Proposals sought for Boston bike-sharing program

How long before riders are charged some sort of tax for feet driven around the city?

great idea BUT how much is it going to cost to fix all the roads/sidewalks so that they are "bicycle friendly"?

I will wheelie from Central Square to Copley Square

Man, how out of touch can Menino be? Talk about confusing cause and effect. No, Tommy, "Successful bike sharing programs in Europe have not only established biking as a significant means of transportation; they have transformed the entire culture and mindset around transportation,"

European sharing programs came as a result of teh culture, not the other way around. Bikes were (and are) a significant means of transportation waaaaay before any sharing programs. The sharing plans did not transform the culture, the culture enabled the sharing programs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of this program, but let's be honest here.

smart idea. I hope it actually happens one day.

That is a great idea and it works in many other cities, but in Boston, don't hold your breath!!

The greatest impediment to bicycling in Boston is not the availability of bikes, it's the drivers who don't care about mowing you down, the poor condition of the roads and street design. Using European cities as a point of comparison is pretty ridiculous given that the systems are so vastly different. You wanna make Boston a better biking city (or driving city for that matter) ban cell phone usage wtihin city limits.

I know the storm finished you offf -- but fellow Bostonians, sometimes there is such a thing as "good news." This is it.

So where is the news? I got 3 bikes stolen, which this mean that they share (now it was mine now is yours)

So Boston had that program long long ago :)

Great idea, but, NE weather is not exactly well-suited for commuting via bike. Perhaps they should consider implementing a snow shoe or cross county ski sharing progam?

The program in Paris was a disaster and is ending.

it's going to tough to ride those bikes after the seats, handlebars, gears, chains, breaks and tires have all been stolen off them - which should take roughly a week.

I hope Bostonians embrace this idea. Better than schlepping my bike up and down four flights of stairs every time I want to go somewhere.

The way it was done in Paris was to start big, with thousands of bikes and a well thought-out launch, so that the public could count on the service. If you start small, people will get frustrated with the lack of access to bikes and it will loose favor over time, not gain popularity.

Closing city streets (commonwealth ave from kenmore to common) to auto traffic on weekends would get people on their own bikes riding in the city.

and maybe some free shuttle buses with bike racks as they have in Bar Harbor would be nice.

I hope the bikes are all equipped with horns...gotta preserve that vintage boston sound.

Great idea. Milan, Paris, etc. all have such bike sharing programs. But, the difference is that Paris and Amsterdam have designated bike lanes completely seperated from the street. Is Boston willing to cut into the streets or sidewalks to create designated bike lanes protected from the street by a raised area?

This is all great news. Everyone stop complaining and nit-picking. I was in Paris last year and if they can replicate that it will change the feel of the city. Get back to work nobody

The availability of bikes isn't necessarily the reason people aren't biking...until those reasons are eliminated, i.e. bike lanes//safety, i can't see this program being a success. although it would be a fun weekend to do

My question is... can you pick up a bike somewhere and drop it off somewhere else?? That would make zipcar much more valuable for me...

I've seen the bike sharing program in Paris. It's pretty amazing to see the bikes out there. Many people were riding around the city in January! The major problem here though is that we don't have the infrastructure that they do. Bikers safely travel around the city in their own lanes, out of the way of motorists and also safe and comfortable in "their own space."

Mayor Menino is only providing lip service to this idea as there have been several opportunities in the past few years to add bike lanes to road reconfigurations and they were overlooked or rejected...

*Surface Artery
*Cambridge Street (between the Longfellow Bridge and Somerset Street)
*Washington Street (Between New England Medical and Melnea Cass Boulevard).
*Mass Ave (Between Albany Street and Huntington Ave) - This one is currently still being designed. Local neighborhood groups requested bike lanes be added to the design in October and were explicitly told "NO."

Menino: Get serious. Prove that you really want this program to work and give bikers their fair share of the road!

Lets not turn Boston into Amsterdam in terms of it's biking situation now. It's already a pain in the ass to drive anywhere in Cambridge due to the high traffic of bikers on the roads and it's still the winter time. God knows how much more grid lock this will create in the summer. Creating Grid-lock among cars by increasing the amount of bikers on the road (but not changing the amount of bike paths there are) will most likely actually increase emissions rather than decrease them!

(On the Paris program, from LeParisien at www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/les-velib-decimes-par-le-vandalisme-09-02-2009-404833.php)

In a year and a half of operation, 7,800 bicycles have disappeared from Paris’ bike-sharing program...another 11,600 have been vandalized...from a fleet of 20,000...nearly all the original bicycles have been replaced at a cost of $519 each. JCDecaux, the advertising company that operates Vélib' for the City of Paris, is considering closing the stations which are the most vandalized.

How about you get a car and stop complaining.....should all these bikers start paying insurance like us drivers? should they pay excise tax?...after all they are using the streets we pay taxes on.

As a bike commuter for many years (JP to Malden and back), I have to support any initiative that puts more bikes on the streets.

However, as many others have pointed out, to ride a bike in Boston you also need to be a mechanic (I fixed a flat almost once a day due to the poor quality of the roads) and a psychic - car drivers in Boston have not got a clue about bikes and how to share the road. I heard "get on the sidewalk" and had a near miss due to drivers simply not looking for bikes every single day.

That is, ban cell phone usage while driving in city limits, sorry folks.

Will they have a helmet-sharing program as well to go with it?

Great, let's add MORE bikers to Boston streets, since they all follow the traffic laws so brilliantly now.

Maybe they should start this program, but make people take a driver's (biker's) ed course or something... I love waiting patiently to cross the street only to have a biker mow me down because they feel like they can run the red light!

Otherwise I like the idea.

Yep, no amount of free bikes is going to overcome the long-standing Boston tradition of crazy driving. But it's probably cheaper than building bike lanes.

Eighteen months into a wildly successful launch, the Parisian bike-sharing program Vélib - a portmanteau of vélo (bicycle) and liberté (freedom) – has run into serious problems with theft and vandalism of the bikes. Launched in 2007 as part of an effort to “green” Paris, now over half of the original 15,000 customized bikes have been stolen, in a mania some have dubbed the “Vélib extreme”.
Since the program’s inception, the bike sharing network has been used 42 million times, but almost all the original, supposedly “vandal-proof” bikes have been replaced at a cost of 400 euros each.

Some of the Vélib bicycles have been found hanging from lampposts, dumped in the Seine River, smashed and burned. There are even videos online showing riders taking them down the steps into the métro or onto BMX courses

Squid nailed it. I love the idea and think it is the perfect solution for the rather lousy travel around Boston. However, if bicycling will last as a significant means of public transportation, then yes the city needs to be willing to invest in bicycle lanes (probably not as big as the one's in Amsterdam). Given Boston's small and winding roads, the large student population, and the generally active lifestyle of the city bicycling is already popular and this plan will take off if it's done right. I hope it is because it will greatly enhance the quality of life in the city, and of course reduce green house gas and maybe a few lbs. for those needing to drop some puundage.

FINALLY!

This is the best thing to happen to Boston in a long time. To nobody - although european culture was probably already more open to this type of idea, these programs most definitely HAVE changed the culture. I first saw these programs in Seville, Spain - and our tourguide explained how nobody thought the bike-sharing system would work, but a year after its implementation, the whole city was on two wheels.

A couple of comments - start big, and put large parking garages with bikes on the outskirts of the city. That way people can park their cars from the burbs and bike the rest of the way in - making it much easier to start cutting in to roads to place bike lanes (ie there would be significantly less car traffic because of it).

Any new sharing system would need to work with my Charlie Card. Please keep my wallet thin...

Dave from Wakefield - I have ridden to and from work every single day this winter. It can be done, with proper planning and common sense. Get out there and quit complaining about the weather.

What a bunch of nonsense. The city doesn't have a pot to pee in and they're going to buy 1500 bikes and build bike stations. The only green house gases I see are coming out of the mayor!!

The program in Barcelona is a huge success, to the point that they were looking to provide more bikes when I was there last summer. It was amazing the variety of people I saw riding, when 10 years before that almost no one rode a bike in the city. I think its awesome that he is trying to make this work!

"European sharing programs came as a result of teh culture, not the other way around. Bikes were (and are) a significant means of transportation waaaaay before any sharing programs. The sharing plans did not transform the culture, the culture enabled the sharing programs."

This is the most intelligent comment (keyboard typo aside, hey it happens) i've seen on boston.com ever. He's right.

"Dave from Wakefield - I have ridden to and from work every single day this winter. It can be done, with proper planning and common sense. Get out there and quit complaining about the weather."

To Y8s: Was I complaining about the weather? I love NE and the seasons, including the winter (and I love the snow!). I was being sarcastic......That said, the weather here does create problems for biking commuters (and others) ,potholes, etc. Did you ride your bike to work this past Monday? Come on now......with the crumbling, narrow streets of boston, traffic, and weather, do you really think it is reasonable for a typical commuter to consider biking into boston? What proper planning are you talking about exactly? And exactly how far is your commute. Wakefield to Boston on a snowy (or rainy) day is a bit much, no matter how many precautions you take. Breathe in, breathe out....

Until bike sharing is successfully launched and sustainable in Portland and NYC, Boston should stay away from it. Remember how public Wifi was such a great idea four years ago, and then quickly failed miserably? Better to proceed with caution

Boston does not even have any bathrooms for tourist or residents!!! A real World Class City!!! I would like a pound of what ever the person is smoking who calls Boston a World Calss City!!!

There is another way to look at the situation. See www.LightWheels.com. Billboard advertising companies can not be given the job of designing our streets or transportation priorities more than they already have. We need to finish designing the bike...........a process we abandoned more than a century ago. Bicyclists made the roads good enough to use and than got forced off of them. We need 21st century shared vehicles of all kinds to compete with "Automobiles".

"We need to finish designing the bike...........a process we abandoned more than a century ago. Bicyclists made the roads good enough to use and than got forced off of them. We need 21st century shared vehicles of all kinds to compete with Automobiles"
Valid point, about need for new designs, also get the Fed'n of International bicycling to revoke the ban on anything other than the "safety bicycle" from entering bicycle racing events. This would allow design competition.

#7. "The greatest impediment to bicycling in Boston is not the availability of bikes, it's the drivers who don't care about mowing you down, the poor condition of the roads and street design. Using European cities as a point of comparison is pretty ridiculous given that the systems are so vastly different. "

Have you ever been to Europe? To suggest that Boston road conditions and layout are worse than in cities that are more than a thousand years older is ridiculous. Even more, Boston drivers are very tame compared almost all that I've encountered in Europe (ESPECIALLY the Italians). I believe bike sharing will be successful in Boston BECAUSE of the factors named above, not despite them.

This is a great idea! It has worked in so many other cities throughout the world (I was lucky enough to enjoy this in Europe!). Although it is cold is Boston for much of the year- Bostonians will be able to take advantage of the wonderful bike program come Spring, Summer and Fall. Great for quick transportation, exercise, and "greening up" the city! It a little pathetic how negative some of these posts can be- (uhm..."Debbie Downers") try looking on the bright side! Some of us (I'm sure Boston hopes ALOT of us) will really be grateful and happy for this program!