Day 288: Bay Area Bike Share

Mr. E and I were in San Francisco this weekend to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary (go Team JEMS!), and we decided to expand on our recent tradition of check into and sometimes trying out the bike share program in cities that we visit (see previous post about Chicago and Montreal). This system is called the Bay Area Bike Share, and includes some sites in other Bay Are cities, such as San Jose and Palo Alto.

We saw a few folks on these recognizable bikes as we were walking along the Embarcadero, and we finally found a station just past the new cruise terminal, so we decided to use the bikes as our mode of transportation for the remainder of the journey to the Ferry Building.

After getting some snacks, we got got new bikes for the journey back to our hotel. We followed Market Street and returned the bikes near the Powell Street BART Station, just in front of the Ross Store (how convenient!).

Both of us enjoyed the bikes, especially since they're the same design as those we used in Chicago, so we felt very comfortable on them.

However, I found it odd that the San Francisco system is so concentrated in just the northeast corner of the city rather than being more dispersed and widespread. For example, it would be great to have stations to access the trails in and around Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, but there's absolutely nothing available west of Van Ness Ave or south of 14th Street. I'm sure there must be some reason for the structure of the network, but it seems like a missed opportunity and certainly much less useful than the networks in other cities that cover more area.