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JackOLantern--why wouldn't you just get a bike now for your commute, what's stopping you?

Just get a beater bike for your transit to work/back leg of your journey. That's what I did in Baltimore for my trip to and from Towson (it was an old 10 speed of an office mate's son). It was 7.5 miles to Towson, but a bike allowed me to control my time better and not have to rely on the bus in order to not miss the train and therefore have to wait another hour for the next train. (It wasn't a problem so much taking the bus to work, it was coming back to Penn Station--where the service, on the QuickBus was erratic and the 8 was pretty slow, although I could have taken a bus up to Lutherville and the light rail from there, but it would have still relied on the bus.)

WRT this proposal in general, the real problem is a lack of a network and the need have dispersed stations (docks) to securely lock the bikes in the places where people are going. But then there is the issue of getting the bikes back to places where people will use them--it's a system that is supposed to be collaborative consumption remember, not a way to provide people their own personal bike for $75/year It's not unlike the problems in DC but worse. (jim mentioned this before me.)

It'd be better to provide people with bikes directly, and to set up a program at the shelter that someone mentioned.

The Community Cycling Center of Portland has a good program to promote bike usage by low income commuters. It includes a bike for people who finish the program.

by Richard Layman on Jun 14, 2011 1:16 pm • link • report