Bicycling, Bicycle Sharing

1. Streetsblog has lots of coverage on bicycling issues because of the Bicycling Summit in DC, which PPS's Ben Fried is covering.

Some of the comments on the entries are particularly good, such as these:

The Paris lesson is you put a ton of share (can we say "rental") bikes out there and create a massive impact in how cycling is perceived and how cyclists are treated. The whole point is doing it in a big way. Hard to see small pilot projects doing much more than working out kinks in installation and logistics. -- Comment by All In

Velibe is mass transportation, not small scale tourist rental. The Governors Island project is not a real bike share. It's cheap rental bikes as a tourist amenity on a small, uninhabited, car-free island. All it will demonstrate it is that tourists like to ride around on cheap to rent bikes. Let's not abuse the term "bike-share" by applying it to every bike rental operation. By this standard, there has been bike share in Central Park for decades. -- -- Comment by Leev

2. Which leads me to the DC bicycle sharing program, which launches within the next couple months. See this entry, "SmartBike DC Program Website" and "Update on DC SmartBike Program" from the Bike Sharing Blog, for the map of the locations and related plans.

3. Neal Peirce had a column on bicycling issues this past Sunday, in advance of the Bicycle Summit, "Year of the Bicycle?" From the column:

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus (now 160 bipartisan members strong), claims a new pro-bike politics is forming, that it can mobilize a 1-million-plus national constituency and force clear recognition of the role of bicycles in the next (2009) federal transportation bill. He and the Bike Summit will be pushing for a sense of Congress resolution recognizing the potential of bikes to undergird a greener, healthier and more efficient national future.

Cycling, nationwide, still counts for tiny portions of commuting and shopping trips. But Portland’s experience shows the potential, Blumenauer insists: Since that city’s bike program began in the 1990s, the “modal split” for bikes has quadrupled and a $100 million bike industry has emerged, accounting for 1,000 jobs.

Paris’ Velib bike rental program -- the name combines velo (bicycle) and liberte (freedom) -- opened last July and registered an astounding 2 million trips in its first 40 days. Twenty-thousand bikes are available at 1,450 cycling stations across the city. Insert a credit card to sign up ($1.50 a day to $43 a year) and you can drop your bike off at any other station, the first 30 minutes free.

Paris’ sturdy bikes have three gears, good hand brakes, adjustable seat levels and “sit-up” handlebars. They’re equipped with antitheft and global positioning devices. Cost of the biking operation is offset by revenues from advertising at bus shelters and other “outdoor furniture.” ...

Sometime this April the first serious U.S. fast bike-rental system is due to open in Washington, D.C., followed shortly by San Francisco. Considering the idea or in active negotiations are Houston, Tucson, San Antonio, Portland, Cambridge and Boulder.

4. It's interesting to compare that piece to one he wrote last year, "Pedal pushers making headway," from the Seattle Times.

5. The Bike Sharing Blog also reports on a public event in Philadelphia, to organize bike sharing there, "Bike Share Philadelphia Forum an Astounding Success." More than 400 people came to the conference.

Imagine engaging the public in social change here.... it can be done. And it increases signficantly the likelihood of success.