Editor’s note: Jerry passes on this link to a bike rental program in France:
Rentabike moves up a gear from curiosity to runaway success
Could this be made to work in Portland? Is there a market for bicycle rentals if access is made convenient enough?
2 responses to “A Variation on Yellow Bikes?”
This is similar to many programs in Norway and Sweden that I ran across when travelling: decent-quality bikes, computerized keys, registry of users. Sort of like FlexCar, but sometimes free. When I visited one town that dubbed itself the bike capital of Norway (the name of which I forget right now), the tourist office at the train station let me check out a bike for free and tool around town. It came with a lock, and then I returned it two hours later.
In Oslo, you pay a bit for a subscription. The downside was that the bikes were too small for me. But that’s easily fixed (not my height, the bike size!)
It would be great if visitors to Portland could stop by a tourist office downtown and borrow a bike for free. Show ID and a credit card, and off you go for the afternoon. That’d help us get to Platinum.
Maybe a “bicycle library”? Check out a bicycle and lock from one of the “branches” and return them to any other “branch”. You show ID and put down a deposit, refundable on return of the bike (or submit a credit card). You will be charged a late fee if you have the bike more than a set period of time.