People use Capital Bikeshare to participate in a recent rally by Elvert Barnes licensed under Creative Commons.

DC’s Capital Bikeshare marks its 10th birthday this Sunday, September 20. Along with iPads and electric car charging stations which also turn 10 this year, they’ve changed the possibilities for how many of us work and play.

Since it began in 2010, riders have taken more than 27 million trips, totaling 150 million miles, according to DC Mayor Bowser’ s office. Membership has also grown from 1,204 at the beginning to 26,585 current active members.

From legendary Quests for the Bike in Bloom to CaBi Plus as “batman’s preferred e-bike,” we’ve been through a lot with Capital Bikeshare. Bike shares are part of many cities’ multi-modal transportation systems, and can play a helpful role in getting people around flexibly. For me it was a crucial piece of my working-parent, dreaded-double-daycare-dropoff routine for years.

We asked GGWash community members for their memories from the first ten years.

Contributor Matthew Sampson says,

When my sister and i were both living in DC we’d get cabis and go down to lafayette square and race each other across while weaving around all the people. eventually we got bored of that so it turned into racing without using our hands. my sister got so good at biking cabi without hands that she could get up to speed and then balance with all her arms and legs stretched out lol

James Harnett, ANC Commissioner and 2A08 chairperson says,

Used CaBi the summer before my freshman year, when I was new to DC. Most cost effective way to get around, but the lack of protected bike lanes meant my friends and peers didn’t feel safe doing the same. So I got elected to the ANC to build some! 20/21/G are all coming this fall :)

Canaan Merchant, a frequent contributor, says,


I had gotten into biking as an adult but had only ridden around Fairfax. I was pretty nervous to ride in big city dc for the first time.

I was totally wrong. Riding in the city was a breeze even on the streets without bike lanes. I started near the White House, rode to eastern market, then up to brookland then over to Columbia Heights to see a show. Then bombing back down 14th street to take metro back home from McPherson Square.

GGWash board member and contributor Tracy Loh says,

While out doing a technical assistance panel on bike infrastructure design with Dutch experts (that I later wrote up for GGWash), I found the #busybike. At the time, my Twitter handle was @busysparrow, so this really felt like it was destiny. There are other photos of GGWash family and extended family with this bike on Twitter, and it might be fun to make a little collage. I saw Garrett Hennigan found the bike as well, and a hashtag search turned up a few others very quickly.

Loh found the #busybike Image by Tracy Loh used with permission.

Celebrate Sunday with a free ride

Sunday’s the day to take a free, safely distanced ride around DC according to the Mayor’s press release (if you aren’t celebrating Rosh Hashanah). Please note that the CaBi website didn’t contain information for how to access the ride, as of press time.

What has been your experience with CaBi? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Tagged: bicycling, capital bikeshare, ddot, mayor bowser

Caitlin Rogger is deputy executive director at Greater Greater Washington. Broadly interested in structural determinants of social, economic, and political outcomes in urban settings, she worked in public health prior to joining GGWash. She lives in Capitol Hill.