Bikes for Everyone

How cool would it be if you could just hop on a bicycle to make your way across town -- without all the responsibility of owning your own bike? We know, very cool. Well, soon enough you might be able to do this in Boston.

The northeast city is working with a company in Montreal to create the nation's largest urban bike-sharing system. Officials hope to make a decision within the next two months. And if the project is given a green light, a network of 2,500 bikes and 290 stations will likely cover the city by summer. If all goes well, they'll expand into the neighboring towns of Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville for a total of 5,000 two-wheelers.

People continue to have more reasons to travel by bike, largely for its eco-friendly impact and its cost efficiency. But the expense or commitment of owning frequently keeps people attached to gas-guzzlers. Bike-sharing could encourage a larger number of the population to start pedaling.

The system is a rather simple one: Riders would arrive at a station, swipe a card, hop on the bike and just cruise until reaching their destination, where they would return the bike at another station. While details for payment options have yet to be worked out, the system in Montreal offers $78 yearly passes to $5 per day.

David Watson, executive director of MassBike, a statewide bicycling advocacy group tells the Associated Press, "We're excited about it. It creates an opportunity for people who don't think of themselves as bicyclists to shift some of their trips from cars to bicycles."

And although theft is always a heavy deterrent for programs such as this, as a New Yorker and biker, I'm going to keep the faith that the Boston model works out and we'll soon see similar programs rolling out to other cities across the nation.  

Photo by dailyinvention, courtesy Creative Commons, via Flickr