In These Times article on bike sharing in the U.S. (Comments: 0)
Author: Jason Crane
Date: 8 January, 2008
Category: Bike news
In These Times magazine has an article in this issue on bike sharing, and the likelihood that it will catch on in the U.S. as it has in Europe:
Are U.S. Cities Ready For Bike-Sharing?
By Adam Doster, In These Times
Posted on January 8, 2008, Printed on January 8, 2008
While working the graveyard shift in a University of Virginia computer lab 13 years ago, Paul DeMaio had dreams of the open road. On a whim, the avid cyclist and environmentalist entered “public bikes” into a search engine and discovered images of Bycyklen, Copenhagen’s then-new bike-sharing service. One glimpse and DeMaio was hooked. “The idea just blew me away,” he says. “This was it.”
DeMaio arranged to study in Denmark, where he absorbed as much about bike-sharing culture as possible. Convinced that the idea would appeal to Americans, he created MetroBike LLC, a bicycle planning and bike-sharing consulting company based in Washington D.C. And now, more and more cyclists and legislators are turning their attention to DeMaio’s cause. “We’ve come a long way,” he says. “Bike-sharing really has gotten a lot of attention.”
Essentially, bike-sharing programs provide cheap access to bicycles, mostly for inner-city transportation. In the late ’60s, some Europeans placed donated bikes across cities like Amsterdam and Milan for residents to ride free of charge, hoping to provide citizens with an ecologically friendly mode of travel. But vandalism and theft sank nearly all of the early campaigns. Today, technology — such as electronic payment, tracking and locking systems — has helped reduce crime and revive bike-sharing efforts worldwide.
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