I’ve visited three cities that have bike share programs, and it absolutely transformed my experience in each. It wasn’t just the money saved on car rental or cab fare: having access to a bicycle opened up the cities for me.
There are about 530 bike share programs worldwide (and about 30 in North America according to the The Stranger). Stands of a dozen or so bikes are sprinkled throughout the city. Anyone can check one out for a short ride. When you’re done, you check in back in to any stand. The cost is minimal: $12 gives you 24 hour membership, but $85 gives you a year’s membership. Rides under thirty minutes are free (after the initial membership costs) and then a few dollars per half hour after that.
As a tourist, it transforms your visit. Instead of watching the city go by from behind a glass, you can get out into it, stop and peer in shop windows or take detours through tree-lined neighborhoods. In Washington, DC, it meant being able to wend through the monuments, parks and out into the neighborhoods, long past the tour busses idling hotly while sweating tourists filed on. In Toronto, I uncovered a shaded park with musicians: I slotted my bike into a nearby station and spent a day with a book and a bench, far my convention center hotel. In Boston, I left time before my morning meeting for a stroll through the Public Gardens. None of that would have happened without a bike.
Now, Seattle is on its way to offering a bike share system, as well.
Last week, the Seattle City Council approved two bills that set the stage for Seattle to join the ranks of bikesharing cities: one approved bike share vending as an allowed use in public rights of way and the other granted Puget Sound Bike Share (PSBS) conceptual approval for their proposed bike sharing program.
According to the Puget Sound Bike Share web site, Phase I of the project will involve 30 stations in the University District, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill and downtown. Hopefully, Wallingford won’t be too far behind.
I’m an unabashed fanboy of the bikeshare systems from the tourists perspective. I’m curious to see what the experience is like as a resident. Generally, I have my bike with me when I’m out and about, so I’m not sure whether I’ll end up being a user. But I appreciate that it could impact the culture of the city. The Stranger quotes Holly Houser, executive director of the program, on the topic:
“I think that the beauty of this program is that it has the potential to change the culture around cycling—to break down assumptions that it’s only for these more serious, hardcore cyclists with fancy bikes who ride every day.”
The bikes used are certainly not the ridiculously refined models you see the lycra set on: they’re heavy, practical and durable. (But I was heartened to see that the normal three speeds the bike share program bikes are equipped with will be upped to seven speeds to accommodate Seattle’s hills.)
Launch is projected for Spring 2014. That’s just one Seattle winter away!
Seattle is the first city I know of with a compulsory helmet law to introduce a bike share program. I wonder how people feel about sharing helmets.
I did see that there is an allowance in the budget for “helmet vending machines”. Boston says they have the same, but I never saw one, they must not be at every station.
As a cyclist who uses a helmet about 50% of the time, I can say the law isn’t enforced.
Enforced or not, riding without a helmet is foolish. Especially in the urban areas where these bicycles are likely to be stationed. And especially by riders who are not familiar with the flow of traffic and the potential danger spots in these neighborhoods.
It is my understanding that helmet rentals will be available at all stations for $2 or $3. I hope they are well-disinfected between uses!
Disposable shower caps could to too (the helmet version of the toilet seat covers ;)).
There are many studies on the effects of helmet laws, I won’t cite any here because I’m not an expert. I encourage you to study the topic yourself. One argument is that mandatory helmet laws reduce the number of journeys by bicycle. The more people on the road cycling the safer cycling is for everyone. Which results in fewer injuries and fatalities, I don’t know:
a) more journeys by bicycle with or without helmets or
b) fewer journeys by bicycle when always warring helmets.
A reduction in cycling because of the barrier of requiring a helmet also reduces the health benefits associated with cycling such as a reduction in heat disease.
For what it’s worth, I always wear a helmet.
Rentals work great in places like The Netherlands, where helmets aren’t used as everything is flat and bikes are fully separated from cars. I’ve never heard of rentals working in a place that requires bike helmets. NYC is giving away helmets as part of their rental program, but you still need to remember to lug it around with you everywhere. Seems like rentals won’t really work here as helmets are needed, but maybe there’s a city where the helmet + bike rental model works?
I think the Dutch really don’t need helmets because their heads are so hard. That is at any rate a more plausible reason. Just about any fall where your head strikes the pavement is going to run you a grave risk of an injury that won’t heal. You don’t need cars or hills to get there.
But there are risks in everything. Someone once proposed to me that among the risks to riding a bicycle, a serious one for many people would be heart attack, so they ought to have auxiliary motors so you wouldn’t over-exert yourself. I proposed that regular bicycling could also reduce risk of heart attack; not sure he bought that. I understand we take a big risk by not wearing helmets when traveling via automobile, but because everyone rides in automobiles, no one really cares to bring this up. I’m going to wear mine while bicycling, but I can see how it might not work out so well for rental riders.
The New York Times had a piece last year questioning the dogma of helmets:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/sunday-review/to-encourage-biking-cities-forget-about-helmets.html
Maybe it’s foolish, but I do a ton of foolish things. And I do believe that anything that makes people afraid of biking should be looked at with suspicion.
@Eric, I wouldn’t see that “rentals won’t really work here as helmets are needed”, I’d say “the city will probably make a pro forma effort to offer helmets to those who want them, and then not enforce it for those that don’t care, to ensure that this doesn’t impede the progress of the program.”
What “dogma” is that? That helmets save lives. That is irrefutable.
That Times article focuses almost entirely on Western European cities, where bike infrastructure is much better than it is in most US cities, and where SUVs don’t barrel along downtown streets at 40mph.
The danger isn’t in the act of cycling, it’s in the incredible lack of attention that too many drivers pay to their surroundings.
Doug,
> What “dogma” is that? That helmets save lives. That is irrefutable.
Not so, it is irrefutable. By reducing the number of journey taken by bicycle the focus on helmets may actually make cycling less safe. This doesn’t even account for the loss of other health benefits by making it less lightly people will bicycle. I don’t know if this really means that helmets cost more lives that they save but I do know that the debate is far from closed.
There is no reason we should not aspire to a cycling culture like in Western Europe. Helmets are not the answer to SUVs barreling down streets at 40 mph.
I am skeptical that this project will work given the legal necessity for helmets in Seattle but I hope it is very successful because the more people who walk or ride on our streets the better our community will be.
Melbourne (where I used the bike share but I’d brought my helmet with me) has a mandatory helmet law. Helmets are available really cheap at every 7-11 (and there is a 7-11 on every corner downtown). Wearing helmets is part of the culture and people just do it.
As someone who would be dead without his helmet, I don’t bike without a helmet, and it has nothing to do with the law.
Actually they’re free – in view of the clear connection between the helmet law and relatively low participation in the bike share, as of May they have been attaching free helmets to the handlebars of some of the bikes. I don’t see anything about size – apparently one size fits all.
Thanks for the NYT article, which says this about Melbourne:
A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne, Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme. Mexico City recently repealed a mandatory helmet law to get a bike-sharing scheme off the ground.
The whole article is a good summary of the issue. My read is that helmets should be required for under 21 and anyone going above a certain speed, but not for others, and of course bikes need to be separated from cars. No more sharrows!
If you mean your “read” of the NYT article found anything about requiring helmets under 21, about speed limits for helmetless riders, or associating helmet requirements with separation, it was a different read than mine!
The article also makes some questionable rationalizations. Risk of head injuries per mile traveled, for example, might well be the same for pedestrians and cyclists (even though note that pedestrians enjoy separation from autos), but the main point of getting on a bicycle is to travel more miles in less time, so indeed it’s a good time to think about putting on a helmet.
I’m not saying that the risk calls for laws on the matter, just that denial based on faulty logic and unquestioned assumptions doesn’t really serve any good purpose.
It was interesting that other bicyclists got as much or more blame as autos for posing a danger to bicyclists (“like running with the bulls”.) Regular users of the Burke Gilman may understand where that’s coming from. I’d like a separate corridor from those guys, please! And of course from the slow people, and another one for families with kids. As bicycling has become more common, I’ve taken to walking instead.
The article says most head injuries are children and Europe has helmet laws for kids. That seems like a great policy baseline to me. The speed and car separation issues aren’t from the article, just my own experiences and an understanding of how speed (of cars or bikes) relates to injuries.
this weekend we spent a full day on the divy bike share there. They don’t offer helmets and nobody appears to use them. I tended to bike slower and safer because I was on a cruiser bike anyways. Being in a more upright position with a bike that is more difficult to accelerate may have a larger effect on safety than wearing a helmet, but we made sure we were on streets that were lower risk.
I’m gonna pop wheelies so hard on these rentals
Hooray for bike shares! After not quite mustering up the courage to try out the city bike systems during recent visits to Montreal and Paris, I managed to overcome my fears and rent bikes in both Hamburg and Washington DC this summer. I’m sold. I was even able to skip the DC metro in favor of a bike commute from my hotel to work. I hope they are successful in Seattle (and also glad to hear that more gears are planned…)