Bicycles as workday transportation

NORMA JEAN GARGASZ/Tucson Citizen. Transportation planner Melissa Antol uses a bicycle from City Cycle, a bicycle sharing program for city employees. She said she uses the program as often as she can. The City Cycle fleet has 23 bicycles.

While these days it's sometimes hard to believe, historically, government has been ahead of the curve and implemented new techniques and technologies to move innovation forward. Most cities have extensive automobile fleets (and granted many trips require the ability to transport materials), but not all trips need to be made by car.

The City of Tucson has launched a "bike fleet" to be used by various city employees to conduct trips during the workday, rather than using cars. See "Bike-sharing programs peddled for Tucson: Companies, colleges could follow city lead." from the Tucson Citizen.

Of course, for these kinds of systems to work, agencies need to be relatively close (say within 2 miles). This then is further support for agglomeration, or keeping agencies reasonably close, rather than moving them around the city willy-nilly, furthering what I call intra-city sprawl.

The online article has a sidebar listing of a number of resources including a link to Paul DeMaio's Bike Sharing blog.

Cities that have bike fleets

Ithaca, N.Y.
Portland, Ore.
Eugene, Ore.
Davis, Calif.
Madison, Wis.
Burlington, Vt.
Boulder, Colo.
Cambridge, Mass.
Toronto, Ont.
Redmond, Wash.
San Jose, Calif.
Carrboro, N.C.
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Palo Alto, Calif.
Tucson
New York
San Antonio
San Francisco
Houston
Louisville, Ky.
Teton County, Wyo.
Edmonton, Alberta

Source: Kent Johnson, Ithaca, N.Y.