Campus Community Bike Program

[pll]

That is such a neat idea!

Copenhaguen and Helsinki have city bike programs, too:

http://members.aol.com/humorme81/citybike.htm
http://members.aol.com/humorme81/helsinki.htm

In both cases, the bikes are locked with a coin and they have some sponsorship.

[Zen]

Maybe paint them multi-colors instead of solid yellow. Neon pink and fluorescent green?

People like yellow

[Trek420]

Maybe paint them multi-colors instead of solid yellow. Neon pink and fluorescent green?

People like yellow

I like my yellow bike I'd better watch out for;
"hey! that's my bike you ..."
"I'm from Hellsinki, I thought it was a city bike"

I forget which community has a charge card based system where you pay and then get it back each time you use the bike.

[Bad JuJu]

See, that's what I was thinking--yellow is cool. Who wouldn't want a snappy yellow bike? But, I guess we'll just see what happens.

[PinkBike]

from www.azcentral.com
(this was a program in downtown Phoenix)

The purple bikes
It was such a European concept. In 1997, the thought was to park bicycles at recognizable purple bike racks around the city. Residents could borrow a bike to get where they needed to go, then leave it at another purple bike rack. Worries that people would steal the Purple People Movers, as the bikes were called, were dismissed. "You can't really steal something that is free," a transportation official was quoted as saying. Somebody figured out how. The program started in April. By May, none of the 60 bikes placed around downtown Phoenix could be found. The bike racks were eventually yanked out, or repainted to match downtown's new branding concept, Copper Square. One lone purple bike rack remains outside the Maricopa County government complex. Anyone who still has a purple bike may return it there if they choose.

[MomOnBike]

Elder Daughter's college (Carleton. in Minnesota) had/has a Yellow Bike Program. As far as I could tell it worked just like it was supposed to. I noticed yellow bikes near every building on campus, and the occasional student riding along on one.

Our only thought was that if one had a snazzy bike that happened to be yellow, it would be a good idea to leave it at home and bring something else.

[ChickWithBrains]

The Carleton bikes are great! My old Quentin Hilltopper, a lovely sparkling lilac beauty, became a yellow bike upon my graduation (I believe the program began in '99 or 2000). The program is wonderful and the few yellow bikes that make it off campus and into town are quickly brought back by other students (or in rare instances the police). In a small town like Northfield, publicizing the program was easy and the bright yellow bikes are pretty obvious when not where they should be -- concerns of theft are pretty minimal.

Yay for expansion of the program!