| What's Happening in the World? by Lawrence Grable |
I. What is Bike Sharing? (all source 1 p1)
| Bike Sharing Gets Rolling December 2008 Cities around the world are struggling with traffic in their downtown areas. Traffic jams force commuters to spend more hours in their cars, and they fill the areas with noise and pollution. Some European cities have improved things through bike sharing programs, and their success is leading other cities in Europe and North America to use bike sharing too. Bike sharing began in the Netherlands. In 1968 Amsterdam’s “White Bicycles” plan made simple bicycles available around the city for free. Residents could use a bike for a trip and then just leave it for someone else to use. However, within a month people had stolen most of the bikes or thrown them into the canals. Programs like Amsterdam’s asked too little of the riders. Milan, Italy, also tried such a program, and in 1994 Portland, Oregon, started one too. Since Portland has good environmental programs, the “Yellow Bike Project” fit the city’s green image nicely. It was popular, but thieves and vandals also brought that program to an end. Bike sharing programs since then have required some sort of payment. The first of these programs came in 1995 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It put locked bikes at specific sites around the city. Riders used coins to unlock the bikes, and they got their money back when they returned the bikes. The program began with 1,100 bikes. Theft still was a problem, so the program switched to bikes that look different from standard bikes, have different parts, and require special tools to take them apart. Those changes have allowed it to survive even today. Now bike sharing programs have evolved from using coins to high-tech methods. These include paying with credit cards, swiping an electronic smart card at a computerized bike stand, and getting text messages with the code that unlocks a bike. There are few problems with theft and vandalism, since the programs keep some personal information about the riders. |