Bike Chattanooga, the largest new US bikesharing system in the US in 2012. Image by Elly Blue on flickr.

2012 turned out to be an unexpectedly quiet year for bikesharing. New York and Chicago were expected to launch the largest systems in the country, but delays have pushed them to 2013. Washington, Minneapolis, and others did expand, but it wasn’t the banner year that was anticipated.

At the end of 2011 there were 18 bikesharing systems in the US, with a total of 559 stations. Now there are 27 systems, with 834 stations.

  • 10 new systems opened, but none of them are very large. The biggest is Chattanooga, TN, with 30 stations.
  • One system closed. In 2011 Chicago operated a small 7 station pilot program that has since shut down. They plan to open a new and much larger system in 2013.
  • Of the 18 networks open in 2011, 9 expanded in 2012. The most significant expansions were in Washington, Minneapolis, and Boston. Boston’s expansion was enough to pass Miami Beach.

Here’s the complete list of bikesharing networks in the US, ranked by number of stations. New systems in 2012 are in bold:

Rank City 2011 Stations 2012 Stations
1 Washington 140 191
2 Minneapolis 115 145
3 Boston 61 105
4 Miami Beach 70 84
5 Denver 52 53
6(t) San Antonio 20 30
6(t) Chattanooga 0 30
8 Ft Lauderdale 20 25
9 Madison 27 24
10 Boulder 15 22
11(t) Charlotte 0 20
11(t) Nashville 0 20
13(t) Long Beach, NY 0 12
13(t) Kansas City 0 12
15(t) WSU – Pullman 8 9
15(t) Georgia Tech – Atlanta 0 9
17 Oklahoma City 0 7
18 Greenville, SC 0 6
19 Omaha 5 5
20(t) Cal – Irvine 4 4
20(t) Des Moines 4 4
20(t) Tulsa 4 4
20(t) GMU – Fairfax 0 4
24(t) Louisville 3 3
24(t) Houston 0 3
26(t) Kailua, HI 2 2
26(t) Spartanburg, SC 2 2
NA Chicago 7 0

Notes: For the purposes of this list, systems covering multiple jurisdictions are counted together if they are close enough for significant cross-border ridership, and separately if they are too far apart. Thus, Washington/Arlington/Alexandria and Miami Beach/Surfside are counted together, but Denver/Boulder are counted separately. Counted together, Denver/Boulder have 75 stations.