at all. But when added to existing freeways, they certainly cost a lot of money. And they certainly induce a lot more travel, exacerbating climate change, motor vehicle pollution, and damage to the communities through which they pass.
Hwy 50 in Sacramento
Despite this fact, the Hwy 50 project in Sacramento is adding HOV lanes in order to widen the freeway, which will induce more travel, and return traffic to previous or greater levels within a few years, or less. That means accelerated climate change, motor vehicle pollution and noise in the areas through which they travel, and for this particular project, strong discouragement to walkers and bicyclist passing under the freeway, since the undercrossings are very dark and very scary.
Hwy 50 HOV lanes (Fix50) project includes: “Adding Carpool [High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV)] lanes in each direction on U.S. Highway 50 from east of Watt Avenue to Interstate 5”. HOV lanes would also be added on two on-ramps at 65th Street. I haven’t been able to locate any operational information. Will HOV be weekdays daytime, as in the Bay Area, or full time, as in Southern California?
HOV lane enforcement
Part of the reason HOV lanes have no benefit is that they are violated by many drivers. Though the target violation level is 10% (see below), data from the bay area indicates that violation is often 25%. If you stand on an overpass looking down at a HOV lanes, as I have done, you may conclude that 25% is an underestimate. (Study finds large number of drivers abusing Bay Area carpool lanes)
How Are HOV Lanes Enforced? (Caltrans): “The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is responsible for HOV lane enforcement. The goal is to keep HOV violation rates to less than 10%. Once monitor counts detect violation rates above 10%, District personnel will notify local area CHP of the need for heightened enforcement in a particular HOV corridor. An HOV lane violation ticket is a minimum $490 fine. Fine may be higher for repeat offenders. In addition, at the discretion of the county’s Board of Supervisors, local counties can assess additional administrative fees.”
CHP recently did a maximum enforcement period on Santa Rosa area HOV lanes. These actions are almost always funded by grants from OTS, and are commonly an indication the vehicle code in question is NOT being enforced at other times. CHP officers get paid overtime for these enforcement actions, but they don’t consider these violations are part of their routine activities. (Carpool lane crackdown: CHP writes 72 tickets in a single day, even the boss gets in on the action)
The upshot
HOV lanes are not a solution to anything. They allow Caltrans and other transportation agencies to increase freeway capacity while claiming benefits, while what they do is induce more travel, undoing any possible benefits. There should be no more HOV lanes constructed, anywhere. All existing HOV lanes should be converted to HOT (High Occupancy Toll) or Express tolled lanes.
This includes the new HOV lanes that will open on Hwy 50. They must be converted to toll lanes. The creation of a regional tolling authority would make this easier, though it would certainly be politically unpopular, or at least unpopular with drivers who think everything should be free, and politicians who kowtow to the entitlement of drivers. The legislation which authorizes tollling (AB 194 of 2015) provides that HOV lanes may be converted to toll lanes. The benefits of conversion must be documented, and it appears likely but not certain that it must be approved by California Transportation Commission (CTC).
HOV Lanes and VMT (Caltrans). This resource states clearly: “Caltrans’ guidance on induced travel treats high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes similar to general purpose (GP) lanes in terms of VMT generation If a GP lane is converted to HOV, the project is screened as unlikely to induce travel project that adds a new HOV lane generally would be expected to induce as much travel in terms of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a new GP lane would.
If you search for ‘induced travel hov lanes’, you will find a large number of resource. Many transportation agencies claim a benefit, but no research backs up that claim. Caltrans does not claim a benefit, but does continually build projects despite that.
The proposal by Yolo County Transportation Authority (YoloTD) and Caltrans to add a managed lane to the I-80 corridor between the Solano County line and just inside Sacramento County, is the hot transportation topic in the region. It would induce motor vehicle traffic (VMT) along this corridor, and by extension, would induce traffic on I-5, I-80, and US 50 within Sacramento County. I’m sure I’ll have a number of posts. Two so far are: Tolling for I-80 managed lanes and missing alternatives for Yolo 80 Managed Lanes Project.
Cool Davis sponsored a recent event in Davis, entitled A Freeway Teach-In: Davis Futures Forum on the Future of the I-80 Corridor. You can watch a video of the event on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7a07pyhLs. The first 4:45 is dead space that you can skip, and the actual presentations start at 19:00. I encourage you to watch the video. I noticed that different people had different take-aways, so you may have your own. But of course I’ll comment.
There are three items that I found most interesting.
Susan Handy (starting 32:27) of UC Davis ITS summarized and referred to her recently published book, Shifting Gears. Here primary point is that his particular project must be viewed in the context of our entire transportation system, including how we go here, where we are, and where we might go. She explained induced travel in a succinct and clear manner. She reminded that transportation and land use cannot be considered separately.
Don Mooney (starting 1:13:00), an attorney who has previously sued Caltrans, pointed out that public comments on the Draft EIR of the ‘I like it’ or ‘I hate it’ are meaningless to the process. Only substantiative comments from experts or which quote from expert sources have any effect on the decision, or provide standing for suing over the final decision.
The City of Sacramento has released the Draft Criteria and Guidance to Accommodate Active Transportation in Work Zones and at Events. The related page is Work Zone and Event Detour Policy Update. The city’s Active Transportation Commission (SacATC), many advocates in the region, as well as myself, have long requested this document, as current city practice is simply unacceptable. Starting with this post, posts related to this document and the process will be under the category ‘Work Zones‘ within City of Sacramento. Previous posts, of which there are a considerable number, are linked via the tag ‘construction zone‘ within Active Transportation.
I will read through the document and no doubt have comments to offer to you, and the city. At a glance, it looks pretty good.
One issue that I note right of the top is that the document does not mention PROWAG (Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines). Though PROWAG includes text from the federal MUTCD, and therefore the CA-MUTCD, PROWAG supercedes both MUTCDs. PROWAG no longer accepts some outmoded and unsafe designs that are in the MUTCD.
I hope that readers will review the document and comment, here and to the city. There is a comment form linked from the city’s page, though it is not structured in such as way as to comment on specific sections. You can also email Casandra Cortez, Transportation Planner, cncortez@cityofsacramento.org.
PROWAG (Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines) from the US Access Board have now been officially adopted. I’ve only begun to review them, but a few things grabbed my attention right off the bat. From PROWAG:
“At an intersection corner, one curb ramp or blended transition shall be provided for each crosswalk, or a single blended transition that spans all crosswalks at the intersection corner may be provided. Where pedestrian crossing is prohibited, curb ramps or blended transitions shall not be provided, and the pedestrian circulation path shall be either (a) separated from the roadway with landscaping or other non-prepared surface or (b) separated from the roadway by a detectable vertical edge treatment with a bottom edge 15 inches maximum above the pedestrian circulation path.”
This means that the diagonal access ramps at corners, which are common in suburban areas and even a few urban areas, are no longer legal for installation. For any alterations of curbs, sidewalk, or corner, new ramps must be two to a corner, perpendicular, or the ramp must cover the area of both sidewalks. See photo below.
diagonal curb ramp, now illegal under PROWAG, installed May 2023 by Sac City
Secondly, the pedestrian prohibition signing in common use in the City of Sacramento and many other places is now illegal, because it does not meet the criteria of the bottom edge no more than 15 inches above the sidewalk. See photo below, showing a newly installed curb ramp where the ramp does not extend the full width of both crosswalks. Again, any alteration of the curb, sidewalk, or corner requires compliant design. Of course the majority of these pedestrian crossing prohibitions are unnecessary, and were installed to ease motor vehicle traffic and not to protect walkers, so most should simply be removed, and legal curb ramps installed. The one exception would be freeway on and off ramps that have not been modified to be safe under any conditions.
pedestrian crossing prohibition, now illegal under PROWAG
NACTO released it’s Shared Micromobility in the U.S. and Canada 2022 ‘130 Million Trips’ report in September 2023, and the report has a summary webpage at https://nacto.org/publication/shared-micromobility-in-2022/. The report is interesting throughout, but one paragraph in particular is important for the Sacramento situation in which Lime has removed its bikes from the region, and Bird is offering few bikes. Bike share in Sacramento is more or less dead. It is clear that the model of privately owned and managed bike share does not work here. If we are to have bike share, we need a new model. I’ll have one or more posts on that shortly.
From the report (page 10):
“Shared micromobility systems that see consistent growth and equitable outcomes are typically municipally-owned or closely managed through long-term partnerships with private operators. Long-term contracts have resulted in more sustainable results for ridership and the durability of systems. The enduring viability of private sector operators remains uncertain, especially as companies with short-term permits respond to financial troubles by pulling out of cities–often abruptly–altogether. Shared bikes and e-scooters can and should be integral parts of a city’s transportation network, but that is only possible if they are consistently available and resistant to the volatility of market conditions. Partnership models where local governments have greater involvement in their shared micromobility programs generally lead to better outcomes, like more equitable pricing structures, greater investment in historically underserved communities, and ultimately, a greater likelihood of long-term viability.”
Another issue for the Sacramento area was that rental prices for bikes saw several increases during the JUMP and Uber times, and a huge jump when Lime took over. The system had become unaffordable for many former users. Lime originally offered a free for a low monthly fee rental program for people in CalFresh or similar programs, but this year changed to a half-off discount, helpful but hardly affordable. Bird has a similar half-off program. Again, from the NACTO report (page 14):
“The cost to ride a shared bike or scooter continues to rise in numerous cities, posing a threat to affordability. In a year of widespread consumer price increases–including public and private transportation modes–shared micromobility was no exception. Annual membership hikes, alongside rising e-bike surcharges, led to a 70% increase in average per-trip costs for members of station-based bike share systems from the previous year. Pay-as-you-go trips on e-bikes or e-scooters were the most expensive, with average per-trip costs more than double the typical fare of a one-way trip on public transit in the U.S. and Canada.”
I have not yet used the Spin bike share in Davis yet. I’m always in Davis with my own bike, so haven’t been motivated, but I should test it out.
Getting Around Sacramento 