Public bike and scooter programs

Bicycles can be the fastest and most efficient way to navigate crowded cities.  However, bikes mix poorly with fast-moving cars and trucks.  Few reasonable citizens wish to bike under those conditions, and certainly not on a daily basis.

Some European cities have banned cars from their centers, and American cities would do well to emulate them.  Even a partial ban on personal internal combustion vehicles could present cities with opportunities to invest in a bike infrastructure, with the resulting benefits of cleaner air, less noise, less need for parking, increased vitality for downtown businesses, and a higher overall quality of life.

Some ideas for bike infrastructure follow:

Public bike programs.  In the simplest version of this program, the city makes a fleet of modest bicycles available to anyone in the downtown.  Program managers paint the bikes specific color, say bright yellow.  Distribution of the bikes may be at the whims of the ebb and flow of normal human daily conduct, or, as in the Minneapolis/St. Paul program, you check out the bike much like you check out a library book.  In Portland, Oregon, this program evolved into the Community Cycling Center's Create a Commuter program, which outfits low-income individuals with bicycles if they agree to commute to work using them. Austin, Texas also has a yellow bike program, as well as a listing of other cities with other types of community bicycle programs.

Public scooter programs.  A take off on the above, with electric scooters.  Parking places around town all have charging outlets.  The scooters have limited range, and can only be charged on the public chargers.  A card unlocks the scooter from its charging station.  Microcomputer chips in the scooter and the charging stations register the scooter's unique ID and location whenever it is plugged in.  If any scooter is not plugged in within a certain time frame, then a warning is sent to headquarters, and a Lojack-like homing device is activated.  The scooter is tracked down and responsible parties are issued citations.  Or, the scooter might automatically shut down, lock up, and sound an alarm after being driven out of the program area (not while moving!).  The city insures the scooters, possibly licenses scooter users, may require insurance for riders, but is not liable for the personal injuries of a rider.   People could be permitted to buy their own personal scooters, and pay an annual fee to use the public charging stations.  Personal scooters would have locking steering columns and other features.  The overall scooter fleet could contain both public and private units, and presents great opportunities for local scooter manufacturing and repair jobs.   In sunny areas, solar chargers can cut long-term costs.  Electric scooters are not a fantasy, there are many models available today.

Bike trains:  Special rail cars are designed so that commuters may board the train with their bike, snap their bike into a special holder, ride with their bike, and exit with their bike.  This eliminates the "bikes in the back of the train" or the "no bikes during rush hour" restrictions most transit agencies place on cyclists.  (Sustainable Enterprises is looking for an artist to render such a rail car.  Please contact us.)  We have more ideas about trains

Visit the Center for Appropriate Transport, a bike think tank and manufacturing place.