Tuesday, October 9, 2007

RING MY BELL


Last night I listened to a presentation on bike-sharing and started wondering if a customized program could work in Columbus. Bike-sharing has existed since the 1960’s in Scandinavia but has jumped the pond and is now taking root in Washington, DC and San Francisco with New York City, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle all eyeing it’s potential. I understand that Columbus is not a bicycle active or friendly community and that the City lacks basic bicycle infrastructure such as a connected network of bicycle lanes but still I wonder.

I was thinking that a bike-sharing program would have the best chance at succeeding in Columbus if it was introduced on local college campuses, parks and trail sites, and the couple of existing dense neighborhoods. Bike-sharing spares people the expense of purchasing a bike they may not ride often and provides them with access to an affordable recreational activity and another option for running errands.

If an advertising company is not willing to fund the program like in DC or SF, creative sponsorships could be explored. An obvious one to me is to have college’s recreation center or student housing departments sponsor the bikes located on their campuses as part of their physical fitness and student life programming. As for trail locations, AEP could sponsor bike-sharing sites along the Scioto Mile since they are the lead developer of the project.

I think it might work.
If you want to know more about the concept of bike-sharing and how existing programs curb against theft, vandalism, etc. check out this appropriately named blog http://bike-sharing.blogspot.com/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where did you see this presentation?

cmhindependent said...

It was a city and Regional Planning grad student presentation at OSU.