May 30, 2008
Bike Program Spinning Its Wheels
So what’s the status on that city-wide bike-rental program that the Mayor’s office was touting late last year? Chicago is actively looking to imitate the structure of Paris's Vélib program, which is financed by private advertising company JCDecaux, but has not yet been able to settle on a contract. From the Sun-Times:
Transportation Department spokesman Brian Steele said Wednesday that the Daley administration is still entertaining the offer from JC Decaux after a "request for proposals" last year attracted only two companies, neither of which met the mandate to operate a program "at low cost or no cost" to taxpayers.
While Chicago is messing around with logistics, Washington D.C. is poised to become the first American city to implement a public bike rental program. The city began installing bike ports in the spring, and SmartBike DC, sponsored by Clear Channel, is set to be fully operational in early June. Other cities already have similar bike-sharing programs in place, like the Yellow Bike systems in Austin and Lexington.
Image via the noggin_nogged
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so strange that advertising companies are the only ones able to make this work.
Cuz its free advertising, Joe.
It's not exactly free advertising when you pay to sponsor something.
This will never work.
My thoughts exactly, matty.
I don't think that this will work very well. I like the ieda, and I have been to Paris and seen Velib in action, I may even rent a bike next time I am there, where it seems to work very well. In Chicago, Velib might be great for the tourist or the occassional cyclist to get out on the Lake Shore path and take up some sun, but I know I would be scared as hell to take the bike anywhere else. Seasoned cyclists likely have a bike already and are comfortable with biking in the city.
I believe that the bike culture in Chicago needs to change before Velib can become successful: cars need to respect bikes, bikes need to respect the laws, and both need to respect pedestrians (and vice versa) before the culture in this city can change.
On a positive note: maybe the Chicago Velib tourists might be more careful, and not disobey the traffic laws like many other cyclists do, because they won't have the unsafe habits of the asshole cyclists that break the rules.
I what I've seen in Paris and I'll like it here, I suspect. It's worth noting that the Parisians, while they love it, do find it occasionally frustrating... I read a quote a while back and I don't remember where, so I'll paraphrase... taking a Velib bike to work is spending ten minutes looking for an available bike, fifteen minutes of joyous peddling and twenty minutes of looking for an open spot to park the thing.
I don't own (or plan to own)a bike, and I'm totally turned off by the "holier than thou" culture of hard core bicyclists in this city. I hope, however, this idea takes off.
Are they going to rent locks and helmets too?
This really won't work until we get the chipped credit cards, like the rest of the world!
@yok -- I experienced that exact same set of circumstances when I was in Paris trying to rent one of the damn things. 30 minutes walking the equivalent of a 6 Chicago-city block radius looking for a bike. I had the bike I found for about 30 minutes when I just got tired of the bloody thing and just wanted to sit and have a drink. Another 20 minutes looking for a spot to return it -- you would think that I'd have found an empty spot, what with lack of bikes I encountered only about an hour before; I had biked into an area where the bikes just weren't that popular, and there were plenty of bikes to be had, but no open/empty spots.
I DO like the idea, though...maybe I'll just get me one of those 4-seater family bikes at Navy Pier and ride that around the city all day....anyone care to join me?
Joe, you do know those chipped credit cards can be scanned by an attacker from up to 60 feet away?
http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/2006/03/digging_in_to_rfid.html
That means I can steal your card without ever coming near your ass.
To the OP, yeah, Chicago's not as accessible as Paris. I don't expect most folks will be interested in going more than a couple miles, and if that's the case, where are you biking that Bike Chicago doesn't already have a location?
If you plan on using a Velib bike while in Paris next time, you should know that the machines only accept French-issued credit cards. So,...yeah, good luck.