Class Year

2019

Document Type

Student Research Paper

Date of Creation

Fall 2018

Department 1

Environmental Studies

Abstract

The focus of this paper was to asses Gettysburg as possible location to implement a bike share program and ultimately to propose a framework for a successful program. We evaluated bike share programs across North America and created a list of criteria of successful programs. The second part of our data collection included a Google Forms survey which targeted three demographics, students, locals and tourists. We targeted our focus groups by posting on Facebook pages frequented by each demographic, as well as administering the survey in person with smart phones in Lincoln Square in Gettysburg. Our survey generated 134 responses, 86 of which were students, 27 locals, and 21 tourists. Our research showed that, demographically, successful programs occur in areas with high traffic from college students and tourists, as well as support from the local population. On the technical side, successful programs have 10-30 bikes per 10,000 residents with bike stations that range from 1-2 miles apart, averaging 4-8 trips per day, per bike. Our survey showed that a bike share program in Gettysburg would receive heavy support from our three demographics. It also showed that the largest concern from each demographic was bike related travel during the winter months which is consistent with the other programs we studied. Based on our research, we propose that the G-Bikes program should have 5 stations located at the top five intended locations of visitation, Gettysburg Town Center, Gettysburg College, Little Round Top, The Observation Tower, and on Steinwehr Avenue near the National Cemetery. Based off the overall population we recommend that the program start with a minimum of 20 bikes. We also recommend that the bike models follow the oBike specs from European bike share programs to maximize user convenience and minimize the threat of theft and vandalism. Through our study we determined Gettysburg's unique niche as a small college town and tourist hub to be a possible location to implement a successful bike share program that implements many of the similar characteristics of other tourist destinations we studied.

Comments

Student capstone paper written for ES 400: Senior Seminar.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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