Bike Sharing - Is it Coming to a City Near You?

Transportation, we use it every day and are always hearing about ways we can make it “greener”. Well, while on vacation this past summer we were lucky enough to visit Paris, France for 6 days. We were truly “green” in our traveling methods in the City as we walked or took mass transit everywhere we went. Paris has such a wonderful mass transit system that it makes it very easy to be “green”. One thing I noted while we were there were all the bike-sharing stations they had. Outside of every metro station (that was above ground) there would usually also be a bike-sharing station. For those of you not familiar with this (I’d never seen one before) the bike-sharing stations have bikes that are locked into place and you pay into each bike’s meter to “rent” the bike. When you are done using the bike you can return it to any bike-sharing station. I was amazed at how many people we saw riding these bikes, people of all ages, sizes, and even women in skirts and dresses. I thought that this was such a great idea and wondered why we didn’t have anything like this back at home. Well, after looking into this I found that while the programs are wide-spread in Europe they are just starting to gain popularity in the US. This past May a group called Clear Channel Outdoor started this service in Washington, DC and so far it seems to be working. While the program in Paris has had problems with bike theft and vandalizing of bikes other similar programs in Lyon, France, Barcelona, Spain and the new program in Washington, DC have not run into them yet. Among the other cities discussing starting bike-sharing programs are Chicago, San Francisco, and New York. This is a great alternative to driving and it is wonderful to see cities being interested in doing something positive for the environment and the health of their residents.