San Francisco is pioneering a new bike-sharing program in the vein of Paris and Barcelona. The project has been trumpeted by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office for years. With a $4 million grant that eventually came through, the city is readying 500 bikes for deployment in the spring of 2012.
That’s a bit of a ways off. But bicycling companies vying for the city contract were out demo-ing their systems this past weekend. Explaining how it will all work was Jerold Chinn at Shareable who also created this video of B-cycle .
Bike Sharing Demonstration from SF Public Press on Vimeo.
Seattle is trying (at least) a couple different approaches:
Official:
http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/04/19/seattle-bike-share-a-few-comments/
And unofficial:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/09/13/public-bikes-come-to-west-seattle
Interesting, Ben! I think having them linked with bus stops, like they did in Portland is an intriguing idea. We have the same problem here with buses not coming on time and an alternative mode of transport would be great in those moments.