Your area have public bike share or will be soon?

Calgary city council is in the process of deliberations on whether or not to approve the city's first public bike share. There is alot discussion among the citizens and in the press.

Many people feel it's premature because our cycling infrastructure isn't extensive/good enough.

**However the good thing is that ALOT of people are now admitting and agreeing, yes, we need to improve cycling infrastructure and approve of the near future plans and money for implementation from this year until 2013 at least.

This alone is a major huge step to get bring a bunch of former fence-sitters. :):)

***I was visiting my family for a wk. in Toronto last fall, where I did see their public bike share system stations all over the downtown area. No, I was on my bike. I didn't try it but...then I've already tried the same model as a demo model in Vancouver about 3 yrs. ago.

Cycling infrastructure needs to go hand-in-hand with bike share. If you plop down a bunch of bike share stations and don't make the necessary improvements to encourage people to cycle, people will likely not feel safe and won't use the bikes. This is the case in Rome, Italy where there were many bike sharing stations--empty. And it wasn't because they were all being used. There's no bike infrastructure in Rome and it's not a particularly bike friendly place. The bike share stations were plopped down and it didn't work.

Maybe Calgary will be different. I've never been there, but I assume that it's not as densely developed as Rome, and the streets are wider. Rome has to accommodate millions of cars in limited street space. It's hard to fit bikes, too. I did see a fair number of people getting around on bikes, but they were not bike share bikes. But really, Rome isn't like Paris, where the bike share and the infrastructure together resulted in a fantastic bicycle friendly city--a total turnaround. It can be done.

Bike share is supposed to start this summer in NYC.

Time will tell how well it works.

Capital Bikeshare is very popular and growing by leaps and bounds in DC and the nearby Virginia suburbs.

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Originally Posted by ny biker

Capital Bikeshare is very popular and growing by leaps and bounds in DC and the nearby Virginia suburbs.

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The DC area has the bike infrastructure to support bike share, and the traffic woes to encourage it. I wonder if Calgary's will be successful if there is no bike infrastructure and if the traffic and parking situations are not so bad as to push people to seek alternatives to driving. I dunno. Never been to Calgary.

We have an excellent bike share program here in Minneapolis/St. Paul. There is a very large geographical area covered and last year a total of 217,530 trips were made. We are behind DC, but just slightly, but have a smaller population and MUCH smaller amount of tourism. Plus, everyone here owns a bike or six, so I think the numbers are amazing.

I know what I see it used most for amongst my peers is to bike into downtown, go drinking/clubbing/see a show, then take a bike back out. Keeps your personal bike safe from being stolen and is a much cheaper than a taxi.

We do have cycling infrastructure, it needs to span a wider network across the city instead of just along certain areas of the city.

Anyway, Council nixed the idea of bike share for now. I found out a few hrs. ago. Not the end of the world.

My partner was in Texas last wk., at one of the bike summits...he heard and saw from/with several Texans....the width of the roads (for car-obsessed fans) was same problem as here in Calgary downtown. 4 lane, 1-way streets. To me, to see that in downtown Toronto is HIGHLY unusual.

Just insane waste of real estate for most of the day except for peak rush hours in morning and late afternoon.

I am not certain how Toronto's bike share is doing since it was rolled out earlier last year.