Monday, December 10, 2007

a blog on vélib' and other bike-sharing programs

Bike-sharing Blog is devoted to bike-sharing systems like the Vélib' program in Paris. It's produced by a bike consulting firm, MetroBike LLC. I've been posting quite a bit on this subject and am happy to be able to point you to a good source for current into on it. The photo is from the current post. It shows bikes from a company with which the University of Washington has a contract for a bike-sharing pilot. The bikes are electric-powered. Here's a press release.
Another post has a nice mash-up from Google Maps. The guy who writes the blog says there are now 62 mature bike-sharing programs. Sixty-one in Europe, one in Asia, and none in North America or elsewhere.

He agrees with me that plans for bike sharing in Washington DC are extremely lame. He says:
Small, but hey, it'll be the first in North America. D.C. contracted for the 120 bikes four years ago when it released its Request for Proposals forits bus shelter contract. Four years ago, a fleet of 120 was impressive. With larger and successful programs like Velib' (10,600 bikes now with 20,600 planned) and Bicing (3,000 bikes now with 6,000 planned), the relative size of a small program has shifted. D.C. officials are already considering how to expand the size of their program.
Incidentally: I used the ScribeFire Firefox extension to prepare this post. Nice and easy. I like it.

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