Bike-Sharing Gets Smart

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By KRISTINA DELL

The pedal pushers are wising up. In the mid-1990s, when public bike-sharing programs were heralded as a way to curb parking shortages as well as greenhouse-gas emissions, dozens of U.S. cities decided to give them a shot. Nonprofits in places like Boulder, Colo.; Charlottesville, Va.; and Gainesville, Fla., launched fleets of communal bikes that people could borrow for free and leave around town for the next rider to happen upon. No locks, no deposits and, pretty soon, no bikes. Theft and vandalism quickly wiped out many of these freewheeling initiatives. This month, however, Washington is rolling out America's first high-tech bike-sharing program. The so-called SmartBikes come with key-card locking systems and tracking devices to prevent theft. And officials are hoping the only problem this time around will be having enough supply to meet demand.

With gas prices skyrocketing and carbon-footprint consciousness going mainstream, more and more cities are betting that Americans are finally ready to make biking part of their daily commute. Denver and Minneapolis will also kick off bike-sharing programs this summer, and Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle, and Arlington, Va., are in talks to launch their versions within the next year or so.

Why the renewed interest? One word: Vélib. Paris launched the Vélib program a year ago, and while très cheap (its name is French shorthand for "free bike"), it's actually not free. Although places like Copenhagen, Lyons and Barcelona are big on bike-sharing, the City of Lights boasts the crème de la crème, with 20,600 bikes and about 1,450 stations--four times the number of Parisian metro stops. It's hard to walk more than two blocks without running into a bike rack, which helps explain why the program has already yielded a 5% drop in car traffic. Paris has also removed lots of parking spots to make way for bike stations.

But making things convenient for riders is a major production. Some 400 people work full-time to ensure that the Vélib program runs smoothly. Every day trucks have to move bikes around to meet rush-hour demands, and a barge along the Seine serves as a floating bike-repair shop. "We conceived of this as a public-transportation system, so it operates as one," says Bernard Parisot, president of JCDecaux NA, the outdoor-advertising company that runs Vélib with the profits it makes from selling ads on bus shelters and billboards. To help keep impatience to a minimum, Vélib sends cell-phone alerts about which stations have bikes available. "It's a real revolution," says Parisot. So much so that the mayors of New York City and Chicago have made visits to get a better idea of how a Parisian-style program might work in their cities.

In the beginning, at least, Washington's program will be microscopic compared with Paris'. Officials are starting with 120 bikes and 10 stations to work out any kinks but hope it will grow to many times that. "We need to get bigger if we want to make a dent in congestion and pollution," says Jim Sebastian, planner for the district's department of transportation. And just like Paris, Washington is using bus-shelter ad space to pay for the program. Clear Channel's outdoor-advertising unit paid for the exclusive right to sell shelter ads and is pouring a percentage of that revenue into a scalable system that ties in with city bus and subway routes. Says Martina Schmidt, the company's SmartBike director: "The more drop-off stations, the easier it is to use." And the more people use public transportation, the more eyeballs will be looking at those bus-shelter ads.

To borrow a SmartBike, users have to be over 18 and have a credit card. An annual fee of $40 lets riders tool around on a three-speed bike as often as they like for up to three hours at a time. Better be punctual: your second tardy return gets you booted from the system. The program keeps track of the bikes via tiny rfid chips, the same tamper-proof radio-frequency devices used to monitor everything from clothing inventories to office ID badges. Riders use a swipe card to unlock the bikes, and if they fail to return them--or if the bikes are stolen on their watch--they'll be out $200. SmartBikes will soon be outfitted with independent wire locks so that cyclists can make pit stops wherever they want. No need to worry, though, about wheels getting pilfered. They're not quick release and are too small for regular bike frames.

Eventually the program may enable riders to calculate miles traveled as well as reductions made in their carbon footprints. But the gee-whiz factor will always take a backseat to convenience. For bikes to become a mainstay of the morning rush, cities need to spend time and money expanding bike fleets and making streets safer for two-wheelers. That means creating dedicated bike lanes and ticketing cars that double-park in them. (Swing open a door at the wrong time, and a cyclist could get seriously injured.) Washington has spent the past seven years installing more than 30 miles (48 km) of bike lanes--officials are looking into building more that are set apart from regular traffic by concrete barriers, Parisian style--and has safety campaigns to help cyclists and motorists get along.

Shortly after SmartBikes are introduced in the nation's capital, bike-sharing will be showcased at the Republican and Democratic national conventions, which are being held in Minneapolis and Denver, respectively. Each city will have 1,000 communal bikes on hand for its convention, thanks to a corporate sponsor and a cycling-advocacy group. To outsiders, cold-wintered Minneapolis may seem like an unlikely bike haven. But even when it's below freezing, hardy Minnesotans commute via bike. Last year the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Minneapolis the city with the second highest number of bike commuters as a percentage of the population. (Portland was No. 1.) After completing 100 miles (160 km) of bike paths, Mayor R.T. Rybak has turned his attention to expanding bike-sharing and adding amenities like showers that cyclists can use before heading into the office.

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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1813972,00.html