  The purpose of this research is to identify correlates of bike station
activity for Nice Ride Minnesota, a bike share system in Minneapolis - St. Paul
Metropolitan Area in Minnesota. We obtained the number of trips to and from
each of the 116 bike share stations operating in 2011 from Nice Ride Minnesota.
Data for independent variables included in models come from a variety of
sources; including the 2010 US Census, the Metropolitan Council, a regional
planning agency, and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. We use log-linear
and negative binomial regression models to evaluate the marginal effects of
these factors on average daily station trips. Our models have high goodness of
fit, and each of 13 independent variables is significant at the 10% level or
higher. The number of trips at Nice Ride stations is associated with
neighborhood socio demographics (i.e., age and race), proximity to the central
business district, proximity to water, accessibility to trails, distance to
other bike share stations, and measures of economic activity. Analysts can use
these results to optimize bike share operations, locate new stations, and
evaluate the potential of new bike share programs.
