Bike Sharing in the USA

I think this is a fantastic idea, but one that needs infrastructure support from the cities themselves. Renting bikes is great, but the only way to lure people out of cars and busses is by making them feel safe riding in traffic. At the very least, wide dedicated bike lanes are necessary. Right now, most cities and towns are set up for car traffic only.

One thing minneapolis recently did was put up signs informing drivers of the parking rules downtown with the newest bike lanes. A few of the streets were recently converted from one-way to bi-directional traffic, so they put the bike lanes where the metered parking spots used to be, with the new metered spots on the outer flank of the bike lane. Dumb idea, and the car parking folks had no idea. You’d be biking along only to have a car parked in the bike lane. A few months passed and the city made signs every 20 feet or so educating parkers on the new rules. Little late, and still a band-aid for a bad idea, but the infrastructure is gradually getting better as long as the cities pay attention.

Alex is spot on:

“Renting bikes is great, but the only way to lure people out of cars and busses is by making them feel safe riding in traffic. At the very least, wide dedicated bike lanes are necessary. Right now, most cities and towns are set up for car traffic only.”

We’ve been a car-centric culture for so long that it’s going to take some significant energy and investment to move people that aren’t riding now to ride.

The B-cycle idea is very cool. I wish I had thought of it. It’s a great idea to offer comfortable, affordable, user-friendly transportation around the major cities. I sure hope Minneapolis adopts this technology. Maybe we’ll eventually get B-cycle out in the suburbs too!

Minneapolis will have bike sharing starting in June. It is called nice-ride minnesota. It is not the same system as in Denver, but it uses BIXI which have been running in Montreal since last year and has been very succesfull.

It should be noted that DC’s bike sharing program has been around for a few years now. (sorry link fixed) Smartbike

Paris has had a similar system for years that has been very effective – it’s a great way to see the city. They also put in a number of wide bike lanes, some with physical dividers between the bikes and cars. Glad to see a US city thinking of following suit.

Thanks for all of your comments! Although, I’m all for bike lanes, I’d also like to see more education for cyclists. Classes like Smart Cycling teach beginning and intermediate riders a bit about vehicular cycling, a skill that is necessary in most cities. Especially those with poorly thought out bike lanes that regularly put riders in the door zone.

This is the 2nd season that this system that has been put in place the BIXI system. http://www.bixi.com/home/
It is now being sold around the world. I am a triathlete and I walk the 30 minutes to work each way and with winters that’s not a fun task. I see people spring, summer and fall using the bikes and the system has expanded rapidly all over the world with Major American cities hopping on board – Best of all the stations are solar powered – we also have bike lanes. The concept is simple you pickup a bike at one spot and drive it to another spot. We have pickup locations all over the city.