The birth and growth of a bike-share program

2010: Houston didn’t have a bike-share program

Today: Houston BCycle launched in 2012 with three docking stations and 18 bikes. Since then, the program, which is operated by the nonprofit organization Houston Bike Share, has grown to 109 stations and more than 700 bikes throughout central Houston. And there’s further expansion to come, with plans for some 200 more bikes and 26 additional stations. BCycle also launched a pilot program this past summer to test the possibility of adding electric bikes to its fleet.

Ridership grew by 60% between July 2018 and July 2019, with a projected 265,000 rides for the year. According to Beth Martin, executive director of Houston Bike Share, a portion of that increase comes from people using the bikes as part of their commute.

“Yes, people are still using our bikes for recreational rides — but hundreds more are using bike share every day for short, one-way trips in downtown, on college campuses, and in a number of other neighborhoods across the city,” Martin wrote in a Houston Chronicle opinion article this past July. “We’ve finally grown large enough to get a critical mass of people where they need to go. Both our ridership and membership are growing at an unprecedented rate, without signs of slowing.”

Important additions to outdoor spaces

The city’s parks and recreation department manages some 374 parks and more than 200 green spaces but aims to increase that amount to meet its goal of all residents living within a half-mile or 10-minute walk of a green space. Currently, “48 percent of the population can walk out their door, walk for 10 minutes and be at a neighborhood park,” says Michael Isermann, Houston Parks and Recreation Department’s deputy director of facilities management and development.

But there have been a number of exciting developments in the expansion and improvement of green spaces since 2010.

Major renovations and improvements of Emancipation Park in the Third Ward were completed in 2017. Upgrades to the park — the city’s oldest — included a new swimming pool, recreation center, plaza, splash-pad play area, playground and walking trails.

Houston Parks Board’s Bayou Greenways 2020 plan is a public-private partnership to create a network of parks and green space along the city’s bayous connected by a 150-mile system of hike and bike trails. A trail connecting the Greens Bayou Greenway with the Halls Bayou Greenway in Northeast Houston was completed last year.

In 2015, work was completed on the Buffalo Bayou Park project, a $58 million improvement effort on the 160-acre greenspace west of downtown. The upgrades included hike and bike trails, a large dog park, public art, a creative nature play area, and spaces for picnics and outdoor activities.

Climate change and the environment

The decade between 2010 and today was the warmest ever recorded. The atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continued to rise and the economic and environmental costs skyrocketed.

Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, Maria, Florence and Irma brought damage and destruction that cost billions of dollars. Hurricane Harvey dumped a record level of rainfall on the Houston area in 2017, causing unprecedented flooding in the region. Yet, just a year and a half later, the 2019 Kinder survey showed residents were less concerned about the area’s vulnerability to flooding and were growing less likely to support government interventions to curb flooding in the future.

On April 20, 2010, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to a massive oil well fire that killed 11 and injured 17. The resulting oil spill became the biggest environmental disaster in American history.

That same year, only 39% of survey participants saw the threat of climate change as a “very serious problem.” By 2019, that proportion grew to 53%.

Employment and the economy have been strong

Following the Great Recession, the unemployment rates in Harris County grew from 4.1% in 2008 to 6.3% in 2009 to 8.5% in 2010. At the same time, the proportion of residents taking part in the Kinder Houston Area Survey that rated job opportunities in the Houston area as “excellent” or “good” dropped from 57% in 2008 to 49% in 2009 and to 38% in 2010.

According to a report from the Greater Houston Partnership, the total number of unemployed fell by 76% (or 36,491) between 2010 and 2018. More than 596,100 jobs have been added to the region in that time.