
The Global Bike-Share Boom: An Interactive History - elorant
http://www.citylab.com/city-makers-connections/bike-share/
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hrnnnnnn
I can't even scroll this page. (FF 40, using mousewheel)

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FranOntanaya
Same. Disabling page styles and javascript makes it much more readable.

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asquabventured
I find it a bit ironic that using noscript in this case actually makes a
"fancy" website function _better_.

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pjc50
Fanciness is often the opposite of functionality.

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netrus
I see it as a story of success of an old idea through tech-evolution. The idea
is so obvious. It is horrible that I have to lock my bike. I would much prefer
not to! And I would be happy to share my bike with others. I could even
tolerate some low loss rate. I love to bike, and I love when other people
bike. But because people, you cannot simply buy 1.000 bikes and spread them
all over the city. People will abuse every system, if it is too easy to abuse.
So you need some kind of control. And this control came with GPS, mobile
internet, mobile cellphones and magnetic cards. I don't even know if the bikes
in our Hamburg sharing system are GPS-monitored. But it's possible. And sure,
I could find a way to register with fake data - but there would be some chance
to get caught. This feeling of everything-is-connected, everything-is-
monitorable is a strong force to make antisocial behavior less likely. I
realize that sounds somehow dystopian, but on the other hand, we now have bike
sharing.

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JoeAltmaier
Wow. Yay NSA because, bike sharing.

Anyway, I doubt the utility of bike sharing because there can never be enough
bikes. Lots of traffic is modal at times of the day (heading to work; going
shopping; heading home) so bikes end up clumped. You can't depend upon there
being a bike available, so you have to be prepared to walk. That's workable in
dense cities only.

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icebraining
Why can't there be enough bikes to cover the spikes as well?

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JoeAltmaier
That would be, one bike per person. SO then what would be the point? We are no
longer 'sharing' bikes.

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icebraining
Just because there are spikes, doesn't mean that no sharing can occur; e.g.
people commuting from east to west at 0800, while someone else might commute
in the opposite direction at 0900.

Also, the commuting bikes would be available at the city centre for most of
the day, allowing people who need to move around during the day to reuse them.

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tinco
The Netherlands got a nation wide bike sharing program in 2003, started at 70
locations and since 2013 has had over 250 locations. _Every_ city in The
Netherlands has these bike locations, all with the same system, so I'm not
sure why they say Spain was the leader with 132 locations.

Maybe it's the chauvinist in me but I felt like I should emphasize 1965 was
not the last time we did something awesome related to sharing bikes :P

(Note it's significantly less convenient for tourists to rent these bikes, you
need a 10e/year membership which you need to submit a photo and receive a card
by mail for)

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Someone
That's something slightly different; bikes can only be fetched from and
returned to train stations (possibly with some exceptions; I'm too lazy to
check that now). With modern bike-sharing [which I guess is what this is
about; the site's UI is too awful to read it], the idea is that, wherever you
are within the coverage area of the bike sharing plan, a place to rent a bike
is within walking distance, and wherever you are on a bike, a place to drop it
off is nearby.

The Netherlands doesn't do much bike sharing that way because most people own
bikes. Those that do not, and are likely to rent one, will likely arrive by
train, so having collection points at train stations only is deemed
sufficient.

The one exception I know of is the national park the Hoge Veluwe, which has a
truly traditional 1965-style bike sharing program (completely free)

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VeejayRampay
Well done to my fellow Europeans in the Netherlands for thinking of that bike-
sharing utopia some 50 years ago.

It's been implemented with massive success here in Paris and it's nothing
short of awesome.

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mikeyouse
I just returned from Paris and was astonished at how much better the bike
sharing was as compared to San Francisco's version. Clearly, they'd invested
much more time and money into their program but it was so pleasant to be able
to count on bikes no matter where you were in the city to get around.

A map of their locations:
[http://i.imgur.com/5PkkmFL.png](http://i.imgur.com/5PkkmFL.png)

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bonesmoses
The only thing that concerns me overall about bike sharing is helmet use. It's
so easy to casually walk up and rent a bike that riders rarely consider
safety. In Chicago, I frequently see Divvy users riding around in traffic
without a helmet.

Alternatively you're carrying a helmet everywhere you go for no reason. I'm
not sure how to solve that.

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sebular
As a frequent cyclist who chooses whether to wear my helmet depending on the
type of ride I'm going on, I am so damn tired of people always dragging out
the same old tired arguments about bike helmets. All you have to do is say the
word "bicycle" and otherwise rational people suddenly turn into overprotective
suburban soccer moms. The way people talk about helmets, you'd think the
average person knows at least five people who've died because they fell off a
bicycle and their skulls exploded.

Here are some facts:

In 2013, 32,719 people were killed in road accidents.

Also in 2013, 4,735 pedestrians were killed. The leading cause of injury to
pedestrians is tripping and falling, but by far the leading cause of death is
being hit by a car.

For cyclists in 2013, 743 were killed. The leading cause of cyclist deaths is,
again, being hit by a car.

At this point, even though these numbers show that bicycle deaths account for
only .02% of deaths in the US each year (which completely disqualifies cycling
accidents from being anywhere close to a health epidemic) people will
inevitably point out that not many people ride bicycles, so that 743 is
actually quite a large number. Of course cars kill 20 times as many
pedestrians as they do cyclists, because there are so many pedestrians, and so
few cyclists, right?

While there's nothing wrong with that statement, the fallacy is in thinking
that you can just extrapolate from there with simple multiplication. Cycling
accounts for approximately 1% of all trips taken in the US. So the logic is
that if cycling accounted for 100% of all trips, instead of 32,719 we'd have
74,300 people dying in road accidents! Terrifying!

Except it doesn't work that way. Remember that the leading cause of death to
both pedestrians and cyclists alike is cars. So if 100% of road traffic were
cyclists, there wouldn't be any cars to kill anyone.

Now is a good time to bring up The Netherlands, a country where cycling
accounts for 27% of all trips, and in cities (where accidents of all types are
much more likely) that number rises to more like 50%. Even worse, practically
nobody wears bike helmets there! So clearly, their hospitals must be
overflowing with people suffering from exploded skulls. One can only imagine
the carnage on their streets... because it doesn't exist. In 2013, 184
cyclists died in The Netherlands, which is .001% of their population. Our 743
account for .0002% of our population, but if you multiply that by 27 (1% vs.
27% of all trips taken) you get .006%, which is 6 times as many deaths per
capita.

In other words, it's much safer to be a cyclist in a country where nobody
wears a helmet but everybody bikes, than it is to be a cyclist in a country
where virtually nobody does it, but at least you have a piece of styrofoam
strapped to your head.

Why? Because when more people bike, we build more infrastructure to support
bikes. Drivers become more aware of bikes, and instead of just gnashing their
teeth and dangerously swerving around them, they're familiar with how bikes
move through traffic and see them as just another part of driving on a road.
Cyclists are more visible, motorists are more prepared, and everybody gets
along better. And bikeshare programs are exactly the kind of thing to promote
more people riding bikes.

But wait, we still haven't trotted out everyone's favorite last-ditch argument
when all else fails! "No matter what you say about big-picture statistics,
you'd still be safer wearing a helmet."

Yes. This is true. Adding more shock absorption to the human skull can protect
the brain from traumatic injury. In fact, it's so true that it applies to
virtually every human activity. So let's really follow through, and make it
mandatory to wear a helmet while driving or riding in an automobile. Let's
make it mandatory for pedestrians to wear helmets. Why stop there? Let's make
it mandatory to wear full body armor any time you leave the house, and let's
make it illegal to sell or build anything with sharp corners. Let's spend our
entire lives suspended in smooth carbon fiber tanks full of Jell-O, so that
nothing is a danger to our well-being until a heart attack ends it all!

Incidentally, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, is a real
health epidemic, and is preventable by putting your butt in a bike seat and
riding a few miles every day.

Sources:

[http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm](http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/traffic-
fatali...](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/traffic-fatalities-
decreased-significantly-in-2013/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands)

[http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/why-dutch-dont-wear-
helmets....](http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/why-dutch-dont-wear-helmets.html)

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Someone
But even in the Netherlands riding a bicycle _is_ dangerous for some groups.
In 2014, the age distribution of those killed in traffic on a bicycle was:

    
    
      -  0-15: 13
      - 15-20:  8
      - 20-30:  6
      - 30-40:  5
      - 40-50: 16
      - 50-60: 16
      - 60-70: 27
      - 70-80: 56
      - 80+  : 38
    

Yes, over half the people killed riding bikes were 70+ years old. That is a
cause for concern for planners, and they don't know yet how to tackle it. As
always, it likely will be through a combination of factors. For example,
technical solutions are being developed that warn cyclists about traffic
coming from behind, but e-bikes likely need a good look, too, as their rapid
acceleration and (for the elderly) high top speeds seem to play a role.

It is not so much a cause of concern that elderly people are advised to stop
cycling, though. The benefits of exercise and of the independence that cycling
brings the elderly are thought to more than outweigh the traffic risks.

(Also, chances are that soon, fewer people will die in traffic in a car than
on a bicycle. 2014 already was close, with 187 vs 185; see
[http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLnl&PA=...](http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLnl&PA=71936ned&LA=en))

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6t6t6
I think this distribution would work with any physical activity. It is not
just a cycling thing.

The reason is easy to understand: an accident that would cause only minor
injuries on a 30 years old person may cause life threatening injuries on an
elder person. Bones are weaker after certain age, and recovering from injuries
is harder.

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Someone
For relative frequencies, sure, but these are absolute numbers. You won't find
them in the states, for example, because Very few senior ride bicycles there.

Also, and now that I think of it, probably more important: the absolute number
of deaths for younger people has decreased significantly, while that of
seniors has not. Part of that is due to having more seniors and fewer
children, but part of it also is that policy has worked in making cycling
safer for juniors, but not so much for seniors.

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Frqy3
It would be interesting to see some data on usage levels, system operating
costs and retail prices for comparisons across different bike-share systems
around the world.

The only data I found from a quick search was a 2012 comparison of the retail
prices[0].

[0] [http://www.wnyc.org/story/284552-what-bike-share-costs-a-
com...](http://www.wnyc.org/story/284552-what-bike-share-costs-a-comparative-
chart/)

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phunge
Timeline seems to be missing Vienna, which tried it as early as 2001 and had
problems with theft. The second iteration (2004 or so?) was a great success.

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cormullion
In 1993, there was an exciting weekend in Cambridge (UK) when there were
freely available white-painted bikes all over the city. In a day or so they
had all disappeared.

[http://www.iankitching.me.uk/history/cam/old/green-
bike.html](http://www.iankitching.me.uk/history/cam/old/green-bike.html)

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Paul_S
Cambridge is a really bike friendly city but the bike theft level is beyond
silly. That's the next problem to solve.

