Capital Bikeshare Coming to Rosslyn Soon

With booming ridership, Arlington’s Capital Bikeshare operations will be expanding significantly this year. Rosslyn will see the addition of four stations as soon as next month, with a possible total of 20 stations being added along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor by the end of the year.  With corporate sponsorship, that number could rise even higher.

Arlington already has over 100 CaBi bikes at 14 stations, but all of those stations are concentrated in Arlington’s Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods. Bike share services work best when they are part of networks of closely located stations, so Capital Bikeshare is rolling out the service by neighborhood – and Rosslyn is next on the list. 

With the permitting process incomplete, Capital Bikeshare will not confirm the exact Rosslyn station locations. However, it is a near certainty that the first three stations will be spread along Wilson and Clarendon Boulevards with another on Lynn Street.

Bringing stations to Rosslyn will not only benefit those in Rosslyn, but fill an important gap in the existing Arlington-DC bike share network. Previously, the only practical connection across the Potomac for most Arlington riders required starting in Crystal City and crossing the 14th Street Bridge - which still leaves most riders with a way to go before they get to their destinations. With stations in Rosslyn, Arlington residents all along the Orange and Blue lines have a great option for getting to Georgetown via the Key Bridge for a night out, or skipping the Rosslyn-Foggy Bottom tunnel in favor of the Roosevelt Bridge the next time there’s a Metro backup.

Further Arlington expansion will come in stages, with approximately 20 stations being placed along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor as promised funding becomes available.  Capital Bikeshare's network approach will remain in place, meaning that stations will be generally rolled out in contiguous clusters.

Arlington may see more than the currently planned stations through the addition of corporate-sponsored stations. Capital Bikeshare’s management has indicated that there are a number of Rosslyn-based businesses who have “serious interest” in sponsoring their own Capital Bikeshare stations. In return for covering the upfront costs of a station (approximately $50k), the sponsoring business gets to determine the site of the station, which will be branded with the sponsor’s logo and messaging. Other options - from adopting existing stations ($10k) to sponsorship of the entire Arlington system ($100k) - are available. Capital Bikeshare has been aggressively pursuing corporate sponsorship as a means of ensuring the long-term viability of the biggest bike sharing system in the United States.

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Capital Bikeshare’s existing stations can be found here.

Think your company might be interested in sponsoring Capital Bikeshare? Check out the costs and options in the PDF linked above.