The Arcata Library Bike Program promotes the use of bicycles as a safe, efficient and environmentally sound means of transportation. Our volunteer-run program hopes to inspire people to bicycle more often. We enact our mission by providing Arcata residents and visitors with free bikes in convenient locations. We also give bicycles to individuals who, because of economic situations, would not otherwise have access to a bicycle.

Loaner bikes are available to any adult in Arcata. Bikes are borrowed similar to borrowing a library book.

Adults check out our bikes at our lending stations (see below) for a $20 deposit. The deposit allows the bicyclist to keep the loaner bike for up to six months. If the bike is returned within six months, Arcata Library Bike will refund the user’s $20 or he/she can renew the loan for an additional six months.

Arcata Library Bike had another successful year lending bikes out to the local community. Partners include the City of Arcata, the Del Norte County District Library, North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, The North Coast Co-op, the Arcata Recycling Center, and the Humboldt Waste Management District.

With this success in mind, it is our aim to continue participation of this program.

Arcata Library Bikes checked out 630 bikes from June ’03 to May ’04, during its second full year of our program. The program really took off in the first quarter 2004-2005, with 442 bikes checked out from June ’04 to Oct. ’04. From the start of our project with the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, to date we have checked out over 1,465 library bikes in Arcata.

The following chart shows the number of bikes that were checked out during our second year of the program, and compares the circulation to the first year of the program in 2002-2003, and the current year.

Most of the bikes checked out tend to stay out for at least the full six months of planned use. Only about 10% of the bikes are returned within the first month of use. Most of the rest stay loaned out for the full six-month term. We have seen that over half of our bikes will not return, and customers continue their use beyond the six-month lending period. We have about 5-10% that return after more than a year of being checked out.

The lower quality bikes do return more often. About one-third of these customers chose an upgraded bike to continue their bike loan. Less than a month checkouts tend to be about 10% of bike checkouts. Throughout the year, we generally have a base flow of bikes being checked out with spring and fall being higher flow of bike loans. At two times during 2004, we had all our repaired bikes loaned out (late September and late October). This condition had a quick remedy as more social interaction and pressure from desiring riders helped motivate volunteer mechanics to repair the more difficult bikes to fix. An inflow of quality, donated bikes eventually offset the shortage of bikes to repair.

We maintain a 24-hour drop off box at 40 S G Street. This drop-off location is advertised on our Website and brochure. Arcata Library Bike also accepts donations at the front door of the Hub, conveniently located near the Arcata Plaza.

There are a lot of bikes in the community for donation. Gradual inflow of bikes is good and is usually by donation from individuals. We may ultimately clean out the town of donation bikes, but this ceiling is always expanding, due to new bike purchases ad inflow from other areas.

It has been our experience that one quarter of the donated bikes are in such poor condition they cannot be restored. Some donations are low quality bikes that even when new, would not be durable enough to be used in Library bike service. So ultimately, a third of the donations are reallocated, disassembled or recycled.

We believe we can get mass donations through further outreach. But it is not needed. Every news event results in a flurry of donation. However, mass donation of bikes clogs the shop and results in a huge time demand of shop personnel.

If we ever get low on donations we can get bikes at the Salvation Army or St. Vincent DePaul’s. The key to donation is a consistent donation location that is maintained by one volunteer committed to keeping it clean and organized.

We supported store participation (i.e. ability to check out bikes at participating store locations in Arcata) for the first half of the year. But because of the centrally located downtown location of the HUB, we’ve phased out the store check out locations. This has greatly simplified the management of our program, and helped us better:

The stores helped launch the program, for which we are grateful. They also helped add prominence to the concept of the program, which enabled us to be successful in one primary downtown location. The bicycle is now accepted as status quo transportation largely because of our HUB location.

Our regular open day is Saturday afternoons. Our program is well used when we have the HUB open. We frequently have five to 10 people using the facility. Unfortunately, the volunteer work force does not keep regular, dependable hours during the week. On Fridays we are open in the afternoons for a kid’s program. Parents of local schoolchildren donated their time and some shop mechanics volunteered also. This allowed local school children to participate with the bike shop.

In America, teen age youth don’t have a strong sense of what to do or where to hang out after school, except, as has been the norm for decades, hanging out around cars. The cars are advertised into kid’s brains from all angles, and thus they grow into the car culture. Our bike program being in the central auto dealership pedals home a new thought of what is acceptable in society. Slowly, we have attracted some high school students who eventually become the best mechanics, the most effective promoters of the program, and become young adults who adopt a bike lifestyle mixed in with the rest of their lives.

Children create an environment that calms the car drivers in and around our town. When we first opened the HUB shop, the kid’s involvement was centerpiece. We were building a kinetic sculpture for the local school, and the parents and kids would meet there to build. We would load the kids in the car, drive, find parking, unload the kids and accessories, and reverse this to go home, It was easier to ride bikes to the HUB after school with the kids, and a few of us did this for some weekends. All of a sudden we started to see many different families riding in the downtown, on Saturdays and after school. It was as if a new space in the street had been created for families and kids, and every time this happened the traffic seemed to calm for many blocks.

Kids in our program take a lot of time and attention. However, they can clean up after themselves, and learn to fix the bikes they take apart. They also encounter kids here other than their regular schoolmates. They also get to be with their parents with our bike program.

Arcata Library Bikes has grown to be the largest Bicycle Recycler and

Reuse program in California. The acceptance of Bicycles as status-quo transportation in Arcata has been in large part due to our program. Statewide we have been received as an important poster program. Heather Fargo, the Mayor of Sacramento, has considered duplicating our program for parts of Sacramento. The Mayor of San Francisco has expressed support for program. We have been invited to apply for a California WARP award, and we were featured in a two-page article in the Sacramento Bee in August 2003.

Our Library Bikes did over 25,000 transit trips this year instead of internal combustion vehicle trips. As the city council and HCOG consider funding transit, the budget discussion including Library Bikes has started.

Awarded by the Humboldt County Division of Environmental Health, this was given for our waste reduction activities. A small trophy was also given.

The nationally syndicated PBS children’s program, “Zoom” filmed a local segment at Arcata Library Bikes. The program featured a minor who had volunteered fixing bikes at our program for two years.

The Senator visited and awarded our volunteers and after school kids program participants with recognition certificates. Sixteen program volunteers and 13 children were honored.