Bike Sharing

Check out this "news of the weird" item from WJRT-TV in Flint, Michigan, on last week's DC bike-share debut:

A couple of weeks ago, as part of the "Bike Unfriendly Place of the Week" series at Streetsblog Los Angeles, I took a look at the bike planning at the Democratic National Convention. Local press reports were dire, noting that bike racks near the Pepsi Center in Denver would be closed down as part of the Secret Service's security perimeter. However, after thinking it over, I realized I may have had a "can't see the forest for the trees" moment; after all the advocacy group Bikes Belong has arranged for a free bike-share program for each host city during the convention. Instead of focusing on the negative, I could have looked at how the bike-share program will work around the Secret Service's security concerns.

Public bike-share in the U.S. hit a milestone yesterday when SmartBike DC, the first program of its kind in an American city, launched in full. Coverage in the Washington Post was heavy on the implications for D.C.'s image:

With fall approaching, colleges across the US are encouraging students to come to campus without their cars. In Atlanta, Emory University is selling $250,000 worth of bikes, at a discount, to students and faculty. CNN reports that bike-share programs have started or will soon launch at Duke, the University of Washington, and at least two public universities in Illinois.

With the first anniversary of Vélib approaching and New York officially exploring the possibility of its own program, what better way to celebrate than trying out a free bike this weekend, courtesy of The New York Bike-Share Project. Streetfilms' Elizabeth Press dropped in to get reactions on the first day of this year's event, which lasts through Monday.

Are you "a certain kind of urban idealist"? Chances are that if you read Streetsblog, the answer is yes. At least according to the New York Times.

As metropolises like New York and Philadelphia consider the benefits of bike sharing, and with Washington DC already off and riding, smaller cities are getting in on the action as well, often through the initiative of major local employers.