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Mayor Bloomberg spent yesterday in Paris and paid particular interest to the City of Light's bike-sharing program. The Parisian program started in July and has thousands of bikes secured around the city's streets. People who need a quick ride can rent the bike's by the half hour, with the first 30 minutes free and increasing fares for each additional half hour to discourage lengthy rentals. Bloomberg seemed curious about the program, but acknowledged that there were some differences between Paris and NYC that could make an identical setup difficult. He cited the sometimes poor conditions of city streets due to changes in the weather (i.e. huge potholes) and a lack of bike lanes. 100,000 people signed up to use the Paris bike-share program for a full year and five million rides had been taken since the program's inception.
This summer the Forum for Urban Design sponsored NY Bike Share, a multi-day pilot program to see how bike-sharing could work in New York. Operating out of a storefront on Kenmare St., about 25 people a day were able to borrow bikes for 30 minute rides.
(bikes, by pamplemoussehihi at flickr)
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This could work if we make bicycle theft a felony.
I was going to say, another difference between Paris and NYC is that our drivers are psycho nutcases. But then I remembered how they drive in Paris: every time the lights go green it's like the start of a Grand Prix.
I guess it's the bike lanes. Although I agree with comment #1 that bike theft should be a more serious crime (since it discourages bikers and therefore increases pollution).
I'm also tired of reading (and eye-whitnessing) how drivers seem to think it's OK to kill bikers. I have yet to hear of Bloomie taking steps to tackle this. He seems to prefer that the police join in the bullying, anywhere near the (misguided) Critical Mass demo.
Copenhagen has a program like this, but bike rentals are absolutely free with a deposit. Needless to say, they found one of these "CityBikes" at the Port Authority in nyc.
I don't think drivers think it is ok to kill cyclists. I think most of the drivers aren't conditioned to think about anything but other cars.
I don't own a car but my mom was in town yesterday and I got behind the wheel of her car for a while. As a long time cyclist and pedestrian you forget how annoying we can be to drivers. People try to hail cabs while standing in the street - especially near the corners where cars are trying to turn. Cyclists think nothing of running lights and going against traffic. It is unsettling for a driver to have to be looking out for these things on top of the crazy cabs.
I was in New Mexico recently, where motorcycles must be very popular. There must be a lot of car-vs-motorcycle accidents because the state airs a steady stream of PSAs on TV directed at car drivers with the drumbeat message of "be aware, be aware, be aware of motorcyclists." I think the city would do well to run similar spots that emphasize caution and looking out for cyclists and pedestrians. PSAs can be extremely effective if one is willing to not pull punches. This anti-speeding PSA from Ireland haunted me for weeks (warning: it is a little graphic).
This could work if we didn't have so many FUCKING CARS IN THE CITY.