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.

The best place to start would be the commuter rail and ferry terminals. Here, a system like this could be transformative.

Instead of squeezing on the subway to get to lower Manhattan, suburban commuters could take a bike — MetroNorth riders from GCT, LIRR riders over the bridge from Brooklyn.

New Jerseyites have long dreamed of a direct link to GCT, before settling for the Access to the Region’s Core project, because most of Midtown’s jobs are a long walk from Penn. But it’s a short bike ride.

Getting from the 34th Street ferry terminals to jobs in Midtown means a slow bus ride — or a quick bike ride.

The subway and through commuter rail service options that have been dreamed up to improve these commutes would cost tens of $billions, perhaps hundreds of $billions. So they’ll never happen.

But this could actually be done at a reasonable cost, and provide exercise. It could be a substitute for a suburbanite taking a folding bike on the train. Leave your own bike at the station, and borrow one in the city. Rains gear could also be lent out, as required.

This is what I have realized about bikes — exercise without extra time, transportation without much public money.

Bike-share isn’t really a good substitute for subway capacity at commuter rail terminals, because the subway has to be designed to handle the peak flow of passengers, and even with all the bike-share bikes you’d ever want, when it starts raining or snowing, you can bet that people are going to be taking the subway. That doesn’t mean bike-share isn’t a worthwhile project anyway. One other place where it could be hugely beneficial is actually at outlying commuter rail stations, for reverse commuters. Destinations in the suburbs tend to be dispersed, but often not too far from the commuter rail stations, and proper transit service is hard to provide for that sort of situation. Bike share is a pretty elegant solution in that case, in a way that nothing else is.

Bikes and ferries (whose stations are the greenways) are the most logical combo.

Ahem…what about DC? Our bike sharing pilot program starts this very month month.

http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2007/11/dcs-bike-sharin.html

I forgive you for forgetting about DC. You are New Yorkers; it is your…way. 🙂

(Bike-share isn’t really a good substitute for subway capacity at commuter rail terminals, because the subway has to be designed to handle the peak flow of passengers, and even with all the bike-share bikes you’d ever want, when it starts raining or snowing, you can bet that people are going to be taking the subway.)

That’s the point — the subways are NOT able to handle that peak flow either at GCT or Atlantic Terminal. So bikes could be a substitute for extending commuter rail directly to Lower Manhattan — something that the 2008-13 MTA Capital Plan makes clear we could never afford.

The point about subway capacity and bikes in general, however, is a valid one. If bikes ever did get up to a 40% trip share, transit service was cut, and then everyone tried to get on the train when the weather turned bad, it would be a problem.

So widespread bike commuting might have to combine with widespread telecommuting and schedule shifts in bad weather.

No mention of the number of handicapped placards/licenses (real, marginal and phony) nor their abuse. The question is, with all the parking privileges doled out, how many are left? 10%?

I wonder what a profitable version of bike sharing would look like, especially since the price point of biking is already so low –

Is it still sharing when it’s renting?

Could the parks department run it the way it does the pools and tennis courts – $100 a year gets you unlimited access? But even then, you could buy your own Huffy, lock and helmet for that price – even assuming you’d lose one bike a year to theft or vandalism you’d come out even.

The program must address the issue of private property rights / tragedy of the commons. Hundreds of these programs have failed in communites and campuses across the country. Only when organizers take into account the problems that can arise with free-use bike systems do these things succeed. The challenge for these cities is to come up with a plan that overcomes the tragedy of the commons by using technological advancements that can track a particular bike to a particular person and have an incentive scheme that provides incentives for people to return the bikes and in good condition.

Profitable concepts have been knocked around in boulder. They are possible.