Beginning this July the city of Boston is launching a bike share program similar to those already existing in many major cities in Europe. The program is set to begin with 600 bikes at 61 kiosks throughout the city and they hope to grow to as many as 5,000 bikes at more than 300 kiosks extending into the neighborhoods surrounding Boston.
The program is designed work similarly to the car sharing system of Zipcar with memberships ranging from $5 a day to $85 a year.
The city was able to fund the program mainly through grants and donations (without relying on local taxpayer dollars) and should be able to maintain it through membership fees.
Hopefully this kind of self-sustaining initiative will encourage more people to use this much greener and healthier form of transportation.
Image: NY Times
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love it!
I had the chance to try the Nice Ride bikes (https://www.niceridemn.org/) in Minneapolis over Memorial Day Weekend and I can't say enough good things about them. If a city has good bike infrastructure already, they are a bike-loving tourist's best friend.
Too bad it's completely unsafe to ride a bike here! All you folks who do are brave souls.
Looks like this is also in Washington D.C., Arlington County, VA, Miami, Nashville, San Antonio, Kailua, Chicago, Denver, Boulder, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and Madison, WI.
I don't get it. Why not just buy your own bike?
"Why not just buy your own bike?"
Because you're a tourist and want to see the sights by bike. Because you only ride a few times per month or year for fun rather than for a daily commute. Because you haven't ridden a bike in twenty years and want to practice before committing to a purchase. Because you're a student and you don't want to deal with buying/selling a bike every year (or four) or finding storage or shipping it home. Because you want to bike around the other end of the city or you live in the suburbs and don't want to ride your bike all the way there and back. I could go on...
This is a good thing. The more people on bikes, the more drivers will become aware, the safer the streets will get.