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Hey cyclists ...
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Fun for tourists. I think I'd much rather have my own bike for daily use, though.
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I don't know if it's a common thing around the world, but in Toronto there's a car sharing program (2, actually) that allows you to take a car when you need it for a nominal fee. Similar idea, in other words, but with cars or vans instead of bicycles.
I don't see this working as well for bikes, though. A fully serviceable bike can be had for less than $200 with all the necessities (helmet, bell/horn, lights), and maintenance is dirt cheap. Given the cost of ownership, it'd have to cost next to nothing to rent one in order for this to be competitive. |
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I can't see it taking much more than an hour to get somewhere. |
I missed that bit. If it's free, bikes are widely available and it saves money on public transit, then my above point is completely invalid.
Train commuters would be fools not to use this system. |
^^ True. Whilst in Europe I used the train to travel to places longer than 30 mins at a time. Maybe even 45. The train ticket at the time was 2.~~ Euros which came to slightly over $2.50US so I could have benefited from this immensely had I taken and kept a bike for the whole day.
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Ah, but you wouldn't need to keep it all day. You could borrow one to get from points A-> B, then put it back on the rack at point B. You could then do your business at point B, not pay for the time that you're at point B, then borrow a different one to travel from points B->C. If the distance between points A->B are traversed within a half hour, you've just made use of a free bike. The same goes for your route from points B->C.
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I really like the "borrow the bike and then leave it for the next person" idea. If you go somewhere via public transportation it might be less practical to take your bike than to just borrow one when you get there, although bike storage on buses and trains is common around here.
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In PDX weve had orange bikes for a few years. They are around town here and there to use freely. The problem has been that you never know where you might find one as people seem to just leave them off wherever they are.
PS: We also have an outdoor mall that has community umbrellas. |
There are bike shares opening in Arlington, VA (quickly followed by DC) and Minneapolis in the next 30 days. I'm intimately familiar with both.
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i can see it now, walking to the bike place and finding they are all out of bikes, then being an hour late for work.. i would go for a foldable and portable bike instead :-)
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Montpelier had a much better system. It was 1 euro for 4 hours and 2 euros for 8 hours. I think this would work better with a stationary terminal for payment (like they have in Paris) Although they need to have it accept foreign credit cards... And they need to work with the hotels, since the hotels could just add it to visitors bills, and they know that they will probably ride them back there at the end of the day. They can also have helmets for them to use. And the hotel staff can help you figure out how to rent them and have a few of the RFID cards that locals may need to wait to get in the mail. Then again, you may find that 30 minutes is all you can take before you realize you value your life too much to ride in Paris or London with their traffic. And without a place to put a GPS device (or to have one built in), it would be really hard to know if you are going the right way. And then you have the problem of finding places to lock your bike up at your destinations. |
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