Photo by Phil Roeder.

In response to increased demand, Capital Bikeshare says it is expanding its options for commuters looking to dock downtown in the mornings.

The service introduced “morning bike corral service” (think horse corrals, but for an overflow of bikes) in three downtown locations last year. Now they are adding three more, which will be open weekday mornings starting Monday from 8 a.m. until noon. After that, workers redistribute most of the bikes back into the neighborhoods.

The three current corals (located at 21st and I Street NW, 17th and K St NW, and 13th and New York Ave. NW) park more than 260 additional bikes per day, according to the operators of the program.

“This time of year is always busy, and the growing popularity of Capital Bikeshare is placing ever greater demands on our operations,” Eric Gilliland, the general manager of Capital Bikeshare, said in a release. “At the same time, Metro’s Safe Track program seems to be contributing to even higher ridership than usual as people turn to Capital Bikeshare as an alternative transit mode.”

Capital Bikeshare says that the program saw 50,000 more trips in June 2016 than June 2015. And, since Metro’s yearlong maintenance program has begun, weekday ridership has increased by about 1,700 trips per day. One week into SafeTrack, the bike sharing system already broke its previous weekly record. (Bike counters in Arlington, meanwhile, reported increases of between 40 and 90 percent from a typical June day in 2015, as did those in D.C.)

The new corrals aren’t the first effort to provide commuters with other options during SafeTrack. Capital Bikeshare began offering a new single trip option: $2 for a trip under 30 minutes. It has also added other corrals to correspond with work surges.

Locations of the new corrals:

• 20th and Virginia Ave. NW
• 5th and F Street NW
• Maryland and Independence Ave SW