ROLL WITH IT
It's good to see some European ventures being given a shot in the U.S. I'm referring to this New York Times piece on bicycle sharing coming to Washington D.C. as a start:
"A new public-private venture called SmartBike DC will make 120 bicycles available at 10 spots in central locations in the city. The automated program, which district officials say is the first of its kind in the nation, will operate in a similar fashion to car-sharing programs like Zipcar.
The district has teamed up with an advertiser, Clear Channel Outdoor, to put the bikes on the streets...
For a $40 annual membership fee, SmartBike users can check out three-speed bicycles for three hours at a time. The program will not provide helmets but does encourage their use.
Similar programs have proved successful in Europe. The Vélib program in Paris and Bicing in Barcelona, Spain, both started around a year ago and already offer thousands of bicycles."
There are many unanswered questions on whether something like this can be a true commercial success in U.S. cities. Of course something like this would need to work hand-in-hand with local civic authorities who would facilitate more convenient bike lanes, rules and rights-of-way where applicable. And it's an open question whether folks would use bikes vs. their cars or public transport for short hops around town.
But with the price of gas where it is, not to mention increasing local congestion in many of our cities, and the increasing obesity problems of our citizenry, there are a few reasons to root for something like this. That's just off the top of my head
Let's see if they don't get stolen pretty quickly...
120 bikes, rather than 1000's. Too few to do much of anything. And, as you say, to be used safely, there needs to be a more bike friendly environment too, which DC is decidedly not.
Posted by: Alex Tolley | Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 09:27 AM