well, in the meantime, mexico city introduced its ecobici in 2010. as regular readers know, i went to mexico city late last year, and my boyfriend and i were very excited to try it out. we didn't realize at the time that we needed to live in mexico city in order to use them. disappointed, yes, but we were pleased to see that the bikes were used often. we also saw trucks at night redistributing the bikes among various stations. not to mention physically separated bike lanes and a diverse bike community. there are group rides every day.
as you may also know, i lived in nyc for quite some time. 8 years to be exact. i rode my bike while i lived there, but i didn't ever consider it a viable transportation option since legendary stories of bikes being stolen are bountiful. bill cunningham has had a bike stolen 28 times (at least of the time of his documentary--hope that's it though)! so i rode, but just casually.
as has been plastered everywhere in the media lately, NYC introduced its own bike share this past monday. i wish nothing but the best for this program. since i've lived there, over 300 miles of bikes lanes have been introduced, and nyc streets are slowly changing in order to accommodate less cars, more bikes.
incidentally on my old evening commute, i would ride by a spin class and i would always glance in...but i digress.
bitchcakes, whose blog is sadly on infinite hiatus, is still on flickr and shared some pictures of her citibike trip.
that picture reminded me of the bike i rode in DC last year.
can't wait to see how this citibike share goes. if interenet pictures are any indication, this will be a well documented event.
i don't know what it is going to take for SF to finally introduce its own widespread bikeshare program. in the meantime, i know of some extra bikes for tourists and newbies to borrow. heh. or maybe it'll take going to mexico city and learning something about efficient public transportation and bike infrastructure...kinda like what city leaders are doing. hmm.
While I am usually supportive of bike sharing programs I will say that my smallish city wants a sharing program too and it will only crash and burn here. No where near enough interest yet. In fact, Toronto just came out with a bit of a revelation a month ago (bixi) and they have lost a few million and the program is still quite new! Unless there's a proven infrastructure this kind of thing just does not work (at least in Canada).
ReplyDeleteI think bike sharing programs are a bit trendy right now and the small cities, like mine, feel like they are playing with the big boys when they go after this.
I love that New Yorker cover! Hadn't seen that yet.
i'm also curious if SFers who are not tourists, and who don't have bikes would be interested in bike share. or if the hills are too daunting. or who knows what other thing would happen.
Deletethanks for letting us know about canada's bike share. i also tend to agree that unless there is supportive infrastructure, things just may not turn out to be super great. but...i would also like to be proven wrong! :)
thanks for commenting!