Alternatives to the private bicycle

Thanks to my friends Ginger and Terri for this link to something called B-cycle.

This seems to be the high-tech version of something I remember seeing back in Moscow, Idaho, when I lived there during the very early 1980s--shared bicycles. Back in Moscow, these were old beater bikes, spray-painted orange and left at public bike racks. You could borrow one, bicycle around on it to your heart's content, then leave it at another bike rack. I'm not sure how successful this venture was. The bikes were supposed to be too ugly to steal, but I'm sure a few of them got stolen. I don't know who was in charge of maintenance, and since you didn't have to pay to use the bike, there wasn't a maintenance fund. Besides that, although Moscow had a fairly small population and not a huge amount of traffic, it was very hilly and not much fine to ride around on a single-speed bike. I can't be sure of this, but if I went back to Moscow, Idaho today, I bet that all of the public bikes would be gone.

B-cycle, on the other hand appears to be a co-operative venture of the advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, the bicycle manufacturer Trek and the health insurance company Humana. I found this by doing a little googling, and reading a post on the Inspired Economist. It seems to be presented as an effort of these companies to combat environmental degradation and improve public health. The idea is that riders can check out these simple single-speed bikes at numerous convenient public locations, then return them to the same or a different B-cycle rack.

It's not a free service. Riders pay for the use of the bikes with a credit card or a B-cycle account. I haven't seen the business model for B-cycle. I'm not sure what the use of the machines costs--the B-knowledge link on the B-cycle site offers to answer the question "What does it cost?", but the answer is, "Rates will be coming soon." so, on the one hand, this public rent-a-bike system offers the advantage that the bicycles can be tracked, and there is income to use for maintenance of the machines. Is the hope of the sponsors that the fees for the bikes will also generate a profit? Or is the project meant as a form a community service (as well as public relations for its sponsors)?

Let's see what else I can find...

April Streeter on the Huffington Post thinks it's a great idea, but doesn't offer a lot more details. Writing on the New York Times Green, Inc. blog, Azadeh Ensha says that a B-cycle membership is slated to cost $50/year. Each bike reportedly costs $2500-$3000.

Ensha notes that other bike-sharing programs worldwide have had mixed success, but that the president of B-cycle is optimistic that the company can succeed:

“We’ve done a lot of research on both successful and unsuccessful bike-sharing programs — about 100 throughout the world,” says Nate Kvamme, the president of B-cycle and a former director at Humana’s Innovation Center. Mr. Kvamme says his bike-sharing program boasts some distinct advantages over earlier comers — including fourth-generation bicycles that will track and measure usage, and a business plan that relies on integration with local businesses.

Meanwhile, according to the Cafe Evoke's A Thought Over Coffee blog, Oklahoma City is second in the nation in people who have voted on B-cycle's Who Wants It More? page to bring B-cycle to our city.

I'm not sure what I think. B-cycle sounds like an intriguing idea, but I tend to be wary of corporations bearing gifts. For myself, I like the OKC Infoshop, where they have a free bicycle recyclery. Anyone out there have any different opinions?